Biography
Dr. Mascharak was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California. She earned her bachelor's degree in Molecular and Cell Biology with Honors from Stanford University, after which she spent several years working in industry and academic laboratories in and around San Francisco. She then attended medical school at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Mascharak moved to the Bronx for general surgery residency at Montefiore Einstein Medical Center, then returned to California to complete her training with a two-year surgical critical care and trauma/acute care surgery fellowship at Los Angeles General Medical Center (formerly LAC+USC).
Throughout her training, Dr. Mascharak had two main goals: to provide culturally competent, equitable care to underserved patients, and to develop as an educator. She has taught for decades in informal and formal capacities. In addition to didactic teaching, she has restructured resident curriculum, created simulations and materials for technical training, and incorporated “soft skills” such as ethics and dealing with second victim syndrome into medical education. She has won awards for her teaching from both medical students and her residency program, where she was education chief resident. She is an ATLS instructor.
Dr. Mascharak’s clinical interests include minimally invasive techniques in acute care surgery. She is also interested in the improvement of post-hospitalization surveillance and management of the chronic conditions which arise from trauma and acute care surgery: chronic wounds, abdominal wall hernia and enterocutaneous fistulae, and management of traumatic vascular repairs.