Her Story
About Bhavita
Dr. Bhavita Gaglani, MD, is a physician specializing in Infectious Diseases, Critical Care Medicine, and Transplant Infectious Diseases. She is originally from India and completed her medical education in Russia in 2011 at Tver State Medical Academy. She is currently based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she serves in academic and clinical roles while balancing a demanding medical career and family life.
She completed her Internal Medicine Residency at St. Barnabas Health System in Bronx, New York, finishing in 2017. She then pursued advanced fellowship training in Infectious Diseases (2018–2020) and Critical Care Medicine (2020–2021) at Wake Forest University, followed by a Transplant Infectious Diseases fellowship at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2024–2025). She has been practicing independently since 2014, building extensive experience across both inpatient and critical care settings.
Currently, Dr. Gaglani serves as faculty at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, where she works in the ICU and as a transplant infectious disease consultant. She is deeply committed to academic medicine, patient care, and mentorship, with a focus on managing complex infectious diseases in critically ill and immunocompromised patients. Outside of medicine, she is a dedicated mother of twins, successfully balancing her professional responsibilities with family life.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Bhavita
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to staying determined and staying grounded. My husband has been my strength, constantly reminding me of my dreams and keeping me grounded, especially during times I wanted to give up. The struggles my family went through migrating here also keep me going. I also would like to give credit to all my mentors, educators and professors who have believed in my, provided me with invaluable guidance and advises that has helped shaped my career.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I’ve ever received is to keep my goals clearly in front of me while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. It’s important to stay focused and determined in your path, but equally important to recognize that you don’t have to do it alone. Seeking mentorship and guidance from senior colleagues and experienced faculty is not a weakness it is a strength. Learning to ask for help when needed has been essential in both my professional growth and personal well-being.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
My advice to young women entering this field is to stay grounded in where you come from and the challenges you have already overcome, as those experiences build resilience and perspective. Pursue your goals with confidence and determination, even in the face of micro- and macro-aggressions, which I choose to view as minor distractions rather than barriers. Most importantly, remain authentic to who you are, trust your abilities, and continue moving forward with persistence and purpose.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges right now are maintaining a healthy work-life balance while being a wife, mother, daughter and an academic physician, and managing the demands that come with each role. At the same time, she sees this as an opportunity to grow within a supportive institution and feels grateful and blessed to be part of an organization that allows her to continue advancing her career while also prioritizing her family.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
What matters most to me in both my work and personal life is truly caring for patients and their families and making a meaningful difference in their health and well-being. No title or award holds more value to me than receiving a message from a patient expressing gratitude, even for something as simple as treating a UTI. I find deep fulfillment in caring for both routine cases, such as UTIs in elderly patients, and complex conditions like invasive fungal infections in transplant patients especially when patients feel supported and thankful for their care.
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.