Vikram Shankar, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Shankar is the Chief Medical Officer of Tribal Health, where he leads the strategic design and oversight of rural and remote programmatic operations. Board-certified in Emergency Medicine, he specializes in bridging the gap between clinical excellence and institutional goals in resource-limited environments. Dr. Shankar is the primary architect behind Tribal Health’s clinical alignment, ensuring that medical providers across all client facilities deliver care that is rooted in evidence-based medicine and the highest industry standards.

A dedicated mentor and educator, Dr. Shankar provides executive oversight to critical care training teams, transforming provider collaboration into measurable improvements for patient outcomes.

His leadership is informed by a career spent addressing health disparities on a global scale—from founding the Togo Peer Education Health Center in West Africa to co-leading high-intensity resuscitation teams in New York City during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is a recognized authority on navigating the complexities of healthcare delivery for frontier and underrepresented populations.

Dr. Shankar earned a Bachelor of Artsin Urban and Environmental Policy at Occidental College and attended Medical School at University of Wisconsin, School of Medicine and Public Health. He completed his residency at UCLA-Kern Medical in Emergency Medicine, with training in neurosurgery, trauma surgery, pediatrics, OB/GYN, anesthesia, general surgery, internal medicine, critical care, cardiology, and point-of-care ultrasound. At UCLA-Kern Medical, he was named Resident of the Year (2020, 2019), Outstanding Graduate of the Year (2020), Emergency Medicine Resident of the Year (2020, 2019), and Student Mentor of the Year (2020). He was also nominated for Emergency Medicine Resident Educator Award (2019), Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM). 

Dr. Shankar is currently earning a Master of Business Administration, Johns Hopkins University.