WALTHAM – Dr. Sarrah Shahawy, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and instructor at Harvard Medical School, has been honored by the Massachusetts Medical Society as the recipient of its 2023 Reducing Health Disparities
Award, an honor recognizing an individual who has made outstanding contributions to reducing health disparities due to race, socioeconomic status, age, education, or sexual orientation.
“As evidenced from her work with marginalized women and their support networks, Dr. Shahawy has been a committed leader in the effort to reduce health disparities across Massachusetts and beyond,” said Dr. Jennifer Scott of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical
Center and Harvard Medical School. “Her expertise is at the intersection of local and global migrant and refugee women’s health. She has worked with multiple immigrant and refugee groups, especially from Africa and the Middle East, in the Greater
Boston Area to identify innovative solutions to address disparities in care delivery and sexual and reproductive health education.”
Shahawy is a graduate of the University of Southern California as valedictorian and Harvard Medical School and earned a Master of Public Health degree from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
“From her initial projects examining the social health impact of female genital mutilation among Somali immigrants in Boston to better addressing the sexual health needs of refugee and asylee Muslim women, Dr. Shahawy maintains a steadfast commitment
to marginalized patient populations often overlooked by current health systems,” said Dr. Mark Sueyosji of Tufts Medical Center. “Fluent in four languages, Dr. Shahawy's clinical practice has had an extraordinary impact in fostering patient-provider
trust across geographies, ethnicities, religions, races, health literacies, and citizenship status. As an educator, she has introduced providers, residents, and medical students—locally and abroad—to gynecologic and obstetric techniques to manage
and treat women in resource-poor areas efficiently and effectively.”
The Massachusetts Medical Society (MMS) is the statewide professional association for physicians and medical students, supporting 25,000 members. We are dedicated to educating and advocating for the physicians of Massachusetts and patients locally and nationally. A leadership voice in health care, the MMS contributes physician and patient perspectives to influence health-related legislation at the state and federal levels, works in support of public health, provides expert advice on physician practice management, and addresses issues of physician well-being. Under the auspices of the NEJM Group, the MMS extends our mission globally by advancing medical knowledge from research to patient care through the New England Journal of Medicine, NEJM Catalyst, and the NEJM Journal Watch family of specialty publications, and through our education products for health care professionals: NEJM Knowledge+, NEJM Resident 360, and our accredited and comprehensive continuing medical education programs.
