Asniya’s mission is to inspire and empower underserved Native American children with medical knowledge and opportunities.
Asniya is a non-profit outreach program that recruits medical students to teach health and medicine to indigenous children. "Asniya interns" deliver dynamic hands-on classroom presentations to captivate children’s interest in medical science, disease prevention, and careers in health care. For more than 25 years Asniya has inspired Native youth while expanding the cultural awareness of future physicians.
Ashley Fernandes

Ashley K. Fernandes, MD, PhD, is the Director of the Professionalism Competency, the Associate Director of the Center for Bioethics and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and Nationwide Children’s Hospital. He received an MA in Philosophy from Johns Hopkins University; an MD from The Ohio State University; and a PhD in Philosophy from Georgetown University. Dr. Fernandes is board certified in General Pediatrics.

Focusing on bioethics and professionalism educational scholarship, he has been appointed the Director of Competency for Professionalism at the College of Medicine. His scholarly interests include Medicine and the Holocaust studies, pediatric ethics, and philosophical anthropology as it relates to medical practice and social justice. He was a hospital pediatrician for 13 years before continuing his clinical work in ambulatory pediatrics.

In 2002 he and his now-wife, Shruti Shivpuri Fernandes, a family practitioner, were Asniya interns at Pine Ridge, SD. He credits Asniya with opening his eyes to issues of social justice and advocacy within the practice of medicine and joined the Board in 2014.

Dr. Fernandes is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, an elected member of the AAP’s National Executive Committee on Bioethics, a member of the AOA Medical Honor Society, and a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, receiving the Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine award in 2010. He has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards, most recently The Ohio State University College of Medicine’s Linda C. Stone Award in Mentorship in 2019, and the “Courage to Teach” and “Inspire” Awards. Dr. Fernandes is also a member of the Catholic Medical Association, which also awarded him the national Mentor of the Year Award in 2015.

He is the author of numerous publications in bioethics and medical education, including two book chapters on Medicine and the Holocaust. He lives with Shruti and his two sons in Dublin, Ohio.

"The path to one’s strength, pride, integrity, and wisdom often starts with a vision as a child. Our children may be granted visions in many ways. Often, it is through a teacher with a pure heart."
  • Asniya.org
    PO Box 746
    Rapid City, SD, 57709
    info@asniya.org