Yashvir Singh Sangwan, MBBS, is TidalHealth's Director of Critical Care, Director of Interventional Pulmonology, Director of Center for Medical Training and Simulation and Program Director of our Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship. His specialty is in Interventional Pulmonology, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
Board Certifications include ABIM Pulmonary Medicine, ABIM Critical Care, AABIP Interventional Pulmonology.
Dr. Sangwan graduated from medical school in 2002 from Government Medical College, Kottayam, Kerala, India. He was a Pediatrics Junior Resident and then an MPH student at Wichita State University before moving to Internal Medicine Residency at St. Elizabeth's, Youngstown, Ohio, in 2005.
During residency, he collaborated with cardiology and radiology services to design and implement a cutting-edge point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) training program and service. He graduated as Teacher of the Year for both Medical Student and Junior Resident categories and Researcher of the Year. He was recognized for having performed more than 250 procedures during Residency with complexities ranging to emergent pericardiocentesis, retrograde intubations and cricothyrotomies during codes.
In 2008, he joined Tulane University as Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellow and was tasked with simulator and bedside procedural and POCUS training for all Residents. Here, he invented and patented a specialized airway device for bedside tracheostomy. The device was modified in collaboration with a student team from Tulane Biomedical Engineering program and, in 2013, it won the National ASAIO Award for Best Device Design. He authored many articles in leading medical journals regarding his procedural technique. Providers at NYU found this technique to be especially useful for critically ill COVID patients. He also invented a specialized fiberoptic stylet to train complete novices into proficient masters of endotracheal intubation, while reducing risk to patients. He published one of the largest studies on Critical Intubations when it was found that, using this technique, minimally trained operators could successfully and safely intubate >95% of their patients. He also worked extensively on protocol development and protocol training for critical care to ensure consistency in practice and outcomes. He graduated as Chief Fellow of Academics.
In 2011, he joined TidalHealth Peninsula Regional and introduced multiple cutting-edge airway, lung and pleural procedures into our practice. In 2013, he designed a POCUS training course for inpatient providers and helped start our highly successful US guided IV access program. He was invited to teach tracheostomy procedure at University of Maryland IP course.
In 2016, he became the first Clinical Instructor and Fellow in Interventional Pulmonology at University of Maryland. Here, he developed a new super-efficient pleural disease protocol that was presented in a joint conference with Johns Hopkins. Studies regarding the protocol were presented at the international AABIP conference. In 2017, he rejoined us as Director of Interventional Pulmonology for this novel service. He played a critical role in developing ventilator and management protocols, team training and implementation during the initial COVID surge in 2020 and was the Medical Director of our COVID ICU. He has published studies regarding COVID in collaboration with NIH.
Dr. Sangwan is an invited peer reviewer for multiple medical journals including Critical Care Medicine (expertise: new inventions, devices, procedures) and Respiratory Care. He has been recognized for Excellence in Education many times over the years. In the last 5 years, he has been a research mentor for many of our hospitalists, who then successfully moved onto Fellowship programs in their chosen field.
Currently, he is working on developing training programs to enhance psychomotor skills, situational awareness and protocol adherence using transferrable training techniques from other high risk fields like maritime and aviation. He is also interested in mentoring local pre-med and high school biomed students towards achieving their dreams.
