Sushila Gawande

Sushila Goswami Gawande, 89, a loving, compassionate, joyful force of nature, a pediatrician for three decades in Athens, Ohio, and a benefactor of programs supporting students and education in India, Ohio and Massachusetts, died on December 17, 2025, from complications of ovarian cancer. At the time of her death she was in Maui, Hawaii, where she resided for the final three years of her life. That geographic span alone gives a sense of her boundless spirit, adaptability, and readiness for adventure that was reflective of her remarkable life.

Sushila (or Sushi as many knew her), was born on November 14, 1936, in Ahmedabad, India, the third of five children, one of whom died in infancy. Her father, Bhagwanpuri Goswami, died when she was six. Her mother, Maniben Goswami, who had a fourth-grade education, married as a teenager, and became widowed at a young age, proved to be a strong, determined woman who prized education and inspired her children to be confident, persevering, and intrepid. Sushila's eldest sister, Surya, rejected an arranged marriage and instead went to medical school, thereby carving a path for Sushila and her youngest sister, Sadu to become physicians as well. Their brother, Bakul, the second eldest, worked as a textile engineer and supported his sisters' pursuits.

When Sushila graduated from B.J. Medical College in the early sixties, the United States was recruiting medical trainees from abroad, having massively expanded the nation's hospital infrastructure and encountered a shortage of doctors to staff them. Sushila accepted a one-year internship offer in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1963, she entered a residency in pediatrics at St. Joseph's Hospital for Children in Brooklyn, New York, where she lived with Surya, who was in medical training at New York University.

One day, the organized, punctual older sister grew tired of waiting for free-spirited Sushila to come home in time to go to a movie, and left without her. Sushila found herself locked out and decided to visit a medical school classmate training at a different hospital in Brooklyn. Her classmate introduced her to Atmaram "Ram" Gawande, a general surgery resident from a farming village in Maharashtra, India. He fell headlong in love with this tall, beautiful, happy-go-lucky woman, and she was impressed by his ability to navigate the many obstacles rural villagers faced to become physicians in the US. They married in 1965, despite Ram's father Sitaram's proud success at arranging an engagement with the daughter of an esteemed family in Maharashtra. Sushila found a way to complete her residency while having two children, Atul and Sumeeta, and seamlessly juggled raising them and starting her pediatric practice in Newark, New Jersey, where Ram did specialty training in urology.

Their original plan was to return to Ram's home state of Maharashtra to practice medicine and raise their family. However, due to an anaphylactic reaction, Atul could not complete smallpox vaccination, and so could not travel to India, where smallpox had not been eradicated and vaccination was required for entry. They pivoted, and after Ram completed his training, in 1973, they found a welcoming community in the Appalachian town of Athens, Ohio. Sushila would care for thousands of children, most of them on Medicaid or uninsured. She was as devoted to mentoring the mothers, some of them just teenagers, as she was caring for their children, and was beloved by her patients for her compassion.

Sushila was also a natural community builder, in ways large and small. Before leaving big-city life for Athens, she'd enrolled the family in tennis lessons, thinking it would give them a sport and an easy way to connect with people in their new town. She was right. She helped grow a large circle of avid tennis players, started Athens High School's first girls' tennis team, promoted tennis to everyone who crossed her path, and, when she could no longer play, subscribed to the Tennis Channel and cheered on her favorites.

Her passion for tennis was matched by her passion for the Rotary Club. When the Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that the then-all-male club had to admit women, she was one of the first two to join the Athens chapter. She and Ram helped rally the Rotary community to support many projects, including textbooks for a local elementary school, global polio eradication, and water borewells in Ram's home state, which had been suffering from drought.

Whereas Sushila had grown up in the big city of Ahmedabad, where Mahatma Gandhi was leading India's independence movement, Ram was from a remote farming village in central India, with no road, no running water, no schools, and no medical doctor, and that is where they decided to focus their benevolent work in India. Sushila and Ram together supported development in his village and the surrounding district of Yavatmal—from wells to roads to education. They adopted as "their third child" a small college that had received a land grant but did not have the funds to complete construction of its first building. Enlisting the help of friends in the US, the Athens Rotary Club, and other Rotary Clubs, they grew the college into a full-scale college of arts, science, and commerce on a 32-acre, palm-tree-lined campus. Today, it has 5,000 students, with equal numbers of men and women, and offers vocational, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. In recognition of Sushila and Ram's support, the college was renamed Gopikabai Sitaram Gawande (GSG) College, after Ram's mother.

Sushila was known and loved for her loving acceptance of everyone she met. She cast no judgment on people, whatever their background, status, or appearance. In her medical practice, community work, and relationships, she strived to make sure everyone felt valued. She was a role model and champion of opportunities for youth and young women, whether in rural Ohio or India. She advocated delaying marriage for education, using contraception, and never paying a dowry.

Sushila was preceded in death by Ram, who passed away in 2011. She is survived by her children, Atul, of Washington, DC, and Sumeeta, of Kula, Hawaii, along with their spouses, Kathleen Hobson and Tavor White; her brother, Kirtikumar (Bakul) Goswami, of Ahmedabad; her sister, Sadu Paun, of London, England; and three grandchildren, Walker Gawande of Skopje, North Macedonia, Hattie Gawande of Raleigh, North Carolina, and Hunter Gawande of Washington, DC. She was also loved as a grandmother (Nani), Aunty, and Sister (Ben) by many other family members and close friends, whom she loved dearly, in turn.

Plans will be made for a memorial for Sushila in Athens, Ohio, and Umarkhed, Maharashtra.