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Megan Rajagopal

Resident
VCU Health Systems
Richmond, Virginia, United States

My name is Megan Rajagopal, MD and I am a PGY-5 neurosurgery resident at VCU Health in Richmond, VA. I was born in Orange County, California and am a graduate of UCLA. I obtained my medical degree at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky. My interest in Parkinson’s disease and dementia began in high school when I volunteered at an assisted living center. I planned social events every week for the center and helped patients with their meals. This was my first introduction to these diseases. I began my research work during my undergraduate studies at UCLA. There I was part of a research lab for dementia. I worked as a psychometrist, administering half-day long memory tests. The lab specialized in meta-memory and it was striking to see patients come in for testing year after year. With that interest, I continued into medical school and neurosurgery residency. In medical school I was interested in functional neurosurgery and that interest has continued. Early in residency I performed clinical research, working on a paper about dual stimulation in Parkinson’s disease patients to decrease severe tremor. This clinical research led me into pre-clinical research. I have been working in Dr Holloway’s lab for the past couple years. During that time, I have gained experience with performing rat implant surgeries. With the help of Dr Holloway’s post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Kumbhare, I have learned about the intricacies of animal research protocols and histology. I would like to continue my work in the laboratory, establishing the basis for my own career as an academic functional neurosurgeon. I have a specific interest in Parkinson’s disease dementia and received an internal grant from the Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders center at VCU to fund this research project. This pilot grant has allowed me to explore my research interests and gain experience as a physician-scientist in training. My future goal is to become a neurosurgeon-researcher who can combine clinical and research expertise and obtain a Neurosurgeon Research Career Development Program Award from the NIH in the physician scientist award program. This will allow me to best serve patients with neurological disease.

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