Listen to the Talk 2 Brazil interview by Tom Reaoch , Monday March 24, 2014.
Soul of a Tiger is the true story of her mom's life and her family's survival during the Killing Fields and escape from the Cambodian Genocide to the US. The book begins in the U.S. and is primarily seen through the eyes of the main character, Rachana (whose nickname is Cha-Cha).
SreyRam Kuy, MD was born in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields. She and her family escaped Cambodia when she was a small child and spent several years in refugee camps before being sponsored to the United States by a Christian Missionary group. She grew up in Oregon, graduated as Valedictorian from Crescent Valley High School, and attended Oregon State University where she earned dual degrees in Philosophy and Microbiology. She attended medical school at Oregon Health Science University, then finished general surgery residency in Wisconsin. She also earned her master’s degree at Yale University School of Medicine in health services research.
Dr. Kuy’s passions are health policy, physician leadership and the underserved. She believes it is vitally important as physicians to advocate for our patients, and participate in the process of health care policy to strengthen our voice in healthcare policy development so we can better care for our patients. Because of this belief in the importance of physician leadership, Dr. Kuy has been involved in her local, professional and national community. As a Kaiser Family Foundation Barbara Jordan Scholar, she worked in the Washington DC office of Senator Tom Harkin, writing speeches and policy briefs on women’s health, coverage for breast cancer screening and treatment, Reauthorization of the Older American’s Act, health care instrument safety, and coverage of experimental studies.
During medical school she served as president of her medical school class and organized a symposium on covering the uninsured featuring physician advocate and former governor Dr. Kitzhaber. Throughout residency she remained involved in her professional community. She was appointed by the American Medical Association to serve as a board member on the National Board of Medical Examiners, served as Chair of the Wisconsin Medical Society Resident Fellow Governing Council and served on the Executive Committee of the AMA Surgical Caucus. She also published an editorial in the Los Angeles Times and the American College of Surgeons’ Bulletin on the need for physician advocacy. As a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Yale University Dr. Kuy completed a prestigious health policy and health services research fellowship, leading several outcomes research projects while earning her master’s degree. She has published her research on health care disparities, surgical outcomes, and surgical quality measures in JAMA Surgery, Journal of Vascular Surgery, Annals of Vascular Surgery, American Journal of Surgery and other publications. “Soul of a Tiger” is Dr. Kuy’s first book. Her second book, “Fifty Studies Every Surgeon Should Know” is coming out in 2015.
Dr. Kuy’s work is guided by a deep gratitude for the experiences and opportunities she’s been blessed with, which have enabled her to make a meaningful contribution to her patients and her profession.
