Medical Multitasker

Dr. Shalini Shah says she’s at her best when busy. So it follows that the professor, vice chair of UCI Health’s Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care and director of pain services, would add presidency of the multifaceted, 5,000-member Orange County Medical Association to her already full plate. Shah is the first UC Irvine physician to lead OCMA in its 135-year history.

“Orange County is among the top three physician-dense populations in California,” she says, “so the potential for UC Irvine’s community engagement is huge. We’ve increased that potential with the acquisition of the Tenet hospitals in Fountain Valley, Lakewood, Los Alamitos and Placentia.”

Shah earned a B.S. at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and completed medical school in 2007 at St. George’s University in Grenada. She came to UC Irvine in 2012 after finishing a residency in anesthesiology at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and a combined fellowship in adult and pediatric chronic pain at Boston-based Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Children’s Hospital of Boston – all affiliated with Harvard Medical School. Shah later obtained an Executive MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

Her groundbreaking research, featured in Time magazine, demonstrated the safety and efficacy of Botox in treating pediatric migraines. In 2022, she and colleagues established the first-ever U.S. guidelines for physicians on managing cannabis use in the perioperative period. The Wall Street Journal covered that breakthrough.

A native Californian, Shah lives in Irvine with her husband and two children. She recently talked about her achievements and new role at OCMA with UC Irvine Magazine contributor Cathy Lawhon.

Read the full profile in UC Irvine Magazine.