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Rajasekhar Buddhavarapu MD

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About Me — Rajasekhar Buddhavarapu, MD
Portrait of Dr. Buddhavarapu 900 × 1200 px · 3:4 · natural light, real office — no stock
Rajasekhar Buddhavarapu, MD — known to my patients, for many years now, simply as Dr. Buddha.
About me

Medicine taught me many things. Patients taught me what matters.

I trained in internal medicine, then went further — fellowships in geriatrics, in palliative care, and in integrative medicine at the Andrew Weil Center. Each discipline offered a different lens on the same truth: a human being is more than a chart.

Geriatrics taught me complexity — the art of caring for a person carrying four diagnoses, ten medications, and eighty years of life at once. Palliative medicine taught me that comfort and dignity are not what we offer when treatment fails; they are treatment. And integrative medicine granted me permission to look beyond the prescription pad — toward nutrition, toward mind and body, toward traditions of healing older than our hospitals.

I have spent my career building the kind of care I believe in — as Chief of Geriatrics at New York Downtown Hospital, as Director of Geriatric and Palliative Care at White Plains Hospital, and today as medical director and palliative consultant to nursing and rehabilitation facilities across Westchester. In 2016, I founded Serene Integrative HealthCare. But the heart of my week remains my own small practice — where the medicine I believe in has room to breathe.


Training & recognition

The record, plainly stated

Board Certifications
Internal Medicine · Geriatric Medicine · Hospice & Palliative Medicine · Integrative Medicine
Medical School
Osmania Medical College, Hyderabad, India
Residency
Internal Medicine, NYU Downtown Hospital and Brookdale Hospital & Medical Center · A year of Psychiatry at Brookdale — training that still shapes how I understand the emotional dimensions of pain
Fellowships
Geriatrics & Palliative Care, Flushing Hospital Medical Center · Integrative Medicine, Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona
Hospital Leadership
Chief, Division of Geriatrics and Program Director of Palliative Care, New York Downtown Hospital (2005–2011) · Director of Geriatrics & Palliative Care, White Plains Hospital (2011–2016), where I established the hospital's palliative and geriatric consultation services · Co-Chair, Medical Ethics Committee
Current Roles
Founder & Medical Director, Serene Integrative HealthCare (since 2016) · Medical Director, Greenwich Woods Health Care Center · Palliative care and symptom management consultant to long-term care facilities including The Enclave at Rye and The Riverside
Recognition
Castle Connolly Top Doctor, Westchester County and New York Metro Area · Recognized as a New York Super Doctor
Teaching & Community
Developed the geriatrics curriculum for NYU Downtown Hospital's residency program · Preceptor to medical and nurse practitioner students · Grand Rounds speaker on dementia, frailty, polypharmacy, and ethical dilemmas · Medical Advisory Board, Sharp Again · Former board member, Westchester End of Life Coalition
Additional
Certified Medical Marijuana Practitioner, New York · Recipient of a $300,000 grant to launch an acute care program for hospitalized patients
"Comfort and dignity are not what we offer when treatment fails. They are treatment."
— the lesson palliative medicine taught me
Wide photograph — the office or Main Street 2200 × 940 px · 21:9 · quiet, unstaged, real location
How I practice

Unhurried, thorough, and honest

When you become my patient, the first thing I give you is time. Our first meeting is long by design — I want the whole of your story: the medical history, certainly, but also how you sleep, what you eat, what worries you, what you have already tried, and what you hope to reclaim. Only then do I begin to think about a plan.

The plan itself draws on everything I have: conventional medicine where it serves you, integrative approaches where they serve you better, and honest referrals when another's hands are the right ones. I coordinate with your existing specialists rather than replace them.

And then — this, to me, is the heart of it — I stay. You reach me directly when you need me. We refine the plan as your life and health evolve. Medicine, practiced properly, is not a transaction. It is a relationship that deepens over years.

Supporting photograph 1600 × 1000 px · 16:10 · consultation or waiting room
Optional caption in Dr. B's voice — one line, never a slogan.

My colleague

The office I share

I practice at 69 Main Street in Tuckahoe, in an office I share with Dr. Peter Zheng — a good friend, a mentor, and a physician whose skills complement mine in ways our patients benefit from directly.

Headshot
600 × 600 px

Peter Zheng, MD

Board Certified in Pain Management and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation · New York State Certified in Acupuncture

Dr. Zheng treats a broad range of pain conditions — low back and neck pain, radicular and neuropathic pain, headaches, arthritis and joint pain — combining interventional techniques with complementary approaches. When my patients need PRP therapy, acupuncture, or an interventional procedure, they walk down the hall to someone I trust completely.

If you'd like to talk

That's my story. I'd be glad to hear yours.

If the way I practice sounds like the care you've been looking for, call or write. We'll talk about what you're facing, and whether my practice is the right fit.

Office 69 Main Street, Tuckahoe, New York