The Stanford Advantage

Sulaiman Somani Describes Research Opportunities in Residency and More

Young physicians with the drive to be true leaders and innovators in their fields need look no further than the Stanford Internal Medicine (IM) Residency program. Where else can residents as early as their second year collaborate with engineers and computer scientists on research projects that may well change the face of medicine?

Sulaiman Somani, MD, first chief resident in IM, then fellow in cardiovascular diseases at Stanford, chats about what brought him to Stanford, what makes Stanford’s residency program stand out, and his role as a mentor for his fellow residents.

Somani works alongside Associate Program Director of IM Residency Angela Rogers, MD, to develop the curriculum for residents involved in research and provide mentorship. “A key focus of my time as a chief resident has been to continue supporting research at the resident level,” said Somani, “and find ways of making myself, as someone who understands the Stanford research ecosystem and environment, and Angela Rogers more accessible to the residents.” From scheduling formal meetings to more casual dinner events, he ensures that the “trains are running in terms of people signing up for research, getting answers, and finding the right mentors.”

Formerly chief resident in Internal Medicine (IM), Sulaiman Somani, MD, is currently a fellow in cardiovascular diseases at Stanford.

The Stanford Difference: Supporting Research

“The IM program that we have here at Stanford is one of the best in the country, and one of our core pillars is resident research,” says Somani. “Having experience doing research in residency gives you a deeper, more in-depth understanding of your area of focus and sets you up for a future career track as a physician-scientist, a physician-engineer, or physician-researcher.”

Second- and third-year Stanford residents are allotted a full month for every year of training to dedicate to research, under the guidance of a mentor. These research efforts are shared and lauded at the annual Residency Research Symposium, where Stanford residents present posters of their scholarly works and research to the Department of Medicine chair, vice chair, program directors, faculty, fellows, residents, medical students, visitors, and staff.

“But a really innovative and unique part about coming to Stanford is access to mentors across other schools, like the School of Business and Computer Science. Residents often partner with faculty in these different departments to perform tremendous multidisciplinary research.” – Sulaiman Somani, MD

“Our residents often end up publishing around 50 to 60 manuscripts in a given year,” says Somani. Stanford residents also obtain research grants during residency, which are virtually “unheard of” outside Stanford. “I think that’s all a testament to how incredible the research ecosystem is for residents at Stanford.” Somani himself was awarded a $25,000 grant from the Center for Digital Health for a project that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to better understand nonprescription of oral anticoagulant therapy among patients with atrial fibrillation.

The residency program also allows residents to partake in research-intensive programs at the university. One example is the Intensive Course in Clinical Research, a one-week intensive immersion course to help residents, fellows, and junior faculty learn more about research study design and performance.

“Our residents often end up publishing around 50 to 60 manuscripts in a given year… I think that’s all a testament to how incredible the research ecosystem is for residents at Stanford.” – Sulaiman Somani, MD

The Stanford Difference: A Multidisciplinary Pool of Mentors

“There are a lot of incredible faculty mentors at the hospital that residents can work with,” says Somani. “But a really innovative and unique part about coming to Stanford is access to mentors across other schools, like the School of Business and Computer Science. Residents often partner with faculty in these different departments to perform tremendous multidisciplinary research.” For instance, Somani’s latest work on anticoagulation therapy was a collaboration with the Department of Biomedical Data Science and Technology and Digital Solutions at Stanford.

Stanford has worked hard to develop an innovative residency program that offers residents unique collaborative opportunities so that they can graduate already having begun their journey as leaders and visionaries in medicine and related fields. Somani’s experience shows that this hard work is paying off.

Landing at Stanford

As one of the first generation in his family to go to university, Sulaiman Somani obtained an undergraduate degree in chemical and biomolecular engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and a medical degree from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. While a medical student, he became fascinated with the potential for AI to advance medicine, co-founding a startup that 3D-printed patient-personalized hip replacement implants developed from a patient’s CT scan. Upon returning to medical school, he developed a deep learning model to predict different disease diagnostics using electrocardiogram output.

Somani chose Stanford for his IM residency because of the unique research opportunities it offered. Working under Fatima Rodriguez, MD, he used natural language processing and large language models to better understand attitudes and beliefs about key concepts in cardiology, as expressed on social media. This research led to several publications, including a piece titled “Artificial Intelligence in Cardiovascular Disease Prevention: Is It Ready for Prime Time?,” published in 2024 in Current Atherosclerosis Reports, as well as a Young Investigator Award in Outcomes Research from the American College of Cardiology.