Shereen Vera

Dr. Shereen Vera joined the board of directors of International House Davis in January of 2012.

“I was born in India and grew up in Pakistan the eldest child of an Army officer.  My entire education was completed in Pakistan, with medical education at the King Edward Medical College, Lahore. Within a year of graduation from medical school and a few months after getting married, my husband and I came to Baltimore, Md., to begin our post-graduate medical training,” she said.

“We finished our training in Washington, D.C. , at the D.C. General Hospital, my husband in internal medicine and myself in pediatrics.  Our two older children were born during this time,” she added.

“In January of 1973 we moved to Davis as my husband got an appointment as an assistant professor in the department of cardiology at the UC Davis School of Medicine. I took a year off and completed the requirements for the Pediatric Boards exam at the UC Davis School of Medicine.   During the next two years I did sub-specialization in Neonatology spending one year at the Harbor General Hospital in Los Angeles and the next year at UC Davis.

“After a year as clinical assistant professor at UC Davis and the birth of my third child, I joined a neonatal private practice at Sutter Memorial Hospital Sacramento. During my stay at Sutter the neonatal intensive care nursery was awarded the tertiary center status. We provided care to premature infants as well as sick newborn infants not only born in Sacramento but an extended population in Northern California who were in need of intensive/critical care. To this end we developed a transport system to pick up these infants and bring them to our nursery. Our nursery was ranked very high among the national institutions providing such care and continues to be so to date.

“Due to health reasons (tremors in my hands and arthritis), I took early retirement in 1999.  Since then I worked as a volunteer in an elementary school mentoring children from unstable homes and have also helped new immigrants to the area to get started in the area.   Between 2002 and 2003 I worked as a volunteer neonatologist in Pristina, Kosova. The newborn mortality rate was extremely high in that part of the former Yugoslavia. Initially I worked with Doctors of The World (now called Health Right ) and then through the United Nations. I spent most of my time at the Pristina University Hospital teaching the doctors in training to improve health care for babies. Neonatal/pediatric medicine was quite primitive in that region with support systems basically nonexistent therefore my idea of teaching the young doctors at the bedside with daily and weekly lectures. I provided current appropriate books to these physicians and other materials as needed.

“I have worked a lot with people on a one-to-one basis and am eager to teach and provide guidance to young parents in the care of their children. Besides my medical experience I have raised three children and am the proud grandmother to two wonderful boys.”