Reconstructive Urology Division Chief Brings Surgical Excellence to a Global Stage

UH Clinical Update | December 2025

Traveling the world is all in a day’s work for Shubham Gupta, MD, Division Chief of Reconstructive Urology and Director of the Surgical Gender Affirmation program at University Hospitals Urology Institute. Dr. Gupta also holds the Alexander and Sarah Cutler Chair in Men’s Health. In February 2022, he and wife Kara Richey, CNP, climbed Mount Kilimanjaro – the highest mountain in Africa -- and displayed a UH Seidman Cancer Center flag at the summit to honor their cancer patients. Then in October 2023, Dr. Gupta and a group of UH colleagues traveled to war-torn Ukraine to perform reconstructive surgeries.

Shubham Gupta, MD

This is no accident, according to Dr. Gupta. He says his career has always been heading in the direction of global health.

“You get an academic job, you teach residents, but at some point in time, you become cognizant of the vast health disparities that patients all around the world see,” he says.

Putting this energy to work, Dr. Gupta was named a Roe Green Scholar in 2024. Each year, the UH Roe Green Center for Travel Medicine & Global Health awards clinicians working in the global health field with grant funding to drive change worldwide. With this new support, Dr. Gupta was off and running.

“Once I dipped my toe in the water, I just completely plunged in,” he says.

After the first trip to Ukraine came a second, as well as a surgical mission trip to Brazil.

Most recently, Dr Gupta led a multi-institutional team of eight caregivers – four from UH, three from Cleveland Clinic and one from Ohio State – for their third trip to Ukraine. There the team performed life-changing reconstructive surgeries on 20 patients, while working closely with the local surgical teams to help with skill transfer and capacity building.

Dr. Gupta says what he’s most impressed by through these experiences is the massive impact surgical missions have the potential to create on a daunting problem. Statistics from the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery report Global Surgery 2030 suggest that approximately 30% of the global burden of disease can be attributed to surgically treatable conditions.

“The amount of productivity loss associated with those patients is about $12 trillion dollars,” he says. “That means that a single surgery or a series of surgeries can return that patient to being productive. If we can invest our time, efforts, resources and equipment, then the return on investment for the entire global community is huge – even if we are able to achieve just a fraction of it. Personally, and professionally, it's just been profoundly gratifying for me.”

Dr. Gupta completed his medical training at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, India. He then came to the United States to receive post-doctoral training in urology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. After completing a residency in urology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Dr. Gupta further advanced his training at Duke University Hospital in Durham, North Carolina, where he completed a fellowship in reconstructive urology and genitourinary cancer survivorship

In his “day job” at UH, Dr. Gupta is also a surgeon and caregiver with tremendous impact, says UH Parma COO James Hill, MD, MBA.

“Dr. Shubham Gupta exemplifies the very best of University Hospitals' core values — service excellence, trust, belonging, compassion, and integrity — and consistently integrates these into every facet of his work and patient care,” he says. “Through his unwavering professionalism and his daily commitment to doing what is right, Dr. Gupta has become a beacon of holistic, patient-centered care and team-based collaboration. His compassion extends beyond the bedside. Whether it's stepping in for a colleague, making an urgent post-op check over the weekend, or calmly navigating a patient’s concerns late into the evening, Dr. Gupta’s trustworthiness and patient-first mindset shine through.”

In fact, UH CEO Cliff A. Megerian, MD, FACS, Jane and Henry Meyer Chief Executive Officer Distinguished Chair, recently named Dr. Gupta a “Dinner with the Doc” honoree for his outstanding professionalism and work in advancing “systemness.”

As he bridges his surgical practice between two very different worlds, Dr. Gupta says he tries to take lessons from his time away.

“You come back with a better appreciation of life in general, and of one's health,” he says. “It just makes me a little more humble. At the end of the day, it's not about having fancy equipment and instruments. It's about taking care of the patient asleep before you. It just reaffirms the purpose for me. I think it's an all-around appreciation of the global disparities and access and care and outcomes, and an appreciation of the small things we can do to make things better.”

To nominate a physician for this honor, download the Cliff Appreciates Nomination Form.