We are Niagara Health is a series of stories that celebrates the incredible people working and volunteering in our organization and how they make a difference in the lives of patients and coworkers every day.
Dr. Satish Chawla, Niagara Health's Chief of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, in the lab at the Marotta Family Hospital.
When Dr. Satish Chawla finished his medical residency, it didn’t make sense for him to set up a practice.
That’s not because his skills weren’t in demand. But as a pathologist, he isn’t the kind of physician people make an appointment to see. Hospital laboratories are his domain.
And yet, without seeing a single patient, Dr. Chawla often knows what’s plaguing them before anybody else, including their attending physician.
“Pathology is the foundation of treatment, one of the modalities of patient care,” Dr. Chawla says. “Lab medicine is actually the foundation for everything in a hospital. If you’re a patient who comes here and you’re looking for a diagnosis or coming for any type of procedure, your blood tests, biopsies are all sent to the lab first.”
Dr. Chawla recently returned to his post as Chief of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology for Niagara Health – and one of the first stops in all patient care – after spending 15 months as interim Chief of Staff until Dr. Kevin Chan filled the role in February.
He took a timeout from the lab to serve on the leadership team to be helpful – a desire intrinsic to who he is as a person. He’ll make the case that, like pathology being the basis of all patient care, stepping in and stepping up to help is the foundation of effective hospital administration.
“My philosophy is to be nice, be helpful whatever I can do, to do it and to do the right thing for patients,” he says. “Any role I can serve, I’m happy to serve. You have to do whatever you can to improve patient care and improve relationships between various teams, physicians and nurses. It’s an honour to do that.”
There was a time, though, when Dr. Chawla was intent on letting someone else help diagnose patients so he could be more involved in their direct treatment. When he chose to pursue medicine in his native India, he wanted to be a surgeon.
A world of perspective in healthcare
His life path took a turn when he met his wife, who hails from Nova Scotia, and he was beckoned to Canada. He worked in a psychiatric hospital for a year after immigrating. Then a pathology residency at Dalhousie University opened up and introduced him to the second love of his life.
“I never looked back,” he says.
From there, Dr. Chawla headed west to Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., where he worked in pathology on both sides of the border. In Sault Ste. Marie, MI, he also developed his leadership chops as a hospital chief of staff, vice-president of medical affairs, and interim CEO.
“Lab medicine is actually the foundation for everything in a hospital. If you’re a patient who comes here and you’re looking for a diagnosis or coming for any type of procedure, your blood tests, biopsies are all sent to the lab first.”
Working in both the Canadian and American healthcare systems gave him a world of perspective by the time he moved to Niagara Health in 2005 to be closer to his children who were studying at Western University.
“Working as a leader and an administrator on both sides, it’s been an asset to see what physicians think, what leadership is thinking and how to bring those two together,” he says.
“Everyone has a role to play and people need to understand that everyone has the same focus, the same desire to provide the best patient care. Everyone looks through a different lens how they can do that but we all have to work as a team.”
That philosophy has continued to guide Dr. Chawla’s work since arriving at Niagara Health.
He served as president of the Medical Staff Association for three years, at time of changeover among the board of directors and hospital leaders, “building a cordial, good relationship between the board and medical staff.”
In the lab, he was continuously coming up with new ways to improve processes and, ultimately, transform care.
'The buck stops with us'
When Dr. Chawla started here, all microbiology was outsourced. He figured Niagara Health was a large enough institution to do most of that work on site, cutting down on test turnaround time and getting results to patients faster.
Prior to the pandemic, Niagara Health wasn’t able to do its own PCR testing to detect virus genetic material, including the virus that causes COVID-19. Dr. Chawla worked on securing the equipment to fill the urgent need for timely test results.
“That was helpful to a lot of people,” he says. “If a unit was positive or negative, if a patient was going for surgery, we can get that result out as soon as possible.”
Under his leadership, Niagara Health labs began performing breast cancer biomarkers ER, PR, and HER2, helping oncologists start appropriate and effective treatments more quickly. Niagara Health physicians are also able to diagnose 90 to 95 per cent of all cancers within 10 days of biopsies, significantly besting some other hospitals.
“There’s always room to improve. In any field, if someone feels that there is no more room for improvement, you should stop working,” Dr. Chawla says. “We have a great team of people at Niagara Health and we have the best turnaround time in our region and probably the province.”
Now that he’s back in the lab, where he oversees a team of 12 pathologists between Niagara Falls, Welland and Marotta Family hospitals, he’s keen to build on that record.
“Quality improvement is important in all of medicine but especially pathology because we have to give exact diagnoses. The surgeons, physicians and patients need that answer so they can plan treatment. The buck stops with us.”
Still, if he’s called on to fill another role, like he did as interim Chief of Staff, Dr. Chawla will step up.
“I’m always happy to go back to the lab,” he said. “But at the same time, if they ever ask me to do anything else in the hospital, I’ll happily do that.”
