John Purakal, M.D., MS, Class of 2014, is an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Duke University School of Medicine. He holds appointments with the Duke-Margolis Center on Health Policy and the Samuel Dubois Cook Center for Social Equity.

Dr. Purakal has been an invited speaker locally, nationally and internationally on topics related to health equity, racial disparities in care and cardiovascular disease. His medical career started as a student at the Wayne State University School of Medicine, where he performed emergency medicine cardiovascular research under Phillip Levy. M.D., M.P.H. He went on to create a community initiative to provide multidisciplinary health education to at-risk populations around the city of Detroit. This work reached hundreds of Detroit residents and led to his receipt of the Arthur Johnson Leadership Award, the Ralph Wadley, M.D., Scholarship and the Crain's Detroit Business Twenty in their 20s Award.

Dr. Purakal completed his Emergency Medicine residency at the University of Illinois – Chicago, serving as chief resident his final year. He then began his academic career at the University of Chicago as an assistant professor in the Section of Emergency Medicine.

Since joining the Duke University School of Medicine in 2019, Dr. Purakal has worked to address unmet social needs in the emergency department patient population through development of a social needs screening program, utilizing student volunteers and cross-sectoral collaborations with platforms such as NCCare360. To date, this program has screened more than 1,000 patients, providing essential resources and referrals to community-based organizations to address unmet social needs. Additionally, he co-leads a Duke University Hospital violence recovery program for victims of community violence.

His research focuses on exploring health and racial disparities in care, and their intersection with unmet social needs. Dr. Purakal created the Health Equity Curriculum for the Duke Emergency Medicine Residency Program. His educational roles include serving as the founding Emergency Medicine Clerkship director for a new 16-week longitudinal curriculum for second-year medical students. Dr. Purakal co-chairs his department’s Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and helped lead a significant faculty recruitment expansion during the last two years. With a focus on enhancing diversity, the group hired 16 new faculty members, 38% of which identify as Black, Indigenous and People of Color, 25% from underrepresented in medicine populations and 63% identifying as female.

Dr. Purakal serves as a faculty mentor to multiple student organizations that address health inequities in the Durham community. He has received numerous awards for teaching, mentorship and leadership, and was the recipient of the 2022 American College of Emergency Physicians National Junior Faculty Teaching Award. For his work to reduce health disparities, he received the 2023 Duke University Presidential Award, Duke's highest individual honor, the 2023 Triangle Business Journal 40 in their 40s Leadership Award, and was invited to the White House last year to discuss his work in health equity.