Cynthia Chude, PhD, is an MD candidate at Meharry Medical College and a graduate of the PhD program in Health Care Management and Economics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Her research lies at the intersection of clinical medicine, health economics, and health services research, with a focus on how provider decision-making, administrative burden, and health system incentives influence treatment decisions, access to care, and patient outcomes.
Her research examines decision-making in the surgical management of chronic diseases, particularly chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI). Using causal inference, structural economic models, and health services research methods, she studies how clinicians decide between limb salvage and major amputation and how reimbursement incentives, institutional factors, and patient characteristics shape those decisions. In complementary work, she investigates patient and provider administrative burden, examining how insurance complexity, documentation requirements, prior authorization, and care coordination affect clinical workflows, access to care, and treatment outcomes.
More broadly, Dr. Chude’s research seeks to identify health system factors that influence treatment decisions, access to care, and outcomes for patients with chronic diseases and to generate evidence that informs policies promoting high-quality, high-value, and equitable care. As she completes her MD in 2027, she plans to pursue an academic career integrating clinical practice with research on health care delivery, with future interests in improving access to dermatologic care and evaluating health system factors that influence specialty care quality and outcomes.
