Impact Story: Mukund Prabhudesai, MD
Member of the Lifetime Giving Society and The Founders Society-NULC (Founders’ Circle)
This story was published in The Founders Society Impact Stories, a publication that highlights leadership donors to various areas of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Read the whole issue here.
Kindhearted and caring, Sarita Prabhudesai, MD, had an infectious laugh that could light up a room. Beloved by her colleagues and patients at the Danville VA Medical Center in downstate Illinois, this respected psychiatrist rose to head the mental health service and later served as chief of staff. Meanwhile, her husband, Mukund Prabhudesai, MD, led the pathology service at the same VA hospital.
The couple, who first met in their native India—Sarita from the big city and Mukund from a small village—had just entered retirement when Sarita began experiencing heart problems. Despite cardiac surgery, her quickly developing heart failure demanded specialized cardiac care in 2017. “Both University of Illinois College of Medicine faculty members, Sarita and I knew about Northwestern’s outstanding reputation,” Dr. Prabhudesai said. “So, we immediately came up to Chicago and Northwestern Memorial Hospital for her care.”
Initially a heart transplant candidate, Sarita needed emergency surgery as her heart failure became critical. The Northwestern Medicine surgical team implanted a left ventricular assist device (LVAD) to help Sarita’s heart pump blood. While Sarita’s recovery journey would have many ups and downs before she passed away at age 76 in November 2023, the LVAD nurses never wavered in providing personalized support to the entire Prabhudesai family.
“The LVAD provider community takes on all LVAD patients as one of their own,” said Dr. Prabhudesai, who celebrated 50 years of marriage with Sarita. They have one son, an engineer who lives in Texas. “We became quite close to the nursing staff while Sarita was in Northwestern Memorial and later when we moved into an assisted living facility in the Chicago area. They always kept in touch with us and provided one-on-one attention.”
To honor his wife’s memory and thank the nurses who cared for her, Dr. Prabhudesai recently made a generous endowed gift of $250,000 to establish the Drs. Sarita and Mukund Prabhudesai Heart Failure Nurse Research and Education Fund in the Division of Cardiology within the Department of Medicine. His commitment will enhance the often underrecognized value of nursing continuing education.
“The healthcare delivery system is composed of a mosaic of components, with no one piece more or less important than another. In our case, supporting nurses was a fitting way to remember Sarita’s legacy,” he said. “My hope is that this fund further motivates nursing professionals to keep up with their discipline and strengthens their commitment to patient care.”