Sonal Batra, MD, MST, FACEP is a board-certified Emergency Medicine physician and an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She holds a secondary appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the Milken Institute School of Public Health. She is also co-chief and fellowship director of the Department of Emergency Medicine’s Health Equity and Social Emergency Medicine Section. Dr. Batra practices clinically at GW University Hospital and Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center.
Dr. Batra currently holds several roles in the required Clinical Public Health and Population Health Practice curriculum for GW medical students. She is the co-director of the Applied Population Health course, which is a semester long course that is the culmination of the Patients, Populations, and Systems curriculum. She is also the director of the Population Health Summit, where fourth year medical students design a population health intervention related to their intended medical specialty.
Dr. Batra particularly interested in diversifying the healthcare workforce and has worked on several diversity pathway programs for high school students across Washington, D.C. who are interested in entering the health professions. This includes creating a longitudinal shadowing program for high school students to shadow at GW hospital in partnership with DC HAPP and collaborating with the GW Health Desk to hire recent graduates of GW diversity pathway programs to work as digital health literacy coaches for older adults in Washington, DC.
Dr. Batra previous work has aimed to advance equity and excellence in health professions education at the national level. She was a founding board member of the Social Mission Alliance, an organization dedicated to advancing social mission in health professions education. She started and previously served as PI of the Social Mission Metrics Initiative, a project aimed at developing a framework for measuring the social mission of health professions schools. Dr. Batra also worked for six years as Associate Director of the Emergency Medicine Residency Program at GW.
She also has interests in global health with previous experience developing web-based curriculum for post-graduate training programs across India with the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine and volunteers with the Physicians for Human Rights Asylum Network, conducting forensic medical exams to corroborate asylum seekers’ claims of persecution and torture.
Dr. Batra received her bachelor of arts in psychology and medical degree from Northwestern University. She completed residency in emergency medicine at The George Washington University, serving as chief resident in her final year. Between undergraduate and medical school, Dr. Batra spent two years teaching middle school science with Teach for America. During that time, she earned a Master’s of Science in Teaching (MST) from Pace University in New York City.
Research
Dr. Batra is currently working on various research projects related to the ED care and system navigation for patients experiencing homelessness, violence prevention, . Additional interests include violence prevention, refugee health, and medical education.
Grants
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - Social Mission Metrics Study
- AARP/RWJF – Social Mission in Associates Degree Nursing
- HRSA Health Workforce Research Centers Cooperative Agreement Program
Community Service
Physicians for Human Rights - Asylum Network. Dr. Batra conducts forensic evaluations for asylum seekers to support their legal case for asylum status in the United States. She also serves on the Washington DC Crime Victims Compensation Advisory Commission and the Faculty Senate’s University and Urban Affairs Committee.
Center and Institutes
- Essel, K., Akselrod, H., Batra, S., Dawes, C., Zaidi, Z., & Deyton, L. (2025). Training socially accountable clinician-citizens: integrating clinical public health education in a medical school curriculum. Medical Education Online, 30(1).
- Bronstein D, Dobkin F, Luo Q, Batra S. Perceptions of homelessness: Is there variation across medical careers and specialties?. Clin Teach. 2024;21(6):e13828. doi:10.1111/tct.13828
- Popova M, Chung K, Raman S, Batra S, Nakitende D, Boniface K. Buprenorphine/naloxone initiation in the emergency department: A series of vignettes. JEM Rep. 2024;3(4):100112.
- Batra S, Orban J, Raichur S, et al. Association of the COVID-19 Pandemic With Medical School Diversity Pathway Programs. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(8):e2229086.
- Faraz Covelli A, Darcy-Mahoney A, Batra S, et al. Driving Toward a Culture Shift: Case Studies of Social Misison in Nursing Education. J Prof Nursing. 2022;42(225-230)
- Batra S, Orban J, Zhang H, et al. Analysis of Social Mission Commitment at Dental, Medical, and Nursing Schools in the US. JAMA Netw Open. 2022;5(5):e2210900.
- Pittman P, Chen C, Erikson C, Salsberg E, Luo Q, Vichare A, Batra S, Burke G. Health Workforce for Health Equity. Medical Care. Oct 2021;59: S405-S408
- Pierce AZ, Batra S, Norberg B. Accidental Ocular Rocuronium Exposure. Ann Emerg Med. 2021;78(6):804-805. doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2021.09.426
- Orban J, Xue C, Raichur S, Misak M, Casimir J, Nobles A, Batra S. Social Mission in Health Professions Accreditation. Acad Med. Sept 2021
- Batra, Sonal MD, MST; Orban, Julie MPH; Guterbock, Thomas M. PhD; Butler, Leigh Anne; Mullan, Fitzhugh MD. Social Mission Metrics: Developing a Survey to Guide Health Professions Schools. Academic Medicine: December 2020 - Volume 95 - Issue 12 - p 1811-1816
- Pines JM, Alfaraj S, Batra S, et al. Factors Important to Top Clinical Performance in Emergency Medicine Residency: Results of an Ideation Survey and Delphi Panel. AEM Educ Train. 2018;2(4):269-276. Published 2018 Aug 16. doi:10.1002/aet2.10114