Dr. Sufian is Professor of Health Humanities, History, and Disability Studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Medicine and the College of Applied Health Sciences and College of Medicine. In her book Familial Fitness: Adoption, Disability and Family in Modern America (University of Chicago Press, 2021), she describes the historical trajectory of exclusion to partial inclusion of children with disabilities in American adoption. As a disability studies scholar, Professor Sufian studies how biological and contextual factors interact to shape disability and illness experiences. She is specifically interested in the areas of family and kinship, sexual and reproductive health, CRISPR, chronic illness, and best-practices for patient-centered outcomes research. She teaches graduate and medical students about patient-centered and contextual care, social aspects of illness and disability, and the social and structural determinants of health.
In addition to her historical work, Sufian was PI on a federally funded, three-year medical curricular grant that creates educational cases for medical trainees to teach how to analyze the structural and social determinants of health relating to a variety of pressing, contemporary social themes. She is also is involved in patient-engagement work on the intersection of chronic disease and sexual and reproductive health issues. She serves as the Co-PI for a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation funded Pilot and Feasibility Study called: MENstrual Symptom TRacking to Understand and Assess (women) Living with CF, and as PI of Engaging Virtually in the Age of COVID: Sharing Lessons and Creating Pathways for Transdisciplinary Research on Women’s Health Issues in Cystic Fibrosis and Breast Cancer. Sufian was an elected member of the Patient Engagement Advisory Panel of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and a research fellow in primary care research. She centers patients’ voices in her research to best understand the complexity of their lives and their health status.
