Meet Dr. Ahluwalia
Dr. Tania Ahluwalia is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine attending and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Children’s National Health System in Washington, DC. She trained in Pediatrics at University of Illinois and completed her Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellowship at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. Before her career in medicine, Dr. Ahluwalia studied received her Bachelor of Sciences in Nursing at McMaster University and worked as a Public Health Nurse in schools in Ontario, Canada.
At the undergraduate level, Dr. Ahluwalia was a Public Speaker for UNICEF Canada and she founded an organization called UNICEF Mac, a campus ambassador program, which provided students with a portal to learn about global development issues. Over a decade later, the group continues to raise awareness and funds to support UNICEF. She helped to organize an International Conference on the Impact of Global Issues of Health on Women & Children in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and she also led conferences on Millennium Development Goals closer to her hometown in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. She also volunteered for Hurricane Katrina relief in New Orleans, Louisiana.
As a Pediatric resident in Illinois, Dr. Ahluwalia received the Shot@Life Global Vaccination Grant through the American Academy of Pediatrics, where she educated community members about the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life Campaign, which aims to provide four life-saving vaccines: measles, polio, pneumococcus & rotavirus. She also received scholarships through the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Shot@Life campaign to receive training in advocacy, media and event planning to advocate for childhood vaccines. She wrote several articles for the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Medical Students, Residents and Fellowship Trainees on global vaccinations. In her residency, Dr. Ahluwalia collaborated with healthcare providers to serve over 2000 Haitians with the Friends of the Children of Haiti Clinic in Cyvadier, Haiti.
During her Pediatric Emergency Medicine fellowship, Dr. Ahluwalia traveled to Switzerland, Laos and India. In Geneva, Switzerland, she participated in the Health Emergencies in Large Populations course to further her knowledge in the management of humanitarian operations in disasters, conflicts and other crises. In Laos, she provided bedside teaching in the emergency department and taught the pediatric emergency medicine module to the first residency class of Emergency Medicine residents at Health Frontiers. She also served as a Pediatric Emergency Medicine Guest Lecturer at Ramathibodi hospital, Mahidol University; Vajira Hospital, Navamindradhiraj University and Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok; Khon Kaen Hospital in Khon Kaen, and Maharaj Nakorn Hospital in Chiang Mai.
Dr. Ahluwalia served as George Washington University Visiting Faculty in India in 2017 and 2018, and revamped the curriculum for Pediatric Emergency Medicine. She worked with emergency medicine residents in Delhi, Dehradun, Kochi, Kozhikode and Bangalore. She continues to work with programs throughout India with the aim of increasing knowledge of management for pediatric emergencies as well as improving comfort with children and their families. Her areas of interest for research include: medical education through simulation, qualitative research, injury prevention and pediatric trauma.