Shirin Salehi

Shirin (she/her/hers) was born in Iran and moved to Egypt in the first grade. While living in Egypt, she attended international school, where she made friends from all around the world, and went to the pyramids with every relative that came to visit. She managed to topple off a camel three times, always on the dismount. She moved to the United States during the Egyptian revolution and finished high school in beautiful Los Angeles, which she immediately fell in love with. 

She attended Stanford University, where she studied Computer Science alongside her premed requirements, worked at summer camp, was a teaching assistant, and generally had a wonderful time. She then worked as a software engineer for four years, both in big tech and at a startup that helped small businesses get health insurance. However, Shirin could not stop thinking about being a doctor, so she took some night classes at UC Berkeley and was fortunate enough to be accepted to medical school at UC Irvine. At UCI (zot zot!), Shirin using her programming chops to write machine learning algorithms to detect brain tumors, aortic dissections, and strokes on imaging. She also continued to be involved in education, working as a tutor and helping develop the tutoring curriculum, did some research on methods to reach underserved communities (mobile clinics!), completed the integrative health track, and drank an excess of coffee. 

Shirin decided to apply to Med-Peds because she realized in medical school that she loved caring for patients across the age spectrum. She saw the value of rigorous inpatient and outpatient training especially when caring for individuals with chronic conditions that can start in childhood and benefit from skillful medical management throughout the patient’s lifespan. She completed an away rotation at UCLA as a medical student and immediately recognized that she would like the empathetic, intelligent, and joyful resident and attending physicians at UCLA to be her role models and to shape her as a physician.

As a resident, she intends to continue to conduct research in medical informatics through the Resident Informaticist Program, learn how to care for patients transitioning from childhood to adulthood with chronic illnesses, and to be involved in medical education initiatives. She hopes to eventually pursue fellowship in Clinical Informatics and work on informatics initiatives alongside her clinical practice as a generalist. 

Shirin loves Los Angeles and can be found running on the beach, lifting weights at the UCLA gym, popping in and out of thrift stores with a vengeance, watching live music, or sipping drinks on the patio of that one new restaurant you may have heard about from a friend. She also loves to paint (watercolor mostly), read, and talk to you about what she’s currently reading.

Education:

Medical School – University of California, Irvine

Undergrad – Stanford University