Bio


Dr. Natasha Abadilla is a resident in the Child Neurology Program at Stanford Health. She graduated form Stanford University with a B.A. in Human Biology in 2014 and spent two years in the public health system in Kenya, working with a grassroots NGO and a health tech social enterprise before starting medical school, then attended Stanford School of Medicine from 2016-2021. During her time at the SoM, she spent a research year assessing pediatric surgical outcomes among biliary atresia patients based on post-operative steroid regimens, and the effect of caregiver-healthcare provider concordance vs discordance in pediatric imperforate anus repair recovery times. Her interests include: community health, global health, patient education, and empowering the underserved communities to become active participants in their health care decisions.

Honors & Awards


  • Honor Roll for Clinical Teaching, Stanford Department of Pediatrics (2021-2022)
  • MedScholars Research Grant, Stanford School of Medicine (2018-2019)
  • Human Biology Award for Excellent Honors Thesis Presentation, Stanford University Center for Teaching and Learning (2014)
  • Stanford University Award of Excellence, Stanford Alumni Association (2014)

Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations


  • Resident Member, American Academy of Neurology (2022 - Present)
  • Resident Member, American Academy of Pediatrics (2021 - Present)
  • Student Member, American College of Surgeons (2017 - 2020)

Membership Organizations


  • SIG: Surgery Interest Group, Co-President 2017-2018
  • Pediatrics Interest Group, Student Member

Current Research and Scholarly Interests


global health, public health, health disparities, advocacy, pediatric neurology

All Publications


  • Artificial intelligence for prediction of donor liver allograft steatosis and early post-transplantation graft failure. HPB : the official journal of the International Hepato Pancreato Biliary Association Narayan, R. R., Abadilla, N., Yang, L., Chen, S. B., Klinkachorn, M., Eddington, H. S., Trickey, A. W., Higgins, J. P., Melcher, M. L. 2021

    Abstract

    Donor livers undergo subjective pathologist review of steatosis before transplantation to mitigate the risk for early allograft dysfunction (EAD). We developed an objective, computer vision artificial intelligence (CVAI) platform to score donor liver steatosis and compared its capability for predicting EAD against pathologist steatosis scores.Two pathologists scored digitized donor liver biopsy slides from 2014 to 2019. We trained four CVAI platforms with 1:99 training:prediction split. Mean intersection-over-union (IU) characterized CVAI model accuracy. We defined EAD using liver function tests within 1 week of transplantation. We calculated separate EAD logistic regression models with CVAI and pathologist steatosis and compared the models' discrimination and internal calibration.From 90 liver biopsies, 25,494 images trained CVAI models yielding peak mean IU = 0.80. CVAI steatosis scores were lower than pathologist scores (median 3% vs 20%, P < 0.001). Among 41 transplanted grafts, 46% developed EAD. The median CVAI steatosis score was higher for those with EAD (2.9% vs 1.9%, P = 0.02). CVAI steatosis was independently associated with EAD after adjusting for donor age, donor diabetes, and MELD score (aOR = 1.34, 95%CI = 1.03-1.75, P = 0.03).The CVAI steatosis EAD model demonstrated slightly better calibration than pathologist steatosis, meriting further investigation into which modality most accurately and reliably predicts post-transplantation outcomes.

    View details for DOI 10.1016/j.hpb.2021.10.004

    View details for PubMedID 34815187

  • Documenting Social Media Engagement as Scholarship: A New Model for Assessing Academic Accomplishment for the Health Professions. Journal of medical Internet research Acquaviva, K. D., Mugele, J., Abadilla, N., Adamson, T., Bernstein, S. L., Bhayani, R. K., Büchi, A. E., Burbage, D., Carroll, C. L., Davis, S. P., Dhawan, N., English, K., Grier, J. T., Gurney, M. K., Hahn, E. S., Haq, H., Huang, B., Jain, S., Jun, J., Kerr, W. T., Keyes, T., Kirby, A. R., Leary, M., Marr, M., Major, A., Meisel, J. V., Petersen, E. A., Raguan, B., Rhodes, A., Rupert, D. D., Sam-Agudu, N. A., Saul, N., Shah, J. R., Sheldon, L. K., Sinclair, C. T., Spencer, K., Strand, N. H., Streed, C. G., Trudell, A. M. 2020; 22 (12): e25070

    Abstract

    The traditional model of promotion and tenure in the health professions relies heavily on formal scholarship through teaching, research, and service. Institutions consider how much weight to give activities in each of these areas and determine a threshold for advancement. With the emergence of social media, scholars can engage wider audiences in creative ways and have a broader impact. Conventional metrics like the h-index do not account for social media impact. Social media engagement is poorly represented in most curricula vitae (CV) and therefore is undervalued in promotion and tenure reviews.The objective was to develop crowdsourced guidelines for documenting social media scholarship. These guidelines aimed to provide a structure for documenting a scholar's general impact on social media, as well as methods of documenting individual social media contributions exemplifying innovation, education, mentorship, advocacy, and dissemination.To create unifying guidelines, we created a crowdsourced process that capitalized on the strengths of social media and generated a case example of successful use of the medium for academic collaboration. The primary author created a draft of the guidelines and then sought input from users on Twitter via a publicly accessible Google Document. There was no limitation on who could provide input and the work was done in a democratic, collaborative fashion. Contributors edited the draft over a period of 1 week (September 12-18, 2020). The primary and secondary authors then revised the draft to make it more concise. The guidelines and manuscript were then distributed to the contributors for edits and adopted by the group. All contributors were given the opportunity to serve as coauthors on the publication and were told upfront that authorship would depend on whether they were able to document the ways in which they met the 4 International Committee of Medical Journal Editors authorship criteria.We developed 2 sets of guidelines: Guidelines for Listing All Social Media Scholarship Under Public Scholarship (in Research/Scholarship Section of CV) and Guidelines for Listing Social Media Scholarship Under Research, Teaching, and Service Sections of CV. Institutions can choose which set fits their existing CV format.With more uniformity, scholars can better represent the full scope and impact of their work. These guidelines are not intended to dictate how individual institutions should weigh social media contributions within promotion and tenure cases. Instead, by providing an initial set of guidelines, we hope to provide scholars and their institutions with a common format and language to document social media scholarship.

    View details for DOI 10.2196/25070

    View details for PubMedID 33263554

  • What constitutes a 'successful' recovery? Patient perceptions of the recovery process after a traumatic injury. Trauma surgery & acute care open Rosenberg, G., Zion, S. R., Shearer, E., Bereknyei Merrell, S., Abadilla, N., Spain, D. A., Crum, A. J., Weiser, T. G. 2020; 5 (1): e000427

    Abstract

    Background: As the number of patients surviving traumatic injuries has grown, understanding the factors that shape the recovery process has become increasingly important. However, the psychosocial factors affecting recovery from trauma have received limited attention. We conducted an exploratory qualitative study to better understand how patients view recovery after traumatic injury.Methods: This qualitative, descriptive study was conducted at a Level One university trauma center. Participants 1-3years postinjury were purposefully sampled to include common blunt-force mechanisms of injuries and a range of ages, socioeconomic backgrounds and injury severities. Semi-structured interviews explored participants' perceptions of self and the recovery process after traumatic injury. Interviews were transcribed verbatim; the data were inductively coded and thematically analyzed.Results: We conducted 15 interviews, 13 of which were with male participants (87%); average hospital length of stay was 8.9 days and mean injury severity score was 18.3. An essential aspect of the patient experience centered around the recovery of both the body and the 'self', a composite of one's roles, values, identities and beliefs. The process of regaining a sound sense of self was essential to achieving favorable subjective outcomes. Participants expressed varying levels of engagement in their recovery process, with those on the high end of the engagement spectrum tending to speak more positively about their outcomes. Participants described their own subjective interpretations of their recovery as most important, which was primarily influenced by their engagement in the recovery process and ability to recover their sense of self.Discussion: Patients who are able to maintain or regain a cohesive sense of self after injury and who are highly engaged in the recovery process have more positive assessments of their outcomes. Our findings offer a novel framework for healthcare providers and researchers to use as they approach the issue of recovery after injury with patients.Level of evidence: III-descriptive, exploratory study.

    View details for DOI 10.1136/tsaco-2019-000427

    View details for PubMedID 32154383

  • 10-Year Experience of Kasai Hepatoportoenterostomy in Biliary Atresia: High-Dose Adjuvant Steroids Improve Outcomes Taylor, J., Abadilla, N., Narayan, R., Pickering, J. M., Bruzoni, M. ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC. 2019: E164
  • Predicting Pathology from Imaging in Children Undergoing Resection of Congenital Pulmonary Malformations Narayan, R. R., Abadilla, N., Greenberg, D. R., Bruzoni, M. ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC. 2017: S154