07/31/2024

ST. LOUIS – Attendees were seeing double at this year’s Saint Louis University School of Medicine White Coat Ceremony. 

Aarti and Arjun Sahai, siblings in a triplet set, have shared essential milestones over the years. On Sunday, July 28, they added one more to their repertoire. They were part of the incoming Class of first-year medical students at SLU. 

Unlike their brother, Akshut, who’s studying to become a dentist at Arizona State University, Aarti and Arjun chose to enter the medical profession like their parents, Animesh, M.D., and Madhu, M.D., who cloaked their children in their first white coats at the ceremony.

Aarti and Arjun are among 26% of incoming medical students who are SLU alums, earning undergraduate degrees in public health and neuroscience, respectively. They were also among 15% of the class who came from SLU’s Medical Scholars Program.

Training to Address Health Disparities

Natives of Kentucky, Aarti and Arjun lived in Washington state before moving with their parents to Sikeston, Missouri, at the start of their sophomore year in high school. Growing up in a rural community in the Bootheel, Aarti and Arjun noticed it was a hotspot for underserved populations. 

Rural Missourians often face more disparities in health outcomes than their urban and suburban counterparts, in part from challenges accessing health care. Aarti said it’s jarring to witness “critical components” of urban and rural communities going without the care they need. Still, Aarti said she’s being trained to address health disparities.

Aarti credits the program with an early introduction to the biopsychosocial approach to medicine that systematically considers biological, psychological, and social factors and their complex interactions in understanding health, illness, and health care delivery. 

The siblings say they gravitated to SLU because of its reputation as a top-ranked research university where faculty and students conduct ground-breaking work to address the world's toughest challenges. Aarti and Arjun are already impacting their community in positive ways. 

Through an ongoing research internship with the City of St. Louis Department of Health, Aarti is playing a pivotal role in the fight to end the HIV epidemic. She created HIVE: The Art of Coming Together, a multi-pronged, community-based intervention program that tackles HIV health education at the individual, institutional, and community levels to increase the uptake of HIV prevention resources in underserved, marginalized groups ages 13-24 in the city of St. Louis.

As an ASPIRE Research Fellow through Washington University School of Medicine, Arjun assisted in a clinical trial that investigated the safety and efficacy of a diabetic medication in a sample of epileptic adults. He was also paired with a pediatric neurologist to assist with research on the health outcomes of parents of children with epilepsy who were found to have higher rates of stress, anxiety, and depression and exceeded the threshold for behavioral health referrals. He and his mentor presented their findings at last year’s Child Neurological Society annual meeting. 

Looking ahead to their plans after medical school and residency, the duo said they’re keeping their options open. But one thing for sure is they will remain committed to service, Aarti said.

Arjun agreed, “I was drawn to SLU’s commitment to community-driven initiatives, which is a big part of SLU’s mission. I want to learn how I can play a role in this.”

White Coat Ceremony 2024