Scott Heysell, MD, MPH, is the Thomas H. Hunter Associate Professor of Internal Medicine, is a UVA Health physician-scientist who studies infectious diseases and their impacts on international health. Much of his practice has involved caring for patients with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and tuberculosis.
Heysell majored in English at Vanderbilt University before enrolling in medical school and earning a combined medical degree and master’s in public health from Oregon Health Sciences University. He completed residency training in internal medicine at Yale University, where he was selected as chief resident, before concluding an infectious diseases fellowship at UVA.
His research focuses on optimizing technologies and gaining a better understanding of anti-tuberculosis (TB) drug pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics to improve treatment outcomes in patients with mycobacterial diseases or with comorbid HIV, diabetes, and/or malnutrition. Consequent secondary areas of interest include the development of laboratory assays for pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies, the building of infrastructure for community-based research in TB-endemic settings, clinical trials of TB drug regimens, machine learning analyses for outcomes prediction, and health systems research for growing equity-based solutions to social drivers of health.