Kiran Kumbhar, MBBS, MPH, PhD
Associate Scholar
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Center for The Advanced Study of India | University of Pennsylvania
- India
- Caste and Privilege | Health Inequity | Health Policy | Healthcare History | Medical Education
Languages: English, Marathi, Hindi
BIO STATEMENT
Dr. Kumbhar is a historian and former physician studying medicine and public health in India and the Global South. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for the Advanced Study of India at Penn. His past research explored the histories of biomedicine and the biomedical profession in modern India, including their intersection with caste and privilege. Currently, he is working on a history of health policymaking and healthcare reform in 20th- and 21st-century India, particularly looking at how the originally ambitious postcolonial nation has failed to keep its early welfare promises in the healthcare domain.
Recent Global Health Projects
A podcast on the history of healthcare in colonial South Asia: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/becoming-modern-healthcare-and-history-in-india/id1642457228
The history of patient-doctor dynamics in early post-colonial India: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-9566.13630
Select Publications
“What the doctors’ protests in India are missing,” STAT News, Sep 16, 2024.
“Doctor Sahab: Doctors and the Public in the ‘Golden Era’ of the Indian Medical Profession”, in Sociology of Health & Illness (March 2023)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13630
“Institutionalised Privilege in the Medical Profession”, in Medico Friend Circle Bulletin 381 (March 2023)
https://mfcindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/MFC-Bulletin-381-2022-23.pdf
“The “Dravidian model”: egalitarianism and healthcare reform, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics VIII No. 1 (January 2023)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2022.062
“India’s Traditional Medicine Discourse: Less About Medicine, More About India,” The Hindu, July 11, 2023.
“How Much of Our Money Do Pharma Companies Deserve for Their Services?,” The Hindu, February 23, 2023
“How Do We Commemorate Science and Scientists? The Case of Dilip Mahalanabis,” The Wire Science, November 9, 2022.
“The Myth of the Meritorious Doctor: Caste Privilege in the Medical Profession,” The India Forum, December 3, 2021.
Last Updated: 23 September 2024