Noted surgeon cites university's foundational support, influence

In 1985, 17-year-old Bobby Bhasker-Rao, one year after returning from missions work in India with his family, enrolled at La Sierra. The school, established in 1922, was then the Riverside campus of Loma Linda University and in previous decades functioned as La Sierra College.

Bhasker-Rao aimed to study biochemistry and pre-medicine with the goal of entering medical school. His sisters Salina and Sabrina, close in age to Bobby, also enrolled at the La Sierra campus to respectively study business and communications. In order to cover tuition costs, the siblings worked closely with La Sierra’s Student Financial Services Assistant Director Audrey Gaspard to find various resources to help them achieve their educational goals. In the end, institutional, federal and state resources were secured to cover much of their college tuition.

“Anytime a [financial resource] was available, she would help us,” Bhasker-Rao said. “It was good to have that sort of help to get through college.”

“It is truly gratifying to be able to help a student find the needed funds to pay for college expenses,” Gaspard said. “It is fulfilling to know that you are able to make a difference in someone’s life and help that person achieve his or her dreams.” 

More than 90 percent of La Sierra’s students pay for tuition through free financial aid from institutional, state, and federal sources. Top funding opportunities include four-year renewable scholarships, Seventh-day Adventist Membership awards, the Literature Evangelist Earnings Match program, and the La Sierra/North American Division 100% Free Tuition Partnership.

Bhasker-Rao and his sisters were born in India and arrived in the United States as children when their parents emigrated to the U.S. to study at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich. Their father, Nalli Bhasker-Rao, an ordained Seventh-day Adventist pastor, earned a Master of Divinity degree. When Bobby was around age 13, his parents took the family back to India where his father served as conference president for the State of Andra Pradesh. Over the course of three years, his parents engaged in missions work developing schools, orphanages and churches in India before returning the family to the United States. “It was an amazing experience because I saw my parents help people and bring about significant change,” Bhasker-Rao said. “They kind of built that in us. I got interested in a career where I was helping people. The satisfaction you get from that is just incredible.” His father is now retired and his mother, Sheela Bhasker-Rao, is a retired nurse.

Bhasker-Rao graduated from La Sierra in 1989, the year before La Sierra’s official designation as a university. He studied medicine at Loma Linda University School of Medicine and completed his residency at Brookdale University Hospital & Medical Center in New York City. He furthered his education through a Minimally Invasive Surgery Fellowship at the University of California, Davis Medical Center where he trained with top surgeons and functioned as a clinical instructor of surgery. Currently he is a noted bariatric surgeon based in Rancho Mirage with offices in Rancho Cucamonga, Beverly Hills, and Orange County. He recalls the character of his La Sierra alma mater.

“La Sierra felt like home. The professors, the teachers, were very nurturing,” he said. “Overall it was such a comfortable environment.”

La Sierra’s foundational spiritual values expressed through institutional and individual actions also made an impact on the young student. “Chapel was very important. Several classes would start off with prayer. It kept us focused and strengthened our beliefs,” Bhasker-Rao said. “It felt like the Holy Spirit was guiding you through the educational experience.”

The difference between Adventist Christian education and education at more secular institutions became strikingly apparent when he entered surgical training. “It was very, very different,” said Bhasker-Rao. Adventist education “gave us a strong background, principles and a foundation to withstand a society we’d never been exposed to.”

Bhasker-Rao’s daughter, Serena, a high school junior at Loma Linda Academy intends to follow in her father’s footsteps and attend La Sierra University with interests in a future career as a plastic surgeon.

During his fellowship training at UC Davis, Bhasker-Rao was exposed to several complex surgical procedures that included bariatric surgery which is designed for inducing weight loss in severely overweight individuals. This surgery often results in the cessation of obesity-linked illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, cardiovascular disease and other ailments. These are known as comorbidities to the primary disease of morbid obesity. 

After recognizing that bariatric surgical procedures resulted in significant health benefits to patients in addition to weight loss, Bhasker-Rao decided that this was an area in which he could make an important difference by helping people achieve healthier and longer lives.

Bhasker-Rao’s practice, which has treated about 4,000 patients, offers an extensive post-surgery follow-up program that includes diet counseling with a registered dietician, nutrient monitoring, support groups and exercise classes. He also leads two bariatric surgery informative seminars a month at the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences, Eisenhower Medical Center, where he functions as medical director of the Bariatric Surgical Program. Notably, he is one of only 50 bariatric surgeons in the nation to offer robotic bariatric surgery with the da Vinci Surgical System and has achieved a level of expertise that allows him to train other surgeons in the use of robotic surgery. His accomplishments and superior patient outcomes in bariatric surgery have resulted in his inclusion in the New York Times’ “Top Surgeons in the Nation” listing each year from 2013 to 2018. 

Bobby Bhasker-Rao’s experience at La Sierra University is not unique. Students at La Sierra, aided by a variety of financial resources, pursue careers in health and computer sciences, education, religion and archaeology, business, criminal justice, the arts and humanities. Throughout their journey, the university’s faculty and staff strive to ensure students’ lives and souls will be marked in ways that will make them stand out in the workplace and elsewhere. They \do this through their own example, personal interest in their students, through their dedication to serving others, and by encouraging their students toward a deeper relationship with God.