Recently, a first-time foster mother visited UCR Health with two neglected and withdrawn children. Pediatrician Tejal Khandhar, DO, worked with her to provide nutrition guidance, updated vaccinations, speech therapy, and additional resources. Within a few months, Khandhar recalled, the children acted healthy and playful on their visit—and the foster mother felt relieved that they were improving.
“It's very empowering for her to know that she does have something to offer,” Khandhar explained. “When you have a child who has so much potential, but isn't being taken care of in the way that they should, just add their vaccines, their schooling, good nutrition plans for them, and then they thrive.”
For Khandhar, who is accepting new patients at UCR Health, helping kids is what she’s meant to do. She recalled frequently being around children when she was growing up, assisting as her mother babysat kids across a wide range of ages. “On my first day of pediatric rotations, I realized I was able to marry my academic interests with what was innate in me—to be around children,” Khandhar said. “It really grew from my family… and [from] me feeling that children really deserve the right to good health.”
Khandhar previously spent 16 years working at Kaiser Permanente Riverside Medical Center. She explained that she felt drawn to working in underserved areas, and particularly Riverside, a region she spent time while growing up.
Roopa Viraraghavan, a UCR Health pediatrician who also worked with Khandhar at Kaiser, recalled a patient with a particularly complex pediatric infectious disease whom Khandhar treated. “[Khandhar’s] ability to navigate complex clinical situations while maintaining a calm and empathetic approach helped both the child and family feel reassured during a stressful time,” Viraraghavan said. She added that Khandhar’s commitment to the local area is well suited to UCR. “Her work aligns with UCR Health's focus on serving underserved populations, and her dedication to understanding and addressing family concerns has fostered trust and improved healthcare outcomes,” Viraraghavan said.
“When I started working in 2007 I was really attracted to this area because it was growing a lot,” Khandhar explained. “Lots of families come to this area, raise their children here, and so I wanted to be at a place that needed more pediatricians and needed doctors to take care of children in this area.” She said she hasn’t looked back since.
Training new pediatricians for Riverside
In 2024, Khandhar came to the UC Riverside School of Medicine seeking an academic environment and the opportunity to work with medical students. She said that choosing to leave her Kaiser patients was difficult, especially those she’d known since childhood and who were now bringing their own children to see her. “But, I knew professionally that I could widen my impact in the pediatric world by working with students and future doctors and so that they could take good care of our pediatric patients here in the Inland Empire and Riverside,” Khandhar said of her decision. “It will be challenging and exciting and good to grow in this way, and I'll get a chance to perhaps make even more of an impact in this area.”
Khandhar said she enjoys working with medical students to help teach them to be effective pediatricians. She explained that her personal experience as a mother helps her connect to patients, and she teaches students to do the same. “A lot of us moms, sometimes we're like, are we doing enough?” Khandhar said, adding that she makes it a point to tell parents that they’re doing well. “We put a lot of pressure on ourselves nowadays to do a lot more that we think we should be doing, but we're already doing a lot by giving them the right nutrition, the right education, the right health care,” she said.
Experiencing motherhood, Khandhar said, has taught her to read between the lines with her patients and better understand their issues. For instance, she said she understands that a child throwing up overnight or not sleeping well has many implications for their caregiver. “I can tell them, hey, you must be really tired, because I've been there,” she said with a laugh. “I know that means you're cleaning sheets in the middle of the night, you're doing laundry, you're giving baths in the middle of the night, and then you have to get up and come here or go to your job.” She also said she gives caregivers a chance to vent to an understanding ear, something she appreciates when feeling overwhelmed by her own children.
Khandhar draws on her experience to teach students to think about patients’ statements and issues that may go unsaid. “Try to think about…what they might really be asking, what they might really be telling you, and acknowledge the fact that they must be really tired,” she said.
Already, Khandhar said medical education is the area she’s most proud of in her role. “I wanted to come here [to UCR] to get more future doctors that we're hoping will work within this area,” she said. “The more that I can get them trained and excited about pediatrics and working with children—that was my goal.”
Brian Sangalang, class of 2025, works with Khandhar as part of the SOM’s Longitudinal Ambulatory Care Experience (LACE) program, which pairs medical students with physicians in the community. “I was fortunate to meet some of her patients struggling with eating disorders and the way she took care of them modeled the version of a physician that I aimed to be,” Sangalang said.
Khandhar’s influence, he continued, led to his plans to complete his residency in Emergency Medicine and a fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine so that he can be a comforting voice for kids and parents. “I am so grateful to Dr. Khandhar for her guidance these past few years and I am excited to spread her influence to my future patients and their families,” he said.
Adwoa Osei, MD, a pediatrician at UCR Health and a health sciences associate clinical professor at UCR Health, praised Khandhar’s work with SOM students. “ I am honored that I get to partner with her in caring for patients and teaching our learners,” she said.
Keeping kids safe through research
Another focus for Khandhar at UCR is research centered on the needs of the local region. She joined a maternal research group at the SOM investigating the effect of maternal rest on postpartum depression and is also working on a project to identify and improve communication around local pediatric safety issues.
Pediatricians already give parents specific safety guidance depending on their child’s age, Khandhar explained, but her research aims to determine any particular issues specific to the Riverside area using data from emergency rooms, whether it’s swimming incidents for children or car accidents for teenagers. Then, she said, they’ll find ways to better share the hazards along with safety suggestions, such as through new signs in patient waiting areas.
“Really looking at the numbers specific to this area will increase our impact even more,” she said. “That's what's neat about being at a university, is that we have the ability to get that data, and we even have the ability to spread that data out,” she added. “In the end, what we want is healthy kids that don't get injuries that are preventable."
Khandhar noted the interest her colleagues have shown in new ideas. “Here at UCR…people want to hear and want to help and are excited to deliver this kind of healthcare in the Riverside area,” she said.
She hopes to continue helping grow UCR Health’s pediatric practice, which has increased its number of pediatricians and now offers services five days per week. “I'm really, really proud of building that, and giving that quality health care to families in this area, and access to a university type of health care,” Khandhar said. “We are a group that's very highly motivated by doing the right thing for children and helping any kind of and all kinds of children.”
