Dr. Prerna Mona Khanna

Medical Contributor
FOX Chicago News

Dr. Mona is a triple board-certified medical doctor and an Emmy award-winning medical journalist who immigrated to Chicago from India when she was an infant. She graduated as valedictorian from Joyce Kilmer Public School in Rogers Park before attending Arlington High School in Arlington Heights, IL. After graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, she went to medical school at the University of Illinois, where she is now a Visiting Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine. She is a winner of the 2010 Illinois Woman’s Press Association Reporting Award, 2010 Institute of Medicine of Chicago’s Global Humanitarian Award and 2008 University of Illinois Alumni Humanitarian Award.

 

Dr. Mona is the only medical doctor inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement, as well as the only career journalist inducted into the prestigious Institute of Medicine of Chicago and the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society. After completing medical school and three specialty residencies (internal medicine, public health/preventive medicine and occupational medicine), she became one of the country’s youngest medical directors. She left executive medicine in 2002 with the goal of empowering patients through health education on television, and worked as a medical reporter in Palm Springs and Dallas before returning home to Chicago. For her pioneering work in medicine and the media, Dr. Mona was honored by the Illinois State Society of Washington, D.C.

Medical coverage of disasters has a special significance for Dr. Mona. She has volunteered as an emergency aid worker for 12 years, and specializes in print, online and television reporting from disasters where she volunteers providing medical aid: from Port-au-Prince after the Haiti earthquake, from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, from Indonesia after the Indian Ocean tsunami and from the World Trade Center after the September 11th attacks. She is a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security, and her medical relief efforts have earned praise from Congress, Texas and California governors, City of Dallas, San Bernardino and Riverside counties and the Veterans Administration.

She has also hosted and co-produced two award-winning ½-hour medical specials "Diagnosis: Cancer," and "Cheap Medicine: Mexico's Medications."

A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Dr. Mona received her Emmy award for her creative feature "The Health Benefits of Chocolate." For her leadership in empowering people across the globe through television, radio, magazine, newspaper and online heath reports, and her work as an emergency medical aid volunteer, Dr. Mona has received almost 50 honors in the past 6 years, including 5 Emmy Award nominations, the Award of Valor from the National Association of Minority Media Executives and the Leadership Award from the American Medical Association Foundation. She has been recognized by the Chicago Indian-American Medical Association, Asian-American Journalists Association, the South Asian Journalists Association and the International Health and Medical Media Awards. She is a popular event speaker on health disparities, leadership, public health, emergency preparedness, and humanitarianism.

Personal fitness is important to Dr. Mona, who has been an avid lap swimmer for 23 years. A former Rotary Scholar, she loves reading and international travel, cuisine and film, especially Bollywood movies. She has studied medicine in Israel, Ukraine, Switzerland, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, and Japan.