Sakena Abedin, MD

Sakena Abedin, MD PhD is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and a Lecturer in the Program in the History of Science and Medicine.

Dr. Abedin is a practicing primary care pediatrician who sees patients at the Saint Raphael Campus of Yale-New Haven Hospital and teaches residents at the Yale Pediatric Primary Care Center. She is also a historian who studies 20th century American medicine.

Dr. Abedin’s research focuses on medicine’s encounters with the social world and the various ways in which ‘social’ problems become medicalized in clinical research and practice. Her dissertation is about the history of clinical and social science research on patient behavior, specifically, patients’ compliance with their doctor’s advice.

Her teaching interests include the history of healthcare for underserved populations and the history of racial disparities in health in the United States.