Official Website of The Washington Post's 'Ask A Doctor' Columnist and Harvard physician
Vanessa Leroy/The Washington Post
Hi, I'm Dr. PasrichA
I’m a physician and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. With over 15 years as a medical journalist, I am also the 'Ask a Doctor' columnist for The Washington Post where I answer health questions every Monday—from what to expect during a pelvic exam to what the science says about multivitamins.
My goal is to empower readers with information to make the best decisions about their own health. I love injecting my own sense of humor into my columns and offering straight talk about “embarrassing” topics. Anyone who does colonoscopies for a living like me can’t be bashful—for example, my column leading with “Pooped your pants?” I’m proud to say was a first for The Washington Post.
My upcoming book You've Been Pooping All Wrong (Penguin Random House; Spring 2026) aims to de-stigmatize this normal bodily process and unravel the secrets of the brain-gut connection to make pooping a breeze.
I trained at Johns Hopkins Hospital at the Osler Internal Medicine residency program and then completed gastroenterology and neurogastroenterology fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital. During that time, I also earned a Master of Public Health from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and I continue to advise pre-medical students at Harvard University. As a physician-scientist in neurogastroenterology, I am the director of clinical research at the BIDMC Institute for Gut-Brain Research investigating how the brain and gut communicate with each other. My laboratory has been awarded by the prestigious American Gastroenterological Association and Parkinson's Foundation.
To read my latests 'Ask A Doctor' columns, which publish online every Monday morning, visit the Well+Being page of The Washington Post.
Is my poop normal?
Tune-up your body: A health checklist for every age
More young people are getting cancer. Can I lower my risk?
fOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM @trishapasrichamd
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IN THE PRESS
"The brain and the gut are in constant communication via an intricate network of nerve fibers called the vagus nerve. This information superhighway, as it’s often called, runs between the brain and the abdomen and is the reason our thoughts affect our guts so uniquely. Recall from high school biology that it took merely the thought of food for Pavlov’s dog to begin salivating."
TRISHA PASRICHA, MD, MPH
The New York Times, February 14, 2023