Dr. Sarrah Shahawy is an obstetrician-gynecologist clinician, researcher, and educator at Harvard Medical School and BIDMC. She holds a Medical Degree from Harvard Medical School and a Master of Public Health in Clinical Effectiveness from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. After her OBGYN residency at Northwestern University, she completed a Global OBGYN fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her research expertise is at the intersection of religion, health, and socio-political context with a focus on Muslim reproductive health (both in Muslim-majority and diaspora contexts), global health in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and immigrant/refugee health. She is the Founding Director & Principal Investigator of the MeRGE Research Lab (Muslim Reproductive and Global Health Engagement).
In the US, her research is focused on developing generalizable lessons for health systems and providers on how to shape inquiries about patients’ religious/spiritual practices and identities and how to respectfully and effectively incorporate this important aspect of many patients’ lives into health communications, shared decision-making, and treatment recommendations to enhance individualized patient care. Internationally, her research has focused on the Middle East North African (MENA) region and has included the driving factors of the high national cesarean section rate in Egypt, the challenges accessing healthcare and family planning services for Palestinian women, and the effect of female genital cutting on women in the diaspora. She has led trainings of providers worldwide, including on point of care ultrasound for front-line providers caring for Venezuelan refugees, operative vaginal delivery in Egypt as part of a multi-pronged effort to reduce cesarean section rates, and gynecologic surgery in Gaza.
