Vidhya Prakash, FACP, FIDSA, FAMWA, MD

Primary Responsibilities:

As Founder and Director of the SIU Alliance for Women in Medicine and Science (AWIMS), my vision is a strong and meaningful alliance among all members of the medical community, with the common purpose of working harmoniously in an equitable environment to support the mission of SIU Medicine.  Housed within the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, the mission of SIU AWIMS is to provide a supportive forum to promote honest discussion and positive change in the realms of gender equity, career advancement, work-life balance, and community service, and to champion professional development and promotion of women in medicine and science. 

I am a Professor of Clinical Internal Medicine in the Department of Medicine and a member of the Infectious Diseases faculty.  My other roles in our department include serving as vice chair of Clinical Affairs and chair of the Clinical Competency Committee.  At the state level, I serve as chair of the Health and Healthcare committee of the Illinois Council on Women and Girls. I am also chair of the IDPH Diversity in Health Care Task Force. On the national level, I serve as director of the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) membership committee. I was born in Strasbourg, France and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio.  I graduated from the Ohio State University in 2000 and from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine in 2004. Through the HPSP (Health Professions Scholarship Program) I joined the United States Air Force and completed Internal Medicine residency at the San Antonio Uniformed Services Health Education Consortium (SAUSHEC) in 2007 followed by Infectious Diseases fellowship training at SAUSHEC in 2009.  I stayed at the San Antonio Military Medical Center briefly as an attending physician in Infectious Diseases before transitioning to Wright-Patterson Medical Center in Dayton, Ohio in 2010.  I served as an Infectious Diseases faculty, chief of the Infectious Diseases Clinic, and associate program director for the Internal Medicine Residency training program while at Wright-Patterson Medical Center.  I joined SIU School of Medicine in 2014.

I have a passion for teaching and topics salient to women in medicine and science. I currently reside in Springfield with my husband, Dr. Eric Black, who is a faculty member within the Department of Psychiatry and our two children, Eric Shiva and Ethan Prakash.