Let’s get to know Dr. Ahluwalia:

Dr. Ahluwalia completed his medical school training in India before leaving to continue his research at the University of Toronto, which ultimately landed him at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio to complete his residency. Dr. Ahluwalia attributes his passion for caregiving and medical oncology to his upbringing, in particular his grandmother.

“When I was younger, I lived outside of the city and I left home at 4:50 in the morning to get to school by 7 a.m. I had to ride my bike for a mile, take a water truck, then road transport and finally a school bus. My parents sent me to live with my grandmother in the city. My grandmother became my primary caregiver, but she had cervical cancer and died. As a naïve 12-year-old, I thought I would cure cancer. Now, I feel that every time I am helping a patient, I am giving back to my grandmother.”

Dr. Ahluwalia has hinged his focus in oncology to brain cancer and research.

“When you’re an oncologist, the relationship you develop with your patients and their families is special. You become a family member in many ways. I always tell my patients that it’s a journey that we take together. And I really believe that one of the ways we move forward and progress in medicine, particularly in oncology, is through research and innovation.”

Given the movements for more inclusivity this country has seen over the past few years, it’s exciting to learn of Dr. Ahluwalia’s keen interest in addressing the lack of diversity of participants within clinical trials.

“We know that drugs can have different effects on people of different origins. Yet when you look at clinical trials, historically most participants are Caucasian. There is not a large enough representation of African Americans or Hispanics or other minorities in clinical trials. In Miami, there is immense potential to change that and to better our understanding and improve the outcomes of our patients.”

With so many developments and exciting times ahead in medicine, Dr. Ahluwalia provided some insight as to what to look forward to, specifically, in the area of brain cancer treatments and research.

“In terms of brain metastasis, I have been privileged to serve as the national principal investigator for clinical trials on drugs, and we are getting ready to open two studies here that I am excited about. The first is to combine osimertinib, a drug for EGFR mutant non-small-cell lung cancer, with radiosurgery to see if we can improve outcomes for those whose lung cancer has metastasized to the brain. Similarly, we have tucatinib, in HER2-positive breast cancer patients with brain metastasis, also combined with radiosurgery. These are multicenter trials that will be led out of Miami Cancer Institute. There are also several immunotherapeutic approaches with glioblastoma that include vaccines that we are involved in.”

It's become common phrasing to state “Did you see what she posted on twitter?”. More and more people are now turning to social media as the platform to stay on top of current news and trends. Dr. Ahluwalia is present on twitter and offers some insight as to why he took the plunge and #joinedtwitter.

“I was reluctant initially, but then I saw several of my colleagues at Cleveland Clinic using Twitter very effectively. There has been an explosion of information and it’s not always possible to get to every meeting, but by following the right people on Twitter, you can get the take-home message of studies in real time even if you can’t be at a meeting. Social media can be very powerful as a form of education for physicians and other healthcare providers, and patients are also very savvy and will become aware of research or new treatments that may benefit them by finding information on social media.”

Dr. Ahluwalia is not the only family member to have joined the team at Miami Baptist Health!

“My wife, Harneet Walia has joined Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute as director of Sleep Medicine and Continuous Improvement. Ironically, although we lived in Cleveland at the same time, we met 7,000 miles away at a family gathering in India. We have a 9-year-old daughter and a 6-year-old son, who are loving being able to use the pool this time of year.”

FUN FACT- if you were not a doctor, what profession would you have chosen? “I love food. I would have opened a restaurant. On the rare occasion I have time to cook, I do some pretty good non-vegetarian Indian dishes.”

Welcome Dr. Ahluwalia! We look forward to working with you and hopefully will soon be able to have the sites meet you in person.

Thank you to the team at MCI for providing these responses from Dr. Ahluwalia.