Sapan Sharankishor Desai (born April 6, 1979) is an American ex-physician, and the owner of Surgisphere, originally a textbook marketing company that claimed to provide large sets of medical data on COVID-19 patients.
[2] A 2004 publication from his period in Chicago showed signs of data manipulation (numerous duplicated regions in photographs), upon re-examination in June 2020.
The New York Times described his performance at the Texas hospital as problematic and having "antagonized some supervisors" to the point that they asked for him to be expelled, but he passed the program.
[6] From July 2014 to May 2016, Desai was a vascular surgeon at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in charge of surgical simulation as vice chair of research.
[9] In February 2020, Desai resigned from Northwest Community Hospital in suburban Arlington Heights, Illinois "for family reasons"; at least four medical malpractice suits had been filed against him.
[10] In late July 2020, the New York Times said people "described him as a man in a hurry, a former whiz kid willing to cut corners, misrepresent information or embellish his credentials as he pursued his ambitions.
[13][14] Subsequently, Elisabeth Bik analyzed one of Desai's early first author papers and found evidence of apparent image manipulation.