Neonatologist joins USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital to care for the region’s tiniest patients

Diksha Shrestha, M.D., F.A.A.P., is among three new neonatologists that joined USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital this summer to provide specialized care to extremely premature infants in the region’s only level III neonatal intensive care unit.

“I’ve always loved critical care,” said Shrestha. “The organized chaos gives me an adrenaline rush and it makes me think on my feet, which I like. More than that, I have always been drawn to the environment in the NICU because I like working with babies and offering family-centered care.”

Shrestha said she was drawn to USA Health because of the opportunities for academic growth and the ability to care for a wide variety of patients with complex medical needs. The size of the NICU – with capacity to care for 98 premature infants at a time - and its national reputation to successfully help micro preemies thrive, also were factors in her decision.

An adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine, Shrestha said her daily goal is to contribute to the positive patient outcomes the NICU staff provides its patients.

A native of Nepal, Shrestha earned an M.B.B.S. degree from Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xian, China, in 2009, and completed a junior residency at Patan Academy of Health Sciences in Lalitpur, Nepal, in 2010. After working as a medical officer in pediatrics and neonatology for several hospitals in Nepal, she moved to the United States for advanced training in neonatology.

In 2015, Shrestha began a residency at Unterberg Children’s Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, New Jersey. After completing the three-year program, she began a neonatal-perinatal medicine fellowship at Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She completed that three-year fellowship in 2021. She is certified in pediatrics by the American Board of Pediatrics.