May 24, 2022

This week’s Up-and-Comer is Dr. Dayana Maita, an infectious disease and internal medicine doctor with Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center.

Name: Dayana Maita

Age: 37

Hometown: Valencia, Venezuela

What brought you to Sioux Falls?

Work. After finishing my three-year fellowship in infectious diseases in Chicago, I needed to move to an area that would fulfill my professional goals and my work-visa requirements. I found a great opportunity at Avera McKennan Hospital & University Health Center. I moved here with my family in June 2019.

What keeps you in Sioux Falls?

Family and work. Sioux Falls is a nice city to raise a family. I am happy with my current position as an infectious diseases attending physician. I see a variety of patients and diseases from four different states: South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota. There is so much potential and growth not only in my current practice but also around the city. I would like to continue being a part of that.

What’s your favorite thing about your job?

My patients. Every one of them challenges me to think outside the box to come up with a diagnosis and a specific treatment. The best reward is to see a happy and grateful patient after successfully being treated.

How did you get connected to your profession?

Since I was a kid, I had a big interest in medicine. After taking microbiology and parasitology courses in med school, I developed a huge curiosity in infectious diseases. I moved to the U.S. in 2009, and I joined an infectious disease research lab in Boston, where I focused in the study of pathogenesis and treatment of serious bacterial infections, sepsis and induced inflammation from any cause. After my internal medicine residency, I decided to specialize in infectious disease and joined a fellowship program in Chicago.

Describe Avera Health in three words.

Diverse, friendly, professional.

What is something someone might be surprised to learn about you?

I got married to my high school sweetheart, and we have three boys, including a set of twins.

What’s your favorite way to give back to your community?

Providing mentorship to medical students and medical residents from the University of South Dakota as well as participating in infectious diseases marketing campaigns that can help inform and educate our community.

What’s one business you’d like to see in Sioux Falls that isn’t here now?

Trader Joe’s! We travel to Minneapolis and Omaha twice a year to stock up on TJ’s products.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I hope the pandemic is over, and we live in a better world, one free of war. I see myself as a leader as a female infectious disease physician devoted to my patients, family and community.