Peer Perspectives: Maruti Sharma, MD

Maruti Sharma, MD
Internal Medicine Physician
Sharma and Sharma Medical, PLLC
Mount Vernon, NY

1. What is your current professional position?

I am a board-certified internal medicine physician and the owner of a private practice. I practice in Mount Vernon, New York, an underserved community in lower Westchester County.

2. Why did you choose internal medicine?

I chose internal medicine for its broad scope, from cardiology and nephrology to geriatric medicine, neurology, and critical care. It allows me to interact with patients daily and learn continuously while integrating complex information to solve diagnostic problems; manage long-term illness; and care for patients with multiple, interacting chronic conditions.

I greatly enjoy connecting with patients on a personal level and forming long-standing relationships; I believe that the trust built helps me guide treatment to their goals and circumstances. In my view, this longitudinal partnership is the heart of internal medicine and is unique to the field.

Internal medicine also offers flexibility to shape one’s career over time, keeping open pathways to academic medicine, primary care, hospital administration, quality improvement, and a variety of leadership roles.

3. What trends are you seeing in your day-to-day practice (with patients, the health care system, or otherwise)?

In daily practice, I see increasing clinical complexity, earlier onset of diabetes and hypertension, more polypharmacy, and a tight link between mental and physical health. Social determinants, such as food insecurity, housing instability, and transportation barriers, often shape outcomes as much as medications and access to health care. Telehealth is a useful adjunct for follow-ups and chronic disease management, though the digital divide remains real for some patients. Administrative burdens like prior authorizations continue to siphon time from direct care, which makes team-based care and community partnerships all the more important.

4. What do you want to accomplish professionally within the next five years?

Over the next 5 years, I aim to deepen community engagement through prevention-focused outreach like blood pressure screenings, diabetes education, obesity management, and cancer screening navigation in partnership with local organizations. I also hope to be a preceptor and mentor for residents. Within my practice, I plan to expand same-day access and continue and scale monitoring of high-risk patients with between‑visit follow‑ups, tracking their outcomes to help them better manage their conditions, with a focus on reducing disparities in health care.

5. Can you share a brief (and anonymous) patient encounter or professional situation that made you proud to be an internal medicine physician?

Continuity of care was a defining value of my residency. One experience stands out: A patient with cerebral palsy and severe asthma whom I knew well from the clinic was admitted to the ICU with a life-threatening exacerbation. I cared for him in the ICU, on the general medicine floor after transfer, and then again in the clinic after discharge. Seeing the full arc of his illness and communicating consistently with his family left an indelible mark. Today, I practice the same way: When my patients are hospitalized at our local community hospital, I remain involved and ensure timely follow-up in the office. I have seen that this approach improves outcomes and provides the quality and continuity of care patients deserve.