Host: Hello, everyone. Welcome to our first Med n’ Ed interview. I, Roshni Danda will be your host. And today I will be representing Med n’ Ed, joined with us today is a special guest, Dr. Ihssan Kadaan. And before we get started, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to be here with us today. That being said, let’s jump right in. So how are you doing today? Doctor?

Dr. Kaadan: Good, good. Thank you for hosting me. And it’s really interesting to see your organization and all the work that you guys are doing.

Host: So just to kind of give an overview, today’s discussion is mainly revolved around the doctors aspect of health care, however, I first need to quickly address the elephant in the room, which is COVID-19. As of now, the infection rates are spiking, and it looks like a second wave is imminent. So doctor, how’s the situation on your side?

Dr. Kaadan: I mean, currently, like, as you hear from the news, the cases, numbers are rising, here in the US, in Massachusetts, in particular. And all over the world, obviously, even in my back home country, and Syria, also, the number of cases are rising significantly, actually, so we can see this second wave, you know, and that was actually expected that will go into to have like this second wave. But there is a lot of optimism that, you know, with the news related to the vaccine, hopefully we can control this pandemic very soon. 

Host: Yeah, hopefully. Yeah. And would you like to tell the viewers a little bit about yourself, like your profession,or, how you came about pursuing, you know, a job in the medical field? 

Dr.Kaadan:  Sure. So actually, I’m originally from Syria. I went to medical school over there, I graduated from Aleppo University Hospital, where I got my training, but where I studied was in university faculty of medicine. I did one year of training over there. As I said, in a university hospital, then, because the situation got complicated, in Syria, I decided to come here to the US to pursue advanced medical training, and I continue my career in medicine. But actually, since I was a high school student, I always wanted to be a doctor. And that’s why I trust in order to go to medical school after high school. And I don’t know if everybody knows that, but it seems like it’s a different system than the US. So in Syria, and like other parts of the world, actually, if you go to medical school, right after graduation from high school, so you don’t need to do undergrad and in grad school.

Host: Oh, I didn’t know that. So thank you for telling us. And I’m fascinated by how doctors, you know, take the extra mile to help people or risking their lives. So again, thank you so much for what you do. And we’re all appreciative of this, especially in unprecedented times. So would you like to share your experiences in the medical industry, for example, how being a doctor impacted your life personally.

Dr.Kaadan: Right. So actually, as I said, After graduation, I moved here to the US. I did some like, you know, looking and observing the health system here in the US before I joined my current medical training program. I also did Master’s in health spots and International Health Policy and Management here in Massachusetts. After that, I went to do some research in cardiology at Mass General Hospital, one of the Teaching Hospitals of Harvard Medical School. And then after that, I joined the Internal Medicine Residency Program here at Boston Medical Center. And that’s the Teaching Hospital of Boston University. So, I mean, it’s really busy to be a doctor, especially during training. I used to have a lot of things to do before joining medical school. That’s including, you know, research and like worrying and like working and volunteering in terms of public health, but it was rewarding, you know, to be a doctor, treating patients, especially during this pandemic also has been stressful in the past like, I know since March, when everything started here in Massachusetts. But it’s like rewarding when you talk to patients when you see them that they got the treatment that they need, and when they improve. So it’s really good feeling, actually. And there are, as you know, different type of fields in medicine. So currently, what I’m doing is internal medicine. That we don’t do surgery that’s obviously different than this surgery. So we don’t do surgery, we do some procedures, but not like a surgery per se. So that’s different. And that makes our lifestyle. Maybe it’s really personol about, in my opinion, I feel it’s better than like, you know, spending most of my time, you know, doing surgery that takes obviously more time, actually.

Host: Yeah, that’s really great to hear. So, moving on to like the gist of today’s discussion. What’s your opinion on healthcare accessibility in places you’ve worked before? Have you experienced it or seen it like first handedly, in places that don’t have proper health care? Would you like to share your experiences about it?

Dr.Kaadan: So it depends actually, for example, in Syria, we, sometimes it’s challenging to have health care accessibility, just like in the remote area, or like in the suburb, compared to the people who are in the city, we do not have, like, Here’s to the US like insurance system. But actually, there are hospitals funded by the government. So people can just like show up whoever and whoever in Syria, either you’re Syrian or not Syrian, just show up to the hospital, you get the treatment you want. So in terms of accessibility, it’s better in the cities, as I said, compared to other places. But unfortunately, that’s the situation changed since 2011. Because of the pandemic. And, I mean, because of the conflict, I’m sorry, but I mean, it’s got worse because of the pandemic in Syria. However, here in the US, like we adopted because of the pandemic, for instance. We are more dependent on telehealth. So patients, they don’t need to come to the clinic in person, for example, to be seen or like to talk to their PCP. We can manage many things over the phone. For example, if a patient needs a management or like titration for their blood pressure, medication or for insulin for the diabetes medication, we can obviously do that over the phone, if they are able and they have access to check their blood pressure blood ketones. I mean, excuse me, I’m putting this mask speak on the hospital library.

Host: Yeah,, it’s completely fine. And so let’s move on to the biggest predicament The world is facing today. COVID-19. So how as like, you medical professionals been impacted by COVID-19. I know you kind of talked about it already, like maybe, go more in depth. So the viewers can kind of have a chance to choose.

Dr.Kaadan: I mean, it’s really a different dynamic. The reason for that, I remember like back in March, April, and may, I spend a lot of time kind of 100% of my time treating COVID patients. The reason it’s difficult, just like people, you know, get sick very quickly, and like kind of might deteriorate quickly compared to other conditions, or especially flu for example. And we see this turn over like, you know, with the clinical status, you know, like between the day eight to 12 a timeout To be more specific around day 10, they turn quickly. And for example, if somebody doesn’t require oxygen and you feel that all the sudden they need oxygen to breathe. The other thing actually so this is the critical change in their health that was important. The other important thing is like the PPE so before you see the patient obviously need to count or to word or the PP that takes more time actually. And kind of it’s kind of another buyer for war because as I said, it takes more time that to go and talk to the room and like see the patient. And as I kind of mentioned before, we’re doing less in person as an outpatient or we see those patients In person in the clinic, and instead we are depending on telehealth either zoom or like what just like call them over the phone. So kind of those like changes and shifts? We did over the past few months, because of this.

Host: Yeah. And  COVID-19 has obviously like, definitely, I’m sorry, sorry. so COVID-19 definitely has impacted like, the accessibility to health care. So, can you like explain that a bit? Like, because some people can’t, like you said, can’t, you know, meet the doctors in person. So there’s like a lot of diseases that are neglected because of COVID-19. So can you, you know explain that?

Dr. Kaadan: So some people actually, they obviously afraid to get out from home, take the public transportation token here in Boston, because many people depend on public transportation. They don’t want to come to the hospital they so they become exposed to COVID. And that’s especially true in the very beginning. When mask, were not recommended for everybody, as you remember, the recommendation initially was like people who work in health care should wear the mask, and not everybody. And obviously, that changed over time. So that recommendation, now everybody needs to wear mask. So,  at that time, actually, we see less people are interested to come to the hospital and like see their doctor in the clinic, because they don’t want to be exposed for more coverage. So that’s, again, like decreased accessibility, and like, less people got seen in the clinic. And as you know, people are sitting around, not exercising, as they used to be, not going to the gym, that actually made the chronic diseases worse, in terms of like gaining weight, and that you know, that gaining weight, affected diabites in general, and the hypertension does. So those people kinda, if they are not monitoring there, they don’t monitor their blood pressure, for example, or they a fetus or PCP chip on them. And a regular pace, obviously, they kind of affected by the pandemic.

Host: Yeah, I completely agree. it’s definitely like Covid-19 has definitely made it really hard for like, all all of us, in fact. And do you think that we are receiving like an adequate amount of information about COVID-19? Like, how? How to protect ourselves from the virus and stuff like that? Do you think that we should receive more information from like medical professionals about how to take care for ourself?

Dr. Kaadan: I think people really need to understand that it’s really a serious pandemic. People really need like to take things seriously to avoid gathering, all those like recommendation made by CDC, I think at some point, a can point to now. All during this time, we have more data, more information to know about the pandemic, and like this,  information almost available for everybody there on the internet on the TV. I think what we need now is compliance with those, you know, avoid social gatherings, especially now we’re heading toward like holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. So I think we need to particularly pay attention on compliance. More than like, anytime before, especially like during this, transition? I mean, between now and until the vaccine become available for everybody.

Host: Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I think that a lot of people are neglecting the things that the health officials have, you know, placed and like, you know, a lot of people are not wearing masks, especially in like, the villages because it hasn’t been, you know, explained or emphasized in like, enough for them, like, you know, 

Dr. Kaadan: so I think it’s very critical to communicate that with the people about the man very, very important. I know that that some part of the world it’s like, not everybody can afford a mask, but I mean, people got alternatives to us, obviously. You know, then masks. 

Host: Yeah, so like I was saying like in underprivileged areas, you know, combination was a big hit. And also, they a lot of people don’t wear masks. Because they think it’s not important and you know, call the 90s, like, nothing doesn’t really matter. So do you think there’s any way to help them understand or even like, you know, help them regarding health care accessibility that we can do as citizens or?

Dr. Kaadan: Sure,  I think one of the key very important measures we should take all of us is, is wearing a mask. That to protect ourselves, to protect other people, you know, from transmitting diseases. Probably at this time, like, as a young people, we might get sick and infected, but not to the level and the Syrian seriousness, as as of the older people, and if I don’t like have, like, we see like low number of, of people who die in the younger age, compared to the older age, that does not mean we should not be compliant with the mask. Because what we want, we want, collectively to protect ourselves from this pandemic,  I think I cannot emphasize more How important is wearing the mask?

Host: Yeah, I completely agree. All right, so I’ve asked a lot of questions already. And, so are there any organizations that people can donate to to help with COVID-19? Or, you know, helping underprivileged areas, specifically?

Dr. Kaadan: I think everybody of us, like has a community.  I think we should look around about like, look around us to see if there is a local community, I’m talking, like here international are not talking the US and they can move later to the US, I think we can all look around about local organization that might try to support them in like a PPE is in a mask or even like donating like money to them. I think that’s very critical to collectively work together. And, like, in the US, also, I remember in the beginning of the pandemic, people really spent like, a lot of time donating, from money and enforce and like, there’s time there to help the health care providers, you know, fighting this pandemic, all together in a way that they actually managed and like help to, to assemble the dish facials, so everybody can get more protected for this. Also, they donated food, like support as well, like even this support, even like if people like they don’t have money or like they don’t have the capacity to help, like financially, you know, they just can support, like, raise awareness of this pandemic, actually, I think, that’s the most important thing like to encourage each other, you know, how to protect yourself and to protect the other people, I think that the most important take home message and help we can help be has get provided with.

Host: Yeah, I completely agree. I think that, the best thing you can do is kind of work together to kind of, you know, raise awareness about how important this virus is or like, how important it is to social distance, wear masks. So that is everything that we have to discuss today. So that is Dr. Kanaan everyone. Thank you so much for being here today. I wish you all the best. And please, please stay safe. And we have like a lot of COVID cases already. So yeah.

Dr. Kaadan: Thank you so much. And I really encourage you and everybody to take care of themselves. Like you know, and it’s really great what you’re doing, like raising awareness about COVID Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Host: Okay, thank you.

Host: Hello, everyone, welcome to episode three of our series doctors aspect on healthcare. Today we are talking to a very special guest, Dr. Inna Hussain. First of all, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be here today. Let’s get started. So how are you doing your doctor? 

Guest: Oh, so I’m doing well. Thank you for inviting me to speak today. 

Host: It is our pleasure to have you with us. Would you like to tell us about tell our viewers a little bit about yourself and your specialty? 

Guest: Sure. So I am an academic laryngologist. A laryngologist is actually an otolaryngologist are also known as an ear, nose and throat doctor who has done additional training to specialize in the throat, or also known as the larynx. And so I primarily manage conditions related to voicing, difficulty swallowing, difficulty breathing, both medically and surgically. So that is kind of my specialty and what I do.

Host: Thank you so much. So Dr. Hussain, can you tell your viewers where you’re located and where you practice?

Guest: Sure. So I’m actually speaking to you guys right now from where I work. I am actually a section head of laryngology at Rush University Medical Center, which is located in Chicago.

Host: Did you always wanted to become a doctor? Or was there a particular moment when you realize that medicine is your calling? 

Guest: Sure. Um, so I actually grew up in a family where there was a lot of physician so I was very well kind of aware of that as an option. My path actually took a little bit different turn, I was actually interested initially in public health and health policy. And because of that, as an undergraduate student, when I was in college, I actually studied abroad in South Africa for a semester. And while we were there, we were doing a lot of community outreach, work with a local village in which a lot of the members had HIV and AIDS. And I think the moment came for me when I decided to switch paths was when I met one of these patients who was actually the same age as me at the time. And she was actually dying of AIDS. And I think just kind of speaking with her, and she kind of you know, came in and was like, I know why you guys are here, you’re trying to help with policies and protocols, but what are you actually going to do to help me and when she said that, I think it really affected me in kind of this desire to kind of have that one on one interaction with people to really help solve an individual’s problem primarily. And so I think that was my focus away from kind of a career in public health, and more in a career in actually treating individual patients. And that’s how I got into medicine.

Host: That is honestly, the greatest thing about being a professional, right, when you actually get your calling from the environment, and you’re actually interacting with all these people.

So what’s your opinion on healthcare in the United States are their major shortcomings and strength according to you?

Guest: I would say that the topic of health care in the United States is actually a really complicated one, right? like nothing’s very straightforward or an easy answer. I think it would be a lie to say that there are no shortcomings, there’s definitely shortcomings with within our healthcare system. And I think a lot of those have to do with access to care being a big issue. And then the difficulty in kind of navigating the healthcare system. So it’s a little bit different than access to care. Even if you technically have access to care, meaning good health care system located near really great hospitals, just trying to figure out how to go about getting care can be difficult, and then the cost. And so even with you know, official insurance and everything, the cost can just be so burdensome, that it makes it difficult to really take advantage of that and get healthy. Now, at the same time. I think there are definitely some benefits to the healthcare system in the United States. I think one of them really is a sense of kind of collaboration and innovativeness. And I think we see this a lot of times in academic hospitals, but also in community hospitals as well, where there’s a lot of funding that’s going towards research and innovation and getting that out to patients through things like clinical trials and clinical research. And I think that’s a really robust part of the US healthcare system that makes kind of one of its strengths.

Host: And I know you kind of mentioned this, but does everyone have access to health care there? And are there changes being made to improve this According to your experience, what happens? 

Guest: So I would say that no, everyone does not have access to healthcare in the United States. And unfortunately, that is that is just the truth of the matter. I think, you know, access to care has to do with things such as socioeconomic status, where you are located, and also just lifestyle, right. So if you have, you know, two jobs, and you can’t afford to take time off, well, that’s also not having access to health care. 

Host: So there’s a lot of people, unfortunately, united States that do not have access to health care, in terms of are there changes that are being made? 

Guest: I would say yes, I mean, I think the first whenever you are faced with a problem is to identify the problem and acknowledge it. And I think in this country, we are now vocally acknowledging that a disparity in access to care does exist. I don’t know if it took something like a pandemic, to bring that to light. But people I think, especially healthcare professionals are very vocal now about being champions to try to create change. on an individual hospital system basis, there are a lot of programs that hospitals are now creating to try to provide care to different communities that in the past have not had so much access, and that is things like mobile health care, units, outreach, kind of like a marketing type of program to get information out to people. And so there are different initiatives kind of being done so that we can capture more patients, and people who need health care.

Host: Absolutely. And that’s really insightful. Thank you so much. So now let’s talk about the biggest predicament facing the world COVID-19 pandemic, how does COVID How has COVID-19 impacted you professionally, as well as personally? 

Guest: Sure, I mean, I think, you know, everybody in this world has been affected by COVID-19. You know, the pandemic in some way, one way or the other, for me professionally. So, as a laryngologist, I am in the upper airway, that is where I do my work, right. And so you can imagine that my evaluations in the office require essentially scoping through the nose and the throat. I mean, one of my specialties is actually chronic cough. So I have a practice full of people who are chronically coughing in the office. And so this was very kind of, you know, stressful initially when this all came because this is upper respiratory, you know, respiratory virus. And so in terms of my practice itself, initially, our entire kind of hospital system, shut down in person visits, and especially within our department, we very quickly adopted, pp, and we were thankful that we have access to that. So I, by about May, we started kind of seeing patients in person with our pp. And to be honest, I still to this point where that so in terms of my interactions with patients, so I now I wear an N 95 masks, I wear a face shield, I wear a scrub hat, I wear scrubs, actually to put a picture of myself in my office for patients who are new to the practice so that they could see what I look like, like who they’re talking to. We’ve done precautions where patients have to wear masks, even during procedures. And if I do anything really invasive in the office, such as vocal cord biopsies, or injections or things that are more manipulative than the upper airway, I have to get COVID testing just for safety reasons. So I think that’s really affected. Kind of the flow of the practice, I would say that I still see everybody, right. So this was my calling to be this type of physician surgeon. And so I still see everyone, I just protect myself every time I do it. And so it’s kind of a kind of a new groove. And you know, with things kind of changing now, we’ll see if that really changes my practice. Or I just may continue to wear a mask for the rest of time.

Host: So, additionally, what impact do you think COVID-19 has had on access to health care? 

Guest: Sure. So in terms of access to health care, I mean, I think it’s very well documented that COVID-19 affected different communities in different ways. And most of this is when we talk about people of color. So high rates of kind of deaths and morbidity in patients of African American kind of descent or black descent compared to white Americans and that’s like a huge, a huge disparity. Right? So I think that COVID has brought that even more to light, like the different groups are affected differently, and that’s kind of the biggest one. I would say. Other kind of issues that have brought to light are kind of the the long term or the long haul symptoms of COVID-19 Patients are facing in terms of who has access to a pulmonologist in the outpatient setting to continue to follow up for shortness of breath, who has access to see somebody such as myself a laryngologist for persistent hoarseness or voice changes after COVID-19.

So it’s not just you know, getting diagnosed and getting treatment properly. It’s also what happens with the chronic effects of it. Do you have access to care to people help you through that you have access to the rehab services that help you get better from having, you know, devastating disease. And I think that’s also an area that’s kind of lacking inclusion and an area of disparity for these patients, unfortunately. So long term care must also be looked at is what you’re telling the viewers and I think myself, I didn’t know much about the after effects of COVID-19. And I feel like that needs to be advertised a little bit more or just talked about a little bit more. Right.

Host: So do you think changes are being made specifically because of this pandemic? Or are there changes being made at all?

Guest So with regards to kind of access to care, you mean, oh, with regards to the pandemic, or?

Host:  Yeah, I guess access to care, but also Sure, the disease itself? 

Guest: Sure. So, I mean, I’ll say that this pandemic has kind of really shaken life in the US or the world as we know it, and specifically within kind of healthcare, right. So how hospitals and clinicians and everybody operates is going to be forever changed because of this pandemic, I think a couple of things that come to mind. One is, you know, this more kind of being vocal about the disparities that exists. I think, currently, you know, a lot of that is being focused on kind of access to care regarding COVID-19. But I think that it starts the discussion. And so then that can translate to other things like access to care regarding cancer, for example, or cardiovascular disease or diabetes. It just brings to light that like all of these individual disease processes. There’s differences between kind of who can access care for them and who can’t. So I think it’s bringing to light more of these underlying issues that have been here for generations, and just haven’t really been spoken about. So that’s one thing. The second thing regarding kind of COVID-19 is that now we’re in the phase of trying to get everyone vaccinated. Right, so we’re trying to get the vaccine out. So currently, in most states, it’s just available to kind of frontline or health care workers and then moving along into higher risk groups. And so one of the discussions that’s come out is how is this vaccine can be distributed, right? Like if you’re just going to distribute it to kind of the downtown Main Hospital, or the people who are really dying from it and to get access to it? And that’s like a big question. And so I think, at least at my institution, one of the things we’re trying to make sure is happening is that the communities, especially in the south side of Chicago, where we know a lot of people are affected by COVID-19, somehow have access to this vaccine, right? So it can’t possibly just be Oh, come on into your normal hospital. While these patients may never see a physician, where will they go to get the vaccine, so bringing it to a way that that is easily accessible for them, helping them get information about when the vaccine is available for them, they may not have cell phones, they may not have emails in which to check to see. So I think a lot of this will be about changing how we approach those groups about information about the vaccine.

Host: Absolutely. So in many underprivileged areas, COVID-19 was remarkably severe, as you’ve mentioned, some areas. What do you think we as a society can, how do you think we can help them?

Guest: You know, I think that’s a really difficult answer. And the reason for that is help needs to come in a multitude of ways, right? It’s not just let’s help them get a COVID test, or let’s help them get admitted when they need treatment for COVID. It’s, it’s more about let’s do all of that. But also, you know, how are they going to get dinner for their children if they’re admitted to the hospital for three weeks? Right? Like, what’s going to happen with child care if schools are closed? Because this pandemic continues? I I’m a working mom. And I’ll tell you, even in my position, and I will say as a health care worker, to a certain extent, there’s amount of privilege that I have right, comparatively, but it’s been a struggle. I mean, with schools closed and stuff, it’s it’s been a struggle, and I can only imagine for other families, you know, where they’re very reliant on their hourly wage, it’s going to be even a bigger struggle. So I think, you know, providing resources for things like child care, access to food. There’s a lot of kind of food deserts in this country and a lot of people including children, go ahead hungry every night. And so remembering that those things are exacerbated whenever there is something like a pandemic or an emergency state in a, in a city or a country. So focusing not just on how do we get patients, you know, COVID-19 testing and vaccine, but who’s taking care of the children? Who’s making sure that there’s food on the table? What kind of resources are available for kind of economic stability? And if that’s not there, those communities will not survive?

Host: Absolutely. So probably a more holistic approach would definitely have them with that. Definitely. Do you think the information we’re receiving from the media about COVID-19? is adequate? Is there any part of it you’d like to emphasize? Or perhaps exaggerate any born point?

Guest: Yeah, I think overall, the media is doing a pretty good job in terms of kind of expressing the severity of what’s happening. I think most of the problem is, the people don’t want to listen, right? So it’s not that it’s not information is not out there. I think, you know, some more personal stories may have a bigger impact, as opposed to just like putting up big numbers of hundreds of 1000s of people infected, I think people need to see that these were actual people, these were your neighbors, these were your family, these were your friends, who were these people that are being affected by COVID. I think there’s not a not enough demonstration of what it’s like, kind of in hospitals and on this and like what it actually means you may see a picture of us wearing a mask, maybe a shield. But there’s a certain amount of trauma that comes from being continuously bombarded by the possibility of getting sick yourself possibility of spreading it to your family possibility, or watching people get sick and die. And so I think a little bit more personal. Take on it. If the media did that, I think it would just touch people in a different way. And reach people who may be are not being reached currently. 

Host: For sure, especially knowing that you’re a doctor and your everyday exposed to a lot of risks. I think that would really show personal stories. And people connect on a personal level to mimic and the numbers not being just the numbers of death and the number of cases but actually being people being affected. 

Guest: Right, right. Definitely.

Host. So Its amazing. It was amazing. Honestly, you’re listening to all of that. super informative for viewers as well. My next question is about how your experience was getting the COVID-19 vaccine? 

Guest: Sure. So I at my institution, I was part of the kind of first group, so the first week of vaccination. So I’m actually getting my second vaccine this weekend. I would say that, you know, our system was actually really organized, it was in terms of the process for me, I received an invitation, I was able to schedule, I was able to kind of walk in and get the injection. I did pretty well with it. I had definitely some muscle aches at night. But nothing that was kind of persistent past the next day I was able to work out hang out with the kids and stuff the next day. So it wasn’t that type of problem. I think it was incredibly overwhelming. And an emotional experience will be very frank, walking into the kind of vaccine Hall and watching all my colleagues get vaccinated. I mean, I think we shared a lot of kind of like, like an emotional connection, like finally seeing, maybe there’s some possibility that we could get over this pandemic. So it was a very emotional time to be honest. I’m waiting for my second dose now. So I’m kind of excited for that. Watching kind of family and friends start to get vaccinated. I mean, it’s just a very overwhelmingly emotional experience. I think part of the emotionality that comes with it is when you live day to day, faced with what is actually happening, right, like we’re not quite isolated from it. So when you hear about people, you know, dying from COVID, or seeing the sequel like I do in the office of people who are really sick and now don’t have a voice have trouble breathing, can’t swallow. It really shows you how devastating this diseases and so the the ability to get the vaccine. I mean, it’s just it’s, it was amazing. It was just I just hope that it quickly gets distributed so that everybody who wants one can get one. That’s really my hope for the future. 

Host: And I’m sure it probably just felt like a moment where you see the light at the end of the tunnel and it just brings very hopeful right so well was the whole procedure like in terms of yours, or anything like that with the vowel from the vaccine? Right? 

Guest: Sure. Um, so I, I would say that the vaccine itself didn’t actually really hurt and I’m kind of to be, it’s kind of funny, but I’m actually scared of like needles. So I was a little bit nervous.

I actually had a pharmacist and a pharmacy tech so that pharmacy tech actually gave me the injection. They actually go about two finger breaths below your shoulder, inject a few seconds. When homos fine about three or four hours later, I would say that I started to feel some ache Enos and that deltoid muscle, a little bit of a penis in my back. That kind of continued over the evening. And then when I woke up in the morning, kind of, generally, just some soreness if you guys have ever received like a tetanus shot, it kind of felt like that, but probably a little bit more. But by the next day at noon, it was there was really nothing. So it was actually not bad at all. 

Host: Yeah. That’s really good to hear. So that is all we have for the interview today. Thank you so much. Dr. Hussain. 

Guest: Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me on. It was a pleasure. It has been wonderful talking to you and thank you for all that you are doing in the community.

Host: For everyone watching today have gained some valuable knowledge from this.

And I’d like to lastly also like to thank all the viewers and please remember to stay safe. Thank you

Interviewer: Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of a Doctor’s Aspects on Healthcare. Today, we have a very special guest with us, Dr. Slim. Thank you so much for being with us here today and taking time out of his very busy day. So, how are you doing today?

Dr. Slim: I am fine, I am very fine. Thank you for inviting me. I’m so excited to be here.

Interviewer: Thank you so much. We’re very excited. So, would you like to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself?

Dr. Slim: Okay, I am formally known as Dr. Slim, simply because I am slim. I am slim so they call me slim.

Interviewer: Wow, that’s great. Where are you located and where do you practice medicine?

Dr. Slim: Well, I am from East Africa, a country known as Tanzania, and I am located in the local region. I practice at the Mercy Medical Center.

Interviewer: Okay, and while you were doing medicine, Was there a moment when you decided that this is what I want my job to be, and I want my career to be? Or was it just when you were a kid that you wanted to grow up and go into medicine?

Dr. Slim: No, it’s quite a long story but cutting it short, I had other ambitions like going into biology or becoming a teacher or something else. But in 1998, my sister was involved in an accident and she got burned on her left lower limb. She was diagnosed with (didn’t catch it). Then, after some time she was taken to the hospital. Many professionals tried to diagnose and do examinations on her. Then they decided that one of her limbs should be taken off, they should cut it off. Then in another year, in 1999, there was a team of doctors coming from the USA, they came to a city hospital. I can’t remember, it’s been a long time. They came one day and did some examinations, and they say they found out that it was ebola affecting her (his sister?). So they decided to do an operation on a part of that bone. So, from there,

I had a calling. Those doctors let me experience and gain more knowledge. So, I hope that one day I want to be involved in helping someone directly. 

Interviewer: That is such an inspiring story. So, what is you opinion on the healthcare in Tanzania? Does everyone have access to healthcare there?

Dr. Slim: No. When you are talking about Tanzania, you are talking about one of the poor countries in Africa. So, access to health care services is very low. Access to education and access to healthcare, they are very low. Many people are suffering. I can tell you that there are people that are born at home. They were given birth at home, home deliveries. We have a very large number of women who deliver at home. Their children are not vaccinated and there is no access to health services. So, it is quite very bad.

Interviewer: How has COVID-19 affected you personally and Tanzania as a whole?

Dr. Slim: In Tanzania, COVID-19 was a very big threat. Simply, as I said before, access to services is very low. But also, knowledge of the people, the citizens. They know very little about their health and the equipment, the protective equipment (PPE), the mask, the sanitizer, water, which we’re supposed to be used to protect the community against the disease. Knowledge is power, but many people lack information. There are places where there’s not even if there is no civil electric (electricity?). There is no television, no newspaper so people are lacking information. COVID-19 was a serious pandemic that was a big threat to my country and Africa as a whole.

Interviewer: Okay. How do you think we can improve this?  How can we improve the healthcare system? As a whole, what changes should be made?

Dr. Slim:  Health policies should be improved. Most government organizations and private organizations should improve their policies and go directly to the people, especially in peripheral areas. When this pandemic happened, all the information we got was from the big cities, but those people in the peripheral areas, they are forgotten and the burden is very big. So to overcome this challenge, you need to give information. You need to have willing trained personnel that will go to give information and ways of how the citizens can protect themselves from this pandemic. 

Interviewer: How can we personally, each one of us, help those who have been affected by COVID on a personal level?

Dr. Slim: The way to them is making the right diagnoses, as clinicians and as doctors, but knowledge is everything. Knowledge is everything. You know, here, when we want to reach someone respectively, you shake hands. So you need something, more efforts to tell these people that this pandemic spreads through contact. You see? So, education should be provided. Education is power. Information is power. Knowledge is power. Knowledge should be provided to them, but also companies. Campaigns to the peripheral areas should be reached, but also empowering medical personnels. I can assure you that even in some hospitals they are lacking equipements. You can see it in their hospitals, there are no sanitizers. We are even lacking in masks, for protecting themselves which is highly risky.

Interviewer: Do you think that enough information was given to everyone about COVID, or it could have been handled in a better way?

Dr. Slim: No, here in Africa it is quite different simply because, as I said before, there are places here in Africa, the peripheral areas even in similar localizations, it is difficult. No civilian networks, no televisions, no newspapers. How do you think the media will deliver the information when they lack networks? (didn’t catch the rest) 

Interviewer: Has the vaccination started there?

Dr. Slim: No, there have been no vaccinations out here. There are no updates about that. 

Interviewer: So, do you think that there has been a difference in how COVID-19 has affected people? Like some people in some areas,rural areas, will be affected more as compared to people living in more urban areas, who have access to more information?

Dr. Slim: Yes, yes, the information given is not relevant. Many people are suffering. You can see maybe today you can report 10 people have been diagnosed to have COVID-19, but there is some information that is hidden. You see, maybe we’ll be having a hundred, but only 10 can be announced

Interviewer: Do you have any better ways in which we can give information to people who don’t have access to it? 

Dr. Slim: Here, where I practice, it is in a village. So the information can be given through those local leaders, village leaders, that when they conduct their meetings, is where you can get the mass, many people can come in at the meeting and there they can get their information. Obviously, a few number of people will attend the meeting just simply because of the ignorance. Sometimes they just ignore, sometimes they just don’t know the real impact of this pandemic. So you can find some of the people coming to get the information and some will just neglect it but it is our job to make sure that the correct information is issued to them. So that, any people in the implementation of what should be done is done, by the government and in a non governmental organization.

Interviewer: Is there adequate information about medicine in the area?

Dr. Slim: No, the information is not adequate. The information is not adequate. Many people are ignorant. We have a few number of medical professionals who can find a center of working specialists, (couldn’t figure it out). So, it is inadequate. 

Interviewer: How can we, as normal people, instead of just the government can help to overcome this problem?

Dr. Slim: It is our job to spread the news, but also to raise the voice. But also, I think the nongovernmental organizations should provide equipment like protective equipment, as well as raising funds for this organization that are supporting these campaigns. It is very important for the society as a whole, to get very involved in fighting this pandemic. Not only to leave everything to the government.

Interviewer: So that’s it for the questions we have. Thank you so much for joining us and I’m sure that everyone who sees this will learn a lot. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a good day.

Dr. Slim: Thank you so much. I wish you the best, bye-bye.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number six of our series  aspects on healthcare today, we’re talking to a very special guest, Dr. Jay, first of all, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be here today and let’s get started. So how are you today? And you’re doing well and good. Um, it’s a bit of a blizzard outside, so I’m happy days my day off.

How about you? Uh huh. And would you like to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself and your specific. Sure. So my name is Dr. . I’m a new grad MD. So currently I’m awaiting a match, hopefully, uh, results go in my favor. Um, I’m pursuing internal medicine currently, and then subsequently I’ll be going into interventional cardiology after that.

Yeah, that’s amazing. Actually, my dream job is to also become a cardiologists. So yeah, that’s really cool that you’re pursuing that. So can you tell our viewers about where you’re located and where you practice [00:01:00] for sure. So right now I’m in Toronto and again, just prepping for the match as it comes up and, um, we’ll see where I end up.

Uh, but then the rest of the year, And did you like always want to become a doctor or was there a particular moment that you realized that medicine is what you wanted to do? I’d say when I was a preteen around. From that time. That’s where I realized that I was in medicine. Um, I was really great. We’re starting mom, she’s a nurse.

And, um, she got me really interested in medicine, the whole aspect of it. But as I grew further, I saw different things happening in the community, things happening throughout my family, that reinforced my own drive as to why to become a doctor. Uh, specifically there’s an instance where my grandmother suffered a stroke and, um, I didn’t really know how to help her out in that sense.

They know how to govern your care. And I was so young at the time as well. Um, but I also noticed there was a lack of insight provided to her and our family, and I want it to be an individual that could change that I can actually find [00:02:00] myself helping other people, providing insights and really giving them information to govern and empower themselves in their care.

Yeah. That’s so amazing that like you figured out based on like a personal story and like kind of, you told, talked about how you didn’t really know too much, like you didn’t have too much insight about that. So like leading to that, like, what is your opinion on like the healthcare system in general, in your region or in the world?

And like, what are the major shortcomings and strengths, according to you? Uh, in terms of my, uh, my access to healthcare, the type of healthcare that we faced here is Canadian. Um, so basically universal health coverage. Um, so with regards to that, again, access is one of the biggest things. Um, we are able to get primary care, ambulatory care.

Um, so that’s the biggest, um, forthcoming thing. I’d say that is positive in terms of shortcomings though. Um, With regards to the access, there’s always delays. So we may not be able to have everything readily available. And one of the other things is [00:03:00] access to drug coverage. So we don’t have universal drug coverage plan.

So a lot of people are paying, paying out of pocket for that. So that’s one other issue. And then lastly, whether it all has got to be financially stable in the long run covering for so many people as the population grows. So that becomes a heightened concern over time. Yeah, I definitely understand what you mean.

And in like, in that, like, do you think that everyone has access to healthcare and are there being made changes made like changes being made to like improve this. Uh, so far for the most part, yes. You won’t go financially bankrupt or ruined from, you know, a medical visit. Uh, so it doesn’t hinder people from going to a walk-in clinic or seeing their PCP.

So that’s a real benefit. And again, you can walk into a hospital, um, again, The ed might have a bit of a wait time, but you’ll get seen and you don’t have to worry about again, whether or not you have coverage to be able to see a doctor and get care. So access is for the most part in my region. Definitely [00:04:00] there it’s definitely available as well.

Yeah. I’m like, what does the changes that I’m reading better being made? Like what impact does it have on the situation? So in terms of changes on a governmental standpoint, from what I’ve heard is that they’re proposing plans for drug coverage. So I think that’s one of the big benefits, because again, if you have chronic co-morbidities and you have to pay for medications chronically, it’s hard to finance that unless you have a private insurance.

And then of course, with private insurance, if you have some underlying health condition, it’s hard to be financed. Right? So that’s one of the big things. So from what’s being proposed, um, they’re mentioning, possibly incorporating a drug coverage plan. Yeah, that’s really great. And insightful. Thank you for letting us know about that.

So let’s talk about like the biggest predicament the world is facing right now, the COVID-19 pandemic. So how has the pandemic impacted you? Like professionally in the workspace and personally. Uh, so the pandemic [00:05:00] is, I think, affected everyone greatly, um, for myself on a personal standpoint, I think I’ve just valued life, much more communication.

Uh, being able to reach out to my peers, my friends, um, just valuing that time to be with loved ones. Um, I appreciate it much more, of course, in a profession where work is very demanding and very time consuming. We often don’t place much priority and time on extracurriculars or seeing family. And now. When you have none of that, it’s very taxing to not be able to access, uh, the ones you love.

And so that’s the one thing, um, in terms of professionally I’m, again, just really defined myself as an individual in terms of how I’m going about my profession. Um, I would say that it’s allowed me to be much more serious with regards to it. Um, being very vigilant with regards to the health, uh, comorbidities, chronic illness, and just watching it play in terms of the pandemic.

So getting, being a individual that wants to be a part of preventative [00:06:00] care radar, that’s what really heightened your awareness with regards to that. And knowing that it’s so important that we take care of ourselves and our bodies. And then when pandemics like this having to come up and the individuals are better able to not be so susceptible and vulnerable to viruses and illness, just as those.

Yeah, that makes complete sense. And additionally, what do you think COVID-19 has had on access to healthcare? Uh, it’s definitely put a strain on access to healthcare. I mean, if we think about elective procedures and what we consider elective, um, things have vastly changed, I think in terms of access to healthcare, as well as diminishing because.

In terms of the finances. There’s lots of primary Clara, sorry, care clinics that are unable to be opened or shutting down because they can’t see patients as readily as, before, which again, everything has costs. We’re hearing about hospitals shutting down and things along those lines. But when we’re thinking about access, we’re also thinking about insurance, right?

Especially in the [00:07:00] States where much of the healthcare system is governed by private insurance or Medicaid, Medicare. Um, for people that are losing their jobs, now, they’re not able to pay for it such insurance premiums for if they had any insurance that was associated with their employer. We’re employer sponsored insurance.

They’re not able to have that. So if they happen to need to see a doctor that care, the access to care is no longer there. So it’s, uh, you know, it was pretty much a whirlwind of things that come from again, the financial standpoint of the country and everything along those lines. Now, when you think about the increased demand for acute care as well.

Right? So individuals in these predicaments, especially with COVID-19 are going to be worrying about bills coming from their care to a certain degree. So I think that’s really how it’s impacted our systems so far. Yeah. And you mentioned about like bills and like financial, like aspects of this. So do you think changes are made, are being made specifically because of this pandemic and like [00:08:00] maybe like, um, and maybe financial aspects or are there being changes being made at all?

Um, well, from what the government says, from what we’re able to here, um, there’s proposed changes so far, um, in terms of health allocation, like resources, allocation rate. Um, so from the most standpoint, that from the biggest standpoint, from what I can see, there’s a willingness for that change, but of course we don’t really know exactly how the government’s going to portray things.

What’s going to pass and particular aspects of government. Right. So. Um, this proposed changes, but then we have to see them actually come into effect. So that’s the big concern. Yeah. And specifically in underprivileged areas, COVID-19 was remarkably severe. How do you think we can help them? Um, or the people that have been affected by this?

Like in a, another level, how do you think we can help them as a society? Well, when we think about underprivileged or a lot of people think rural, um, but for myself, I think inner city, I think of affordable housing complex as a community [00:09:00] is, and I think of these places that are structurally designed to fail in times like this.

I mean, you’re seeing locations that are not built with structurally foundational, um, access to ventilation systems or AC or anything along those lines or. These locations made use public transport as the primary modality of movement. So we see it in this aspect. People are able to socially distance themselves, right?

So that’s a big hindrance, um, in these underprivileged areas. Now we think about also food deserts, chronic illness, um, all these things that make people more susceptible to COVID-19 right. So when we look on a larger scale, it’s for us too, and the government really to invest in these communities to a aspect that better helps the housing structure, um, better public transport.

We can think about telehealth as an option because at least individuals wouldn’t have to travel towards these locations or from certain locations I’ve [00:10:00] seen are hospitals. They do mobile clinics that go towards locations that minimizes the risk. It gives a bit more control on the healthcare aspect. Um, in terms of health initiatives, thinking about public health initiatives, um, free screenings, uh, when I was actually back in Chicago, uh, sometime last year at the height of the pandemic, I did some volunteering.

And that particular hospital, um, they like, they actually did free screenings. So drive up screenings right from your car and they would do the COVID swab and everything for right there. So things like that really help. Um, I think about also mental health, right? That’s the thing that we don’t really even play on too much or mention too much.

I think now that the pandemic has come out, um, people are speaking about that much more. And then, you know, these underprivileged areas where people are already afflicted by a lot of issues with mental health, this is just. Impacted that even so much more. So us being able to place more of a focus on mental health and wellness, I believe is something that’s really going to help in the long run.

And then additionally, health [00:11:00] education. Right. So we’re in a time where we have social media. So being able to present information to people that don’t have to outsource or pay for regional conferences or anything like that. So that’s one way for us to really help these underprivileged areas. Again, asides from governmental funding and sourcing.

Yeah, thank you for letting us know about that. And similarly, to keep us safe, like, do you think the information you’re receiving from like the media about COVID-19 is adequate enough? And is there any part of it you would like to like emphasize or exaggerate? Um, an important point that we could probably stay safe with that maybe other people aren’t covering too much.

Oh, for sure. So I think the information is adequate. Um, the problem is there’s a lot of information and you don’t know what’s right. Most Ron’s not misinformation. And the biggest thing is knowing what source to go to for that information. Right? So when we’re thinking about again, [00:12:00] social media aspects, a lot of people will put something out and sensational and you know, my advice is don’t listen to the sensational headlines.

Do your research, look at things are scientifically based. And find the rationale behind things before you jump to them. Um, also not to politicize, you know, the pandemic, you know, in terms of how we’re going to go about following the rules or following, um, mandates in terms of St. Masking, right? These are things that, um, have sort of plagued us even more than the pandemic, because it’s become an instance where information is now no longer trusted.

So with that said, even though the information is adequate, Now we’re not able to utilize it to its full capacity because we may not trust it, believe it, or even know how to use it. Hmm. Okay. That was super informative for us. And I’ve asked a lot of questions, but this is the last one. So what are your views on the vaccine and what is the most efficient way to go about this?

[00:13:00] So the vaccine, I believe is a mainstay in us trying to minimize the effects of this pandemic and try to get back to some normalcy. I know people have the bear instances of distrust with regards to the vaccine. Um, a lot of it also, I believe comes again from the misinformation, but also the lack of information.

People are likely to fear what they don’t know. Great. So it was also up to us to put out the information, even in a way that’s easily accessible and understandable. Um, by, as something that I believe is going to shape the way that this pandemic goes forward. Now we don’t know everything about the vaccines just yet.

We don’t know everything about even the virus itself. Right. And in some time we’ll gain more insight as things go. Um, but even as for my role, um, just trying to teach people about the inner workings of the vaccine, how it’s going to help us. I think it’s something that needs to be put on display for us all to see the benefit of it, and to really start to trust the system.

[00:14:00] Um, just a quick thing with regards to the vaccine. So. A lot of people don’t know exactly how long, especially the Madonna of vaccine works. So pretty much, it’s not the virus that they’re giving you. A lot of people have asked me on my social media platform, you know, are they giving you the virus? Are you going to get COVID from it?

And what is the marinade vaccine? It’s a PR it’s based on a protein that is genetically able to be devised within the cells. So pretty much the vaccines administered. Right. And then the MRN gives instructions to the body or the cells to start making a little protein. That’s similar to what’s on COVID-19 basically itself.

So the body starts making these, these harmless proteins that it puts it on the outer surface of the cells. The body recognizes the protein and then it strays. It tries to actually build an antibody defense against it. So then once the body basically makes this [00:15:00] antibody in defense. Now, if it was to interact with a full blown, actual COVID virus, then it already has the fences up versus an individual that has no vaccination, no exposure receives this, um, this virus within themselves.

And then it takes time for the anti-biased and develop. And then it takes time for them to recover. So really that’s how the vaccine works. Um, it’s not that they give you the virus and then your body’s working to fight off a version of the virus. It’s just a little protein aspect of it. Again, there’s a bit more detail to it.

I think it’s a bit more out of scope, uh, with days, but it’s one of those things that we see that it’s safe. It’s not going to change your genetic code. It doesn’t enter the nucleus, which is the genetic center for cells. And, um, it, again, it’s something that I believe is going to shape how we are able to fight this pandemic and get back to our normal lives.

Yeah, thank you for explaining it a lot clearer. I’m sure we’ll probably [00:16:00] learn a lot more because you explained how it exactly works. So thank you for that. And that is all we have for the interview today. Thank you so much, Dr. Lewis, it has been wonderful talking to you and I’m sure everyone watching will have gained some valuable knowledge from this.

Likewise, thank you very much for the opportunity. Yeah, thank you, everyone watching and please stay safe.

[00:00:00] Alright, so hello everyone. I’m your host, Ashley Vincent, and welcome to the seventh episode of ” ‘ A Doctor’s Aspects of Health Care,”we have a very special guest here with us today, Dr. Sarah, thank you so much, doctor, for taking time out of your day to speak with us. So let’s get started. How are you doing today, doctor?Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to speak to you guys today. So would you like to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself and your specialty? Sure. Uh, so I’m a family doctor. I live in Toronto, Canada. Uh, I did my undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the university of Ottawa, which is the images in Canada.And I did my medical school degree from there as well too. And I came to Toronto, Ontario to basically do my residency in fountain medicine. And sothat’s where I practiced right now. Okay. Um, can you tell our viewers once more specifically where you’re located and where you practice? Absolutely. So, like I said, [00:01:00] I do work in Toronto, Ontario, which is in Canada, and I work in two clinics.So I actually work as a family doctor in a clinic in the community. I mostly deal with patients, uh, in a low socioeconomic area. And I see patients from basically the time of a newborn all the way until,I think my oldest patients over a hundred. Yeah. And I also do, um, cosmetic, um, like non-surgical cosmetic procedures.So you work as a medical director in a cosmetic clinic as well, too, both in Toronto, Ontario. Um, so what led you to pursue medicine? Is it something you always knew or was it a specific moment which led you to make the decision? Yeah, that’s a great question. So I, I think I always wanted to be a doctor, but I didn’t really know, uh, if I was a gonna get in or what I always continued to like as I kind of grew older. I think a moment that really solidified a lot of things was actually in grade 11, I had to, uh, dissect a fetal pig and I realized that I just thought it was so fascinating understanding how the human body [00:02:00] works.And I just realized a lot of my classmates were maybe not as intrigued. Um, and I think I also, uh, I always wanted an occupation where I was able to help people. So I think my interest in science and how the body works and combining that with an occupation where I could help people, I think I felt like this was a right path to go.And I think I’m pretty happy where I am. That’s really cool. So what is your opinion on health care in Canada? What are the strengths and weaknesses according to you? Uh, also great question. So, you know, the, the healthcare system in Canada, it’s a public healthcare system. So we call it sort of, you know, you get free health care, although it’s not exactly true.We just pay higher taxes, and for example, people in the United States, um, but what it does mean is, especially for me as a doctor working in a low socioeconomic area, it means that I don’t have to really worry about whether or not a patient can afford to come and see me. I don’t really have to fight it to see whether they have insurance.It also means that when I’m trying to organize some tests, like an x-ray ultrasound, blood work, et cetera, that [00:03:00] I’m not so worried aboutwhether or not, you know, people can afford that test or not. I can just order the test and that, which is really nice. Um, I think the, the, the weakness in the healthcare system here is the fact that I guess, because it’s sort of government run, there is a level of bureaucracy, the sense that,you know, there’s, um, you have to go through, you know, everything is run through the government.So, you know, some programs it’s really difficult to get access, uh, especially for mental health. I find that getting access to a Psychiatrist, you know, uh, also specific specific programs like trauma based programs for people who have had PTSD and other mental health issues. It’s really challenging to get access to that.Um, and I think sometimes the bureaucracy comes from the fact that there are people who are involved in the decision process that, um, maybeare not working, you know? So, uh, like at the, the level where we are as doctors, I’m working with patients directly. So I’m not sure that they [00:04:00] always understand the best way to be able to get access for some of these patients.Okay. So how do you think the health care access can be improved? Uh, so, uh, yeah, you know, I think the, the issue that we have here is, uh, in, in Canada, especially it’s, I think we almost don’t have enough doctors for the number of people that we have here. So I’ve, you know, eventually I might have been practicing, I think this is my seventh year. I’ve eventually had to sort of close my practice to new patients because I just can’t keep up with the demand of, uh, everyone that sort of wants to be seen. So I, I think, you know, one part would be to basically have more. Uh, physicians,especially, I think, you know, here, I think we definitely still need a lot more family doctors being able to, you know, be there at the front lines, sort of like, uh, helping patients.You know, we have a lot of walk-in clinics, which I don’t know is the best, uh, care walking clinics are basically, you know, you come in one with one issue, you kind of, [00:05:00] you deal with the issue and then you know that you may not see that doctor ever again. Whereas the way I sort of practiced medicine is that I have a continuity of care. So I see patients, you know, I can see them for years, uh, as they go. So I get to know them and they get to know me and I feel like that really helps out with our relationship. So obviously I think that’s part of it. I think probably other things would be, um, having more money or resources put into healthcare, I think.Yeah. Okay. So now let’s talk about the biggest predicament, the COVID-19 pandemic. So how has it impacted you professionally and personally? So I have to say, like personally in the beginning, I don’t know if it I felt so much of a difference. I know I wasn’t able to attract with certain people, etcetera, um, but I think by December, so like, just a couple months ago, I really had a lot of burnout and it’s because I didn’t really take that much time off. I just, you know, felt like I had to keep on going for patients and, you know, just, you know, I thought, you know, if I’m not traveling anywhere, it might as well [00:06:00] work and help people out.But, you know, I think, you know, at some point, you know, I think we all need a break from all of this and, and just so I think that was difficult. Um, I think professionally though, it’s been a very interesting, um, time for all of us doctors, but as for me as a family doctor, you know, I’m, I’m used to seeing people in clinic that’s, that’s always our practice.And now I only go to see patients probably once a week in the clinic. And so I have to be really selective of who I bring into the clinic. So, you know, maybe I’ll bring in the babies who need immunizations, maybe some diabetics or people who need to get their blood pressure checked, and they don’t have a machine, pregnant women, people who have rashes, butit’s very different.And you know, the relationship that you get from someone when you see them, it’s very different than when you just, you know, I’m mostly calling patients. So, you know, talking on the phone, you don’t always get the same, um, an understanding of the situation. I, I’d say that still I’m, I’m processing. I can still do maybe 85, 90% of my [00:07:00] job pretty well.I can send people requisitions to do their blood tests or any, you know, tests they need to do through email. I can send a prescription to their pharmacy. So, I mean, it’s not ideal, but I think we’ve been able to manage pretty well. Okay. So you like making it work? I mean, you have to, I mean, I think it’s one of those scenarios where, you know, people’s problems are going to continue to happen.Um, I know that I’m seeing a lot more mental health as well, too. Right? You know, it’s, it’s difficult. I mean, when we’re all kind of anxious about, you know, what are, what is our life going to be like, how are we going to be impacted? You know? So I, I’m not, they’re not surprise. I’m seeing a lot more mental health as well too, but you just, you know, you just try your best. And I think everyone understands that. I think patients are just happy to have, you know, that we’re still kind of open and being able to sort of see them. Okay. So do you think the pandemic has affected the access to health care in any way? If, so how? Yeah. So I think at the beginning I felt that not a lot of my [00:08:00] patients were calling in.I don’t think people knew that we were open. I know a lot of people were really nervous about going to the emergency if they thought they had something. So I’m sure we’ve probably missed certain emergencies. Um, now I think it’s because it’s been over a long, it’s almost coming up to a year, i’m, I’ve become really busy.So I feel like a lot of those patients that have held onto problems for, you know, months at a time, I think they’re now sort of realizing, you know, that they have, they can’t hold off on it as much. I mean, people are still going to the hospital, but what’s really, I find impressive is. You know, even from talking to someone on the phone, you can kind of get an idea of whether something is an emergency or not.So I think that in this past year, I maybe have had to send two or three people to the hospital only like everything else I’ve been able to do remotely, which is actually quite impressive. And the goal would be to try to keep as many people okay, uh, away from having to go to the hospital. It’s very different.I’ve had to send a lot of people who perhaps have had COVID symptoms. It’s very [00:09:00] different, but people who didn’t have COVID symptoms have been pretty lucky that, you know, we’re trying to keep as many people out of the hospital, as little as possible. Okay. So what is your opinion about the COVID vaccine? Yeah, so great question.So I’m a big supporter of the COVID vaccine. I will say though, that, you know, when they first sort of approved the vaccine, I was also really hesitant. I didn’t know. I think it’s probably because it wasn’t that educated on, I didn’t really know or understand it that well, and I’m lucky because obviously I have a science background, a medical background is able to really read the studies, understand them what the studies are sort of telling us.And, you know, based on what we see that, you know, the studies are, youknow, somewhere between 8,500 to over 22,000 people who are involved in these studies patients. And if you look like none of the patients who got the vaccine, none of them died from COVID, from the the vaccine ,and from COVID.None of them, sorry none of them required any [00:10:00] hospitalization. So the fact that, you know, we’re still seeing people who are not vaccinated, they’re still going to the hospital. There are people who are still getting COVID obviously, and still dying from COVID the fact that people in the study, like, no one’s dying.From getting, um, COVID this is like really, um, really strong support for getting the COVID vaccine. Okay. So can you tell our viewers a little bit about your experience in receiving the COVID vaccine? Yeah. I think I received my COVID vaccine about three weeks ago, under a little bit over three weeks. So I was supposed to get my actually second dose last week.But if you can imagine we didn’t have enough, uh, supply for my second dose. So I’ll tell you about my first dose, at least. So I’m really, the only soreness I had was a little bit of arm soreness. It lasted about 24 hours. Um, I know a lot of people can get, you know, if you’d look at the side effects, potential side effects, or like fatigue, Malays, you can get fever.You can feel, um, uh, like pain at [00:11:00] the actual site where they, they did the immunization. You can get redness there and it’s all part of the immune reactions. Those are all things that you know, are possible and are actually normal. It’s your body trying to get an immune reaction, um, from the vaccine so that it’s able to protect itself.So those are all normal things. I have to say my experience was, you know, you go in obviously nervous about what, what may happen. But, um, honestly it wasn’t really that bad and I’m hoping to get the second vaccine soon. I think we’re delayed about a week, but I think it should be okay. Okay. So this is my last question.So do you believe that the education you’re receiving on how to protect ourselves against COVID and the vaccine is addicate? Is there any information you would like to emphasize on that you think everyone should know? Yeah, that’s wonderful. So, um, I mean, I think, unfortunately there’s still alot of people who don’t believe that COVID actually exists.I think people still think that it’s a hoax. I feel at this point, if it’s been overlike close to a year and I feel if you don’t really know, believe in it, I, I don’tknow if [00:12:00] I’ll really be able to probably convince you otherwise. It’s just like, I have patients who, you know, I’ll try to explain something and they may not be believers and that’s fine. Uh, but the, for the people who are sort of like hesitant, I think, you know, the information, the information that we really want to be able to sort of spread as a fact of the, like the safety aspect of the vaccine, you know, I’ve actually. iT’s interesting. I, I follow a lot of doctors on Instagram, i’ve seen allergists who have allergieswho’ve had the immunization, you know, I’ve spoken to a lot of them who are experts in their fields. So, you know, I think the, the main thing to sort of consider is the fact that, you know, almost all people should be considered good candidates to get the vaccine. You know, there’s talks about whether or not it can cause infertility.There’s nothing to suggest that, uh, there’s thoughts about whether pregnant women or people, women who are breastfeeding, are able to getthe vaccine again, you know, they should be offered the vaccine just because of the fact that people, women who are pregnant are considered higher risk.So we don’t want them to get COVID right? [00:13:00] We want to be able to protect them and protect the baby. Again, everyone should just. Make sure that they, um, talk to their doctor to make sure, um, that they are good candidates, et cetera. But, you know, I’ve heard that, you know, the vaccine can change your DNA. You can’t do that.Uh, you know, the types of vaccine that there’s this, this, uh, it’s an MRI and MRI and a vaccine, it’s actually a vaccine that’s being studied for a really long time. You know, all the proper steps were done in the, in the actual research. So, so people, I think some people are worried like, is it, was it done too quickly?But you know, they, they followed all the right protocols. They have big numbers of people who are involved in the study. So it’s really, I think a lotof it is really reassuring. Um, I think the one last question that I remember I had from someone, which is interesting, which is how come, you know, after we get the vaccine, we’re not able to, you know, take off our masks, et cetera.And so the reason is the fact that when we get the vaccine, so for example, once I get my second vaccine, hopefully yeah, so Pfizer vaccinesshould be [00:14:00] 95% protected. Um, but there’s obviously still a smallchance that I may be able to get the COVID and, or I may be able to transmit it, meaning, like to give it to someone else.And so if I give it to someone else who doesn’t have the vaccine, and then they give it to someone else, we’re just doing the same problem. We’re creating the same problem again. Right. So, you know, the hope is that if we do immunize, the majority of people we get, what we call herd immunity. And so majority of the people are now protected. And so then eventually the goal is to limit all these precautions that we have. But unfortunately, for now, the goal is really, we have to immunize more people before we’re able to kind of reduce those, um, protocols in place. But I think that’s, those are a lot of the questions that I’ve been asked a lot.So I think, um, those are the things I’ve been trying to tell people about. Okay. So that’s all we have for today’s interview. Thank you so much, Dr. Sarah, it has been wonderful talking to you and I’m sure everyone watching would have gained some valuable knowledge. And [00:15:00] lastly, I’d like to thank all of you and please remember to stay safe.And again, thank you so much, doctor. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it so much.

Arifa: Hello everyone. My name is Arifa and this is episode number eight of our interview series doctors aspect on healthcare. Today. We have a very special guest with us, Dr. Hindmarsh. First, I’d like to thank you for your help during this pandemic. [00:00:18] Thank you so much. [00:00:21] Secondly, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk to us.[00:00:26] So let’s begin. How are you feeling here? Oh, sorry. What was that? How am I feeling? Yeah. How are you doing today, Christian? Um, today is actually a good day. I’ve had a few bad days in January, a few struggles, but I’m doing great today. Thanks. Thank you for that. So, wouldyou like to begin by telling our viewers a little bit about yourself and your specialty?[00:00:54] Sure love to. Um, so let’s see. My name’s [00:01:00] May Hindmarsh, I’m actually a board certified family practice physician currently living in practicing in Oregon. I was born and raised in Canada, grew up in a small little mining town in the great white North. And, um, basically was the first one in my family to go to university.[00:01:22] Um, a short version is I did my university, um, education in Canada, met my husband in medical school. Got married four days after we graduated. Um, we both did a family practice residency in, um, Edmonton, Alberta. And actually then, got recruited to move to the United States, um, because of a shortage of primary care doctors.[00:01:47] And so we have been living in the US since 1994. Uh, we came down here and doing rural medicine, small town medicine. Doing our own hospital, patients, [00:02:00] ICU, some obstetrics I didn’t do, my husband did, and basically raised our family. I’m now an empty nester mom with my children, grown and out of the house and switched over to urgent care,which I’ve been doing since 2013.[00:02:17] Uh, no, 2010. Sorry. That was my husband in 2013, 2010. Um, And just liking the acuity of urgent care medicine, missing my regular patients. And I’m working in a multi-specialty group, uh, in the Northwest here.[00:02:46] Oh, I can’t hear you.[00:02:52] Sorry. Now, can you hear me? Yes. See, you told us a little bit about where you were located and where you practice. So you’ve already [00:03:00] mentioned that. So we’ll move on to the next question, which is what really led you to pursue medicine. It is something you always knew or did something spark your interest? [00:03:11] Uh, yeah, that’s a big question. Um, so when I was 10 years old, I believe that’s about the time when I thought I wanted to do medicine. And there was a couple of things that happened, uh, cause I didn’t have a lot of medicine in the family. One is I just had a giant love for sciences and math. I was really good at them.[00:03:30] As a kid, I got a chemistry set,I was in fifth grade, I would go into our basement and do this chemistry set and blow up things and do all kinds of experiments. And that just peaked my interest. I also just watch eda few TV shows like Marcus Welby and there was an emergency show on back then that I really liked all the doctors in there.[00:03:53] And I read a book, in, uh, junior high and high school called the Making Of A Woman [00:04:00] Physician was by Elizabeth Morgan and she was a surgeon and it just, uh, depicted to me a strong woman in medicine. And I thought I can do this. Um, so I did have some ups and downs and changes throughout my high school years.[00:04:17] You know, I really wanted to explore other options. Uh, there was a lot of family pressures and I’ll be honest to, to get into medicine andstuff. There’s a bit of a struggle. And when I was in medical school, um, I got in really young, I was 19 and that’s really young and early for somebody just to be going through directly to medical school.[00:04:35] I don’t advise that. Um, but that was my path. And I struggled. Ididn’t like it. And I actually dropped out of medical school. I had a couple of orthopedic injuries from sports and I took some time off to reassess things. Um, I ended up going back in and joined the class where I met my husband and I had some still struggles are on my career path.[00:04:58] I’ll say that, you know, [00:05:00] that’s a long story. I’m giving you the condensed SparkNote version, but where I’m at today is a great place. I’ve worked for all of that. I’ve grown to love my career. And I love what I do. So there’s ups and downs. And sometimes even though, you know, it looks all rosy at the beginning.[00:05:17] Um, there’s sometimes struggles. Uh, is it the path I want everyone to go through? Like I did know, but, um, that’s kinda my story in a nutshell.[00:05:28] Yeah. That sounds really interesting to learn about how you went back to the same path that you began on, even though you had some. [00:05:38] Shortcomings in the middle. [00:05:40] Right.[00:05:40] You know what? It’s interesting because I applied into pharmacy school at the same time and I got an acceptance into the college of pharmacy. And a week later, my medicine came from my acceptance into medicine and I almost, I thought, Oh, pharmacy would be so nice. The lifestyle options would be better. I was a competitive athlete at the time, [00:06:00] and I knew that I would be able to pursue my sport and how easier lifestyle of, um, doing pharmacy as a career, but in the back of my head was a longing and a nagging of if I don’t do the pursuit and pursue this career that I always really thought I wanted to do, I would never regret it. You know, I could always leave it. But, um, that, that was like the big thing that made my decision at that time.[00:06:24] So yeah. When, you know, you know yeah, exactly, exactly. And there’s bumps along the way and that’s okay. But when you know, you know, yes, very good. I like that. Okay. So let’s move on. What are your thoughts on healthcare where you practice and what are its posing consequence? [00:06:47] Oh, that’s a big question. Um, so. health care where I practice, so, um, I’ve seen, um, you know, a wide variety of things, the area that wechose to come to and work, and, [00:07:00] uh, both my husband and I, was a rural underserved area. Uh, and we really liked small town medicine. We liked the big adventure of small town practice. Um, things have changed a lot, cause I’m almost into this 30 years now.[00:07:15] Right. So medicine has really changed, but, um, There’s I guessin doing small town medicine, the pros and cons would be, um, we started off with a small group. The group has now grown and it’s quite large. It’s multi-specialty big hospital system. Um, but, the nice thing about doing small town family practices that you get to be a part of the community.[00:07:41] You get to know your patients really well. You have an impact. Um, you’re living in the community that you’re working and there’s that close connection. You’re seeing people, you know, day to day are you really feel like a family and you get really get to touch the lives of the whole family unit. I mean, you ended up being okay.[00:08:00] [00:07:59] Um, you know, the physician for the mom and the dad and the children. If you do obstetrics, you can deliver the babies, the grandma and grandpa, you get to know the family unit really well. The cons of that are you living in a small town where everybody sees you and can know your business and you. And you sometimes can’t get away from it.[00:08:19] So there’s been some really, really interesting stories where people will come up to you all the time. You can be in the Walmart or the grocery store, and it’s like, Oh, I don’t really want to be bothered. I’d rather be anonymous. So there’s that, um, life was really different. You know, call was really tough. [00:08:37] It’s changed a lot now. And even. Transitioning into the urgent care part of it in the smaller community. Um, it’s um, well that part’s different, but you still see people in town. And so it’s hard to sometimes escape. Um, it’s nice to get away and go on vacation. So as far as what I’ve done, that’s kind of my experiences.[00:08:58] And I’ve recently just [00:09:00] actually in the last year and a half moved to another community. So I drive 40 minutes and commute to work. It’s a city of 200,000 people now where I’m at. And so no one there knows me really. I’ve met a couple people that it’s a coincidence, but, um, so it’s kind of nice because you can be anonymous.[00:09:17] So it really depends what you’re looking for. Um, but there really is pros and cons to both, and it just depends what you need, you know, as a doctor and a lifestyle. And as a person, I totally agree with that.Yeah. You know, if you wanna, if you wanna really like the big city and all the things that the city culture has to offer, um, and you want it to be niche down and that’s for you, you know, if you like to just be out on giant property in the middle of nowhere or just rural and have that small town feel and close connection.[00:09:48] And then, um, then there’s different; not just family practice, but it’s internal medicine. You can be a small town surgeon or though, so yeah.[00:10:00] [00:09:59] So, how do you think that healthcare access can be improved?[00:10:05] Uh, okay. Yeah, that’s a big, that’s a big question. That’s a gianttopic that could be a tough one for a whole day. Right? How can healthcare access grouped? Well, first off, let me just start off by saying, I’m assuming this is for healthcare access for the United States.[00:10:21] I mean, haven’t lived, you know, lived in another country, born and raised in another country with a completely different healthcare system. And also having done, I’ve done a mission trips around the world. So in third world countries, you know, and seeing access to healthcare there, um, and how things work, I guess the first thing I would challenge and say, my answer to that question is, um, what would be, what is your definition to, you know, as, as far as access to healthcare, is that assuming.[00:10:50] Access is bad because I’m not everywhere, you know, has bad access. And for instance, where, I’m living in the state, i’m in, [00:11:00] access is really easy, um, in Canada and socialized medicine access for the most part is pretty easy. Although, you know, if you live in very rural areas of Canada, Where there’s hardly any doctor’s access is tough, even though everyone has coverage because they have socialized medicine, there’s still access issues, right? [00:11:20] Because of lack of physicians. And so we’re a pertinent to the United States and, uh, my region, I think healthcare access is a very regional thing. State wise, it’s very different because States run programs differently. So I guess I would. Unravel this big, like tangled necklace or Christmas tree ball of, um, issues as far as the access is, it’s not quite so simple.[00:11:51] Um, I think in some ways we have people have really pretty good access. Does everybody have coverage? Maybe not, but man, [00:12:00] there’s urgent cares, you know, on every street corner in a lot of places, just like McDonald’s or. You’re a fast food place where people can get in. Um, sometimes rapid access also is not a good thing.[00:12:14] Um, that, that means I see people will come in with a sore throat they’ve had for an hour. And does that, is that a good thing? Um, sometimes not because then we end up doing a test right away, maybe for strep throat. That is a waste of money or, people beg for an antibiotic that they don’t really need, but maybe they should just have it.[00:12:33] Cause it’ll, they’re going away for the weekend and they’ll feel better. And some doctors just want to give them a medicine to go away. So that access is that better? Not necessarily. I think the bigger question is, you know, the lack of, and disparity maybe in healthcare, um, coveragefor some people, maybe a bigger question and, um, there’s,[00:12:59] to unpack [00:13:00] that, and like, how do we improve coverage for people is a big topic. And I, like I said, in my, where I live in my state, the, the poorest people are covered because of Medicaid programs. Um, the richest people are, the people we’re employed are covered because of insurance that they can privately purchase or through their employer.[00:13:20] The people that get caught in the middle, where I live in my state is actually the, um, um, average, um, middle in a middle-income family with small business owners, especially because they are too rich to qualify for the, um, Medicaid programs and they don’t have enough moneyto purchase their own private insurance.[00:13:46] So they’re the ones caught in the middle. Uh, and that is tough.So to answer your question. You know, a simple way. I think I really believe from, you know, my [00:14:00] experiences in growing up in a socialized system, seeing things around the world and here is that we are probably. Uh, we need to probably deregulate a lot of things so that we can allow people to have more choice.[00:14:15] So the prices drop. So that there’s just a direct connection between the consumer, which is the patient and the provider, which is the physicians. And I think that the direct, uh, physician. To patient marketing,um, not Martin, just marketing, but direct physician, um, healthcare programs that are a lot of physicians are now adopting where they have their own business and they sell direct to patient plans for instant access to their doctor is kind of like going back to the olden days and finding a way to have coverage for people for disaster coverage.[00:14:51] I also think, um, there are some countries that have some pretty interesting systems, which is like a two-tiered system so that you [00:15:00] give basic healthcare coverage. To all, um, so that nobody goes totally without an emergency coverage situations, but yet if people want to choose to opt for a more premium program, they can get tax credits for that and opt out and purchase through their employer or privately a sort of more premium system.[00:15:19] So there’s like almost a two-tiered system, but that’s so that, you know, we don’t abandon everybody, but yet, um, we have to think of costs when we say access to every talk for everyone. So that was the long answer, but it’s very complex as you can see. Yeah. It’s a very complex topic that can be talked about for hours.[00:15:44] Right, right. You know, and I just find it fascinating because we have all these politicians, government officials, all these people in there trying to solve the problem. And when I think. Most of it should just be handed over to the people doing the job, which is the, the, um, people in [00:16:00] medicine, as well as, you know, the consumers, which is the patients.[00:16:03] What do they think that they need? And what do the physicians, if we can provide? And I think we do a better job of solving it, but anyway, I’m not a politician, so, okay. So now I want to take the discussion a little bit to what’s going on in the world right now, that we’re facing today. COVID-19 pandemic.[00:16:20] So how was the COVID-19 pandemic impacted you personally and professionally? Okay. Personally, I’m huge on so many levels. So first off with what I do. Yeah. Urgent care. Um, we, uh, see the, in our group, the, um, sick people, the walk-ins and actually immediately in our group, we were furloughed and shut down. Um, I was at home for three weeks unemployed until we, our group really figured things out.[00:16:53] Um, that was really bizarre. And then, you know, a lot of colleagues in the same boat, we [00:17:00] restructured things and got back to work. And so now I actually, uh, there’s a group of 12 of us that are doing the urgent care access and we have become the COVID specialist. We’ve divided our clinic into the, what we call the respiratory clinic, where we actually see the sick people with any symptoms that are, COVID like fever, cough, sore throat.[00:17:22] And we direct them there through our group and separated out the healthy to the other group. Um, so I feel like by default I’ve become the, have had to learn a lot about COVID. I’ve been seeing a lot of it. And, um, I, in my family, I’m seeing, um, my father who’s 84 years old, you know, locked up in his home kind of afraid to go out or go anywhere, uh, for fear of getting it.[00:17:50] My mother-in-law who’s 92 lives in an assisted living facility in Canada and has been locked, literally locked in her room with her [00:18:00] meals, brought to her for like months at a time. And it is so sad and distressing. Um, She got COVID. It went through their building at Christmas time. And there was 56 of these elderly people that got ill out of 80 of them.[00:18:13] 80. Some of them, nobody died, it was like a miracle, um, a few went to the hospital, but to watch her suffer. Um, and we could basically just FaceTime and phone her and be sick, um, has been really difficult. Um, my sister’s an ICU nurse and she is a nurse on a COVID ward and she’s been struggling with her even just mental health, watching people be ill and die.[00:18:39] And so I’ve been a support for her. So, um, my kids have been stuck at home doing their school, their university studies online without you know, able to go out. So it’s impacted me from my elderly family members to, um, everyone dealing with COVID emotionally. Um, [00:19:00] It’s tough, but I’m an introvert. I like to be in my home.[00:19:02] I like to be away from people, but even me, um, having things locked down here at Oregon, especially, we’re still on like high, extreme levels where it’s restaurants are still closed. Gyms are closed. Um, They were having people call other, um, call the police on family member or a family members or friends who had too many people over for Thanksgiving or Christmas.[00:19:25] I mean, it became very emotionally distressful, um, politically and personally. So, um, it’s been tough. And at work, we get it there too. Um, as I said, being the one to do the, um, what we call the, the COVID the state clinic, where we’re seeing people with COVID and screening and tele-health, um, people are afraid. There are some people that aren’t, and they’re kind of more vigilante and they’re like, Nope, I am not, I’m going to do it my way, my rights, you know? So there’s that [00:20:00] extreme, which you have to, um, listen to them and coach to coach them and educate them. And then there’s the other people who are panicked and crying, and that wears on you.[00:20:11] Um, but you know, I feel, uh, really, um, I’m honored to be able to help people through this time, you know, not just like here’s the rules about COVID and this is, you know, I’m educating them, but just to talk them off the ledge and help them calm down and make them feel better and know that it’s okay. We’re going through a tough time. [00:20:33] So it’s just unprecedented. It’s crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I know. COVID has been totaling on a lot of people’s lives emotionally as well with.You know, family members catching it and just being safe and being in your home. Well, like I said, the community I live in is small, but, um, there’s, it’s sad because the mental health issues everywhere, even [00:21:00] not just a small community, but large has been a big problem. And there’s been multiple, um, suicides and deaths in kids and high schoolstudents who’ve lost their social contacts. They’ve lost their hope for life with their ass sports, you know, and they’re looking at college scholarshipsthrough their athletics that have been canceled. Um, it has been really, really tough.[00:21:24] Yeah. Yeah. Then, you know, there’s no easy answers. Um, obviously we had to do the best we can by shutting down in the country and trying to get a grip on this. Um, obviously, but man, you have to look at the social and economic impact, you know, on people’s mental health and their businesses and their friends have had friends livelihoods taken away because of the closures, um, as well.[00:21:50] And so, you know, you want to help protect lives by. Shutting things down to help mitigate the virus. Yet you have to look [00:22:00] at the actual numbers and is, is what we’re doing worth it. And so it’s a reallytough balance and I sure wouldn’t want to be the one making all those decisions, you know, at the top of the, of the chain and.[00:22:13] It’s become so political, right? Because one side it’s interesting how it gets politicized. It’s it’s funny how things follow, but one side says one thing once I says another, and I really think we have to give grace to both sides and, you know, because both points are valid and kind of come to a mutual meeting point.[00:22:33] So I agree. So do you think the pandemic has affected the access to healthcare in any way? You know, um, obviously yes, at the beginning, when, you know, there’s a massive shutdown and people are, you know, having their elective procedures, emergency procedures, um, stopped immediately. I think everybody like.[00:22:58] That was a panic thing. And I [00:23:00] knew a few people that were undergoing some emergency surgeries where those were cancer, well postponed. Um, that was terrible at the beginning and frightening for people. And you were hearing of some of those horror stories. I think that. The medical community itself did its best to try to sort things out over the first few weeks of that and ramp things back up.[00:23:22] As soon as they knew that the hospitals were safe and then they had, um, plans and a system in place to keep it safe for people. Ultimately now as things have unraveled and things are trying to get back to normal. I think a lot of people are, patients are still afraid to go to hospitals, which is dangerous and they’re actually pretty S you know, safe places to go.[00:23:44] And we’re telling people don’t. You know, wait, if you think you’re having an emergency crushing chest pain, it’s okay to go to the ER.Um, so we’re encouraging patients that there’s, the access is good. And now the big thing is telehealth, right? We’ve [00:24:00] seen that implemented on like a massive scale to the point that, you know, it would, telehealth was a thing and really becoming a new, popular thing for the past couple of years.[00:24:09] But I think there’s not one health system that hasn’t now. Utilize telehealth in some way. And I did a poll actually on my blog post page that there was, it was about 65, 70% of people had used tele-health most people like it. There’s some pros and cons and actually I’ve done a podcast about it, but. Yes.[00:24:31] I think access now is amazing. And I think telehealth is here. Telemedicine is here to stay. It’s wonderful. Um, for so many things, it has its cons obviously, but I think access now for the most part has, has improved. Yeah. We’ll see, we’ll see how popular this lasts, but you know, there’s little tweaks to it, but I think that telemedicine has been revolutionized by this coronavirus.[00:25:02] [00:25:00] At least something good is coming out as a pandemic. Well, that’s the thing, right? When, you know, if you look at anyhistory of any kind of big black Swan events, like the pandemic of, um, theSpanish flu, the 1918 epidemic, um, what came after that with, um, vaccinations and flu vaccine and, um, treatments for pneumonia?[00:25:24] Um, You know, I think things are gonna come out of this, this new technology for the vaccine, the MRN technology, that’s just, you know, been, they’ve been developing it for years, like a decade, right. With those initial SARS. But now that it’s been, um, got the emergency authorization use and now we’re on a massive.[00:25:45] Billion. So people trial, right? Um, that this technology might really be a game changer for not just co COVID, but for targeted gene therapy. Um, for cancers, let’s hope that yes, we’d discover some [00:26:00] great new medications and, and vaccines. Okay. So now I want to talk about the COVID vaccine. So what is your opinion about the COVID vaccine?[00:26:11] So, um, there’s a few different types of vaccines available out there. Um, I think I heard you had another guest. Um, on a few episodes ago, right. Sharing different how the vaccines work, which was great. So I don’t get into the details of that, but right now what we have is the Moderna and the Pfizer vaccine available right now, which is the MRI and a technology.[00:26:36] Um, there’s a couple other still under trial, which are a little different, but this new technologies, MRI technology, um, sparked a lot of interest for me, you know? In my own knowledge of vaccines at the beginning. And I would say that at the beginning, I was pretty nervous because anything in new in medicine, um, a lot of us don’t jump on the bandwagon right away, whether it’s [00:27:00] medications, some of us like to let it sift out and see what happens after a year or two, that it’s been out.[00:27:07] But you can’t really do that right in times like this. And so, um, I was nervous about it at the beginning. I have. Personally, a lot of immune problems. And I also was thinking, you know, when the risk, uh, to a large population of, um, recovery from this virus, you know, is greater than 99.5% and mortality is so low.[00:27:35] Do we want to be putting in some new biologic agent into our bodies when we’re. Healthy or immune compromised and we most likely will survive the virus. Do we want to be sort of experimental Guinea pigs on this? Um, but as I’ve come to know more about this technology, seen the trials, researched it more and.[00:27:57] Um, as it’s unraveled, as it’s been [00:28:00] given, um, I’ve sort of changed. My I’ve really changed. My mind is I have become more educated as well. And, um, I know that there’s a lot of people out there that still have some reservations. There’s a lot of conspiracy theories of there and I. With like people just to make sure they get good information.[00:28:19] But I would say that I’ve changed my opinion. I did get vaccinated mostly because, um, I feel it’s my duty as a physician to not be carrying some, something that I do for the flu. Uh, I’m passing it onto my patients. I don’t want to be an asymptomatic carrier. In fact, my patients. Um, so that was part of it.[00:28:36] And I really think that it’s probably not going to impact my own personal medical problems with how it works. So, uh, I think it’s a wonderful new technology, you know, we don’t, it’s still experimental, but, uh, I think that it’s looking to be really pretty safe for. The majority of the population at large, and it’s really the best thing we have at this point [00:29:00] to contain this virus and get our lives back to normal, which is what we all want.[00:29:05] Right. So that’s where I’m at with it. So could you talk a little bit about the IX, about your experience when receiving the vaccine? Oh, yeah. Um, it was really pretty easy. I, you know, I figured it was just going to be like getting a flu shot or a tetanus vaccine. Um, where I went, it was really organized really well.[00:29:27] I had the Pfizer vaccine after the first, uh, you know, the first back, uh, shot in your arms Tinder or. People forget adults forget that most vaccines make your arms, or, you know, we vaccinate our kids and they don’t complain too much about cry for the first day. But yeah, it, it ate just like a flu shot or a tetanus, but then I did have a horrible migraine for the first four days afterwards.[00:29:50] I didn’t get a fever or anything like that, but I do have migraines and was having a really bad migraine month. Last month, my husband, he had no problems. So we got vaccinated the same day. [00:30:00] The second dose we received, it’s pretty much the same. Um, it seemed to hurt a lot more. Going in my arm was a little achy and then neither one of us had a single side effect.[00:30:12] We had no fever, no myalgias, nothing which, uh, you know, then I was joking and said, Hmm, I wonder if I’m building any immune response. I wonder if it’s doing anything. But, um, where I work, a lot of coworkers actually received the modern vaccine and we’re seeing a little trend to that. A lot of them were, um, sick with a, at home for 24 to 48 hours with a low grade fever.[00:30:38] A lot of body aches, flu like symptoms seems to be, you know, this is my own personal bias, inherit the trend more with the Madrona thanthe Pfizer, from what I’m seeing. Uh, but both of them can do this. And the response is really variable. So people should expect to feel a little bit. Achy, uh, maybe I have a low grade fever.[00:30:58] There are some extremes where people feel like [00:31:00] they’ve just been hit by a bus and literally with the flu, but for the most part, um, people do pretty well in within 48 hours. So if you’re lucky, you’ll be like me and have nothing happened, but I don’t know, I haven’t had an antibody test yet to see if I’ve actually developed any so who knows, but it was, it was really straightforward and fine.[00:31:20] Yeah, that’s nice to hear. So I’m just going to end off by asking one last question. Do you believe that the education we’re receiving on how to contain the COVID-19 virus is adequate? And do you think there’s any information that you would like to emphasize? Um, the information well, wow. I think. I think that the information we’re getting, if you’re following reputable sources, let me emphasize that.[00:31:47] Right. Um, Is as good as it can be in this day and age with internet access. We’ve got, you know, television media at the CDC and who [00:32:00] coming out. We have, um, internet access, uh, universities, uh, studies trials around the world we have now we can access information as it, as it’s happening. So I think the important thing is.[00:32:14] To know where to get that important information, follow reliable sources. Don’t go to Facebook, um, and follow, you know, what, somebody in town that’s not even connected to medicine says, but I think the education out there is, you know, it’s tough because they are presenting this information, this brand new pandemic and virus.[00:32:37] As it happens and there’s been, it’s frustrating. I understand that, that someone, even Dr. Fowchee initially said masks, aren’t going to work. And now he’s at the point where he’s saying, you know, we might need two masks and you know, people get frustrated and they say, you said this now you’re saying that you don’t know what you’re doing.[00:32:56] You’re changing your mind, but. It’s medicine, it’s [00:33:00] science, uh, it’s evolving. It’s, it’s always it’s dynamic and always changing. And I think they’re doing their best to keep up with the information as best as they know it as they study it more. So, um, I would say to people, be patient look for reputable sources of information.[00:33:20] Don’t get caught up in the politics of the information. Um, and that would be. You know, that’s, that’s the best way to get good education. Yeah. It’s really important to make sure you’re getting your information from reputable sources. Right. There’s always the, you know, conspiracy theories things. Um, and I think it’s good for people to questionthings.[00:33:47] Absolutely. You know, that’s how, what’s what makes a good scientists is always questioning the status quo. Right. Um, because yeah. Just because, you know, there’s a herd mentality of doing things. [00:34:00] Um, it doesn’t mean it’s right. And that’s where we discover new things. So I think questioning is great. I think being open-minded to both sides is important.[00:34:08] I mean, scientists are always questioning and challenging things. Um, just, there’s just so much access nowadays for anybody. It’s just look at reputable sources for your information. That’s the best advice Ican offer. Okay. So that’s all we have for today for the interview today. Thank you so much, Dr.[00:34:28] Hindmarsh. It has been wonderful talking to you and hearing your thoughts on healthcare. I’m sure everyone watching will have gained some valuable knowledge from this interview. And lastly, I’d like to thank all the viewers for watching, and I’d also like to remind you to remember to stay Stacy. Thank you.

Nadia: Hello everyone! My name is Nadia and welcome to episode 9 of our series ‘Doctors’ Aspects on Healthcare.’ Today we are talking to a very special guest, Dr. Mohamed! Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be here today. Let’s get started. How are you doing today?

Dr. Mohamed: I’m doing well. I’m happy to be here. We’re in a particular time, a moment in history, they just kind of the pandemic is still present, but we’re still in that little climax point where we can kind of pivot it and put it in the right direction towards putting it hopefully down.

Nadia: Would you like to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself?

Dr. Mohamed: Yeah, so I am actually a first year general surgery resident. I am currently in practice at the Detroit Medical Center in Detroit, Michigan. In terms of my background, I’m Lebanese American. I was born and raised in the United States. My father was born raised in Lebanon, and he migrated and when he was 16 years old. My dad is a pharmacist by trade. And my mom is a pediatrician by trade. So I have healthcare is in my DNA and blood. I’m actually the eldest three children. And I’m actually the only one going into medicine. So I found my parents footsteps. Both of my brothers are in the business field. So they’re not in medicine, but they find their own passions. 

Nadia: Can you tell our viewers a little bit about where you are located and where you practice?

Dr. Mohamed: Yeah, so I’m Detroit, Michigan so I’m in the heart of Detroit. And one thing and in particular about Detroit, like many communities, all across the nation, there’s a big underserved population. I went to school for undergraduate backtrack at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and then went to medical school at Wayne State School messenger that’s located in the heart of Detroit. It’s actually one of the first universities that was centralized in there. And I am part of a hospital system. There’s four major hospitals in Detroit, the Henry Ford Health System, Detroit Medical Center, St. John’s, and then there’s also sign a grace in the program that I made. I’m in the Detroit Medical Center. So we serve people from all backgrounds, ethnicities, regardless of age, like African American, Latinos, Hispanic, Indian Americans, Hindu, Arab Americans, we have a big metropolis of people in the surrounding metro area that we serve. And that’s what makes you unique. But it also provides challenges because a lot of people sometimes don’t have access to health care. And that’s what that we really strive ourself on is that ability to provide quality health care for our populations.

Nadia: What led you to pursue medicine? Is it something you always knew or was it a specific moment which led you to make the decision?

Dr. Mohamed: So it’s very interesting. So my mother was she, when she gave birth to me, I was she was a she was actually in her fourth year medical school. So I always say I’ve graduated medical school twice, I walked the stage at a young age of like six months, and I recently we walked the stage just last year, so I feel like I graduated twice, I say, however, though, I always kind of grew up in the hospital, my mother went on her rounds, the newborn rounds, and I always was surrounded by nurses in their nursing, that little cortical and kind of was nurtured in the field of medicine. I think my very first exposure that drew me to the field was a STEM program that was hosted by medical school. And this program exposed kids between the ages six to 12, to the field of medicine, so I was able to hold the human brain, we were able to dissect a cow eye, put a screw in a patient’s bone that was fractured, a mock bone, but it really expose myself to the field. And I remember what how myself, literally like the cow it was disgusting. I don’t know it was it was it, it appealed to me dissecting it. But here I am today in the surgical field, dissecting and open up people’s abdomens, or making surgical incisions to heal people. So that exposure, I think early on was one of my first glimpses into the field of medicine. But I think it continued to build on and one thing that really, I think, another pivot point in my life was when I saw a kid, he was 16. And he had collapsed after winning a game when he shot in basketball. And I remember telling my mom that this doesn’t seem right, like there’s something I need to do and I threw her in a partnership with the Beaumont Dearborn Oakwood facility in Dearborn, Michigan. I was able to set up a health green drive that included an EKG and I was like, if I am able to detect any changes that could potentially prevent someone from having a cardiac arrest. That’s how you engage I was able to do that. And we screened I think over 300 kids that came by free health screening. So that was another pivoting point in my life. I thought medicine was my true calling and what led me to the field. And then day after day, I think it continues to build and the love for sciences drew me to where I’m at today.

Nadia: Do you mind telling us a little bit about your experience as Muslim Arab healthcare provider?

Dr. Mohamed: So fortunate for myself, I think I look white. So I do, I do blend in with the average folk. And I think I haven’t received too much backlash. But when they do hear my accent, they hear my name, they definitely will pinpoint kind of those biases or stereotypes can still rise Muhammad or when you see my accent, and it can pivot, and cause people to have that stigma. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced it. But I’ve seen other types of stereotypes, especially towards women, where certain physicians will make derogatory comments that are completely unnecessary. And it’s being able to stand up and fortunate enough, that one incision that I experienced that had that situation, and another female, actually hijab, female that stood up for her. And we were able to break that barrier and break that physical bond, that physician-student bond, and not allow that individual to work with students any further. And I think these moments, these pivotal moments where people step up, and take initiative and try to find ways to address the problem. These are very big pivotal moments, especially towards Muslim Americans, but also just any any gender, female, race, ethnicity. These are really poor moments. So this one, I think, was particular to me it didn’t reply to the Muslim stereotype but to the female gender.

Nadia: What is your opinion on healthcare in the United States? What are its strengths and weaknesses according to you?

Dr. Mohamed: So I think as we’ve seen this coronavirus pandemic and how it insurance can really dictate care and access to health care. It’s really put emphasis on how the healthcare disparities really impacts a population more than others. And that’s something we’ve known beforehand, but this coronavirus pandemic has completely blew it out of the waters. You can see for example, in the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of individuals, like African Americans are those who have more comorbidities, they put themselves at greater risk for more severe complications from COVID. And we are at a point now, I think, I was talking to a friend of mine how the healthcare system potentially may shift to a kind of a two tier model where we may have the more complex patients potentially manage in the hospital, and the more simple route daily routine management and an outpatient basis. And this kind of may kind of divulge care in two separate ways. But we also are seeing that insurances are really really controlling how you prescribe and what you prescribe. So for example, a patient that has like high blood pressure, the right medication may be lisinopril, however, their insurance may not cover it. And we have to give metoprolol even though we know this medication is the better tool. Because of insurance, they’re not able to afford it and maybe a few $100, for example. It’s made up a case just numbers, but I’m just giving an example. So this is how I think our insurance plays a role in this kind of future system may may be an experience that may come as a result of that. Another thing that we are also I’ve been talking to friends of mine is something called the concierge model or the direct primary care model. These are where physicians break the middleman and they are providing better direct care to the individual. So they provide cheaper alternatives and kind of removing the insurance from the picture. I know a few individuals that are trying to start healthcare startups in that discipline to really bring health back in health care. So the these are some challenges that the American health system is facing today.

Nadia: Let’s talk about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. How has the pandemic impacted you, personally and professionally?

Dr. Mohamed: So, I think personally, I was a victim of the Coronavirus. My family had it. So, fortunately for me, in terms of my experience with the co Coronavirus, I had experienced the flu twitch prior to that, and I was very similar set of symptoms was kind of a blimp of like myalgias and muscle aches feeling achy found febrile for a day that I was able to overcome it however my brother’s one of them had residual effects from it. He’s still having difficulties with taste for components, tasting being able to taste all objects. And that’s something that, although minute, can impact your quality of life, I mean, your taste is really linked to your sense of smell. And I’ll say he lost his taste and smell and taste and smell really interlinked. So it really can impact your ability to really enjoy food. And especially as a house, we love our food is a big staple to our lives, we love big robust flavors and cooking. So that aspect of it can definitely be an impact on life and my father. He’s a diabetic and has high blood pressure. So in fact, a little bit more than us, especially given his comorbidities. So he had more residual cough and more severe symptoms that we did. But fortunately, he was able to recover. So I know some people have had it worse but fortunately, we’ve recovered from it. And we didn’t need to be hospitalized, but it personally did affect our family. So professionally, I think one thing that we in terms of that is just the mask wearing where I’m more, I think, because I’ve seen more of it, there is a higher sense of like, hyper awareness to what COVID can do. A lot of individuals will say, they, we have, people are being intubated on a ventilator, we’re putting chest tubes in at all. And we have all them all the news portrayed. You can see it visually. But when you’re there, one on one doing that on an individual being called to do that is a different scenario, because you’re seeing it day in and day out. And fortunate enough, it hasn’t impacted my psyche too much. But it can’t, it has had days where it’s been mentally draining. Because these individuals come in somewhat healthy, they come in for simple chief complaint of a cough, and all of a sudden, their life is just completely upside down. They’re on a ventilator. You never know if we’re gonna get off it or go home. And it’s just surreal to have this virus, put so many people that maybe had a few online conditions, and all of a sudden their life is completely flipped.

Nadia: Adding on to that, how do you think the pandemic has affected access to healthcare?

Dr. Mohamed: So yeah, I think discuss a little bit about it. But the access to healthcare, fortunately, we do have Medicare, Medicaid, and that’s increased access. And the people nowadays because of the Coronavirus, they’re scared to come to the hospital. So a lot of individuals who will hold off routine complaints that are  even going to the doctor’s office, they’re scared to go there as well. So people may hold off their complaint and maybe some benign or very miniature in nature. But if they continue to hold off, they may have a delayed diagnosis in a certain condition. A lot of individuals are putting off, like surgical procedures for removal of cancers, or routine diagnostic exams like mammograms or colonoscopies that would routinely find potential masses in the breast or in the colon. And now because they’re, they’re not coming in, for them routinely, it can delay their quality of care, and they may find the diagnosis not as stage one, but stage two, three or four or at more severity of the disease that it should be. So I think that’s going to be the biggest concern to see how it impacts a few years out. How is the delayed access? Is it going to increase the incidence of certain cancers? Because we’re not screening as much.

Nadia: There are many health disparities in our society. Can you tell us your thoughts on COVID disproportionately impacting racial and ethic minorities?

Dr. Mohamed: I think we’ve always been somewhat aware of it. But now it’s because of the me to movement and the Black Lives Matter movement. There’s being more press to these issues and healthcare disparities, so that we can have dialogue on these issues. And when dialogue comes, there’s going to be competition, there’s going to be challenges, but these uncomfortable conversations are the important ones necessary for change. So as much as we want to avoid it, I think having these moments and having the real raw data in front of us is just going to make it hyper aware, which will then drive change and I think that’s I think one of the points potential good things the Coronavirus is it’s put it on the broad scale map like this is a pressing issue and now people are talking about it more and more.

Nadia: You got vaccinated a couple of weeks ago. Can you tell us about your experience getting the COVID vaccine?

Dr. Mohamed: Yeah, so it’s just gonna break down there’s two vaccines that are prominent or third one I think AstraZeneca so there’s the Moderna. There’s the Pfizer and there’s the Astra Zeneca. I got the Pfizer vaccine that was offered through my hospital system. I know others have gone with Moderna or AstraZeneca, just as a breakdown for the majorna that the Pfizer are both mRNA variants so there’s no live strain, they AstraZeneca has a thing, believe it kill live strain, or killed strain the virus. So there are two different types of viral vaccines. I got the Pfizer and my first dose, I just had a little muscle ache surrounding at my injection site and very minimal I think, but 12 hours it I had some aches, but otherwise, I did take a Tylenol overnight and never had any symptoms to afterwards. Then a couple weeks later when I got the second dose vaccine, I had heard from others individually just from previous who had got to be for me, those who had the Coronavirus had a stronger reaction to either of those one of those two, I had it to dose two about I would say I got my vaccine about eight nine in the morning and it was about three in the morning where I woke up with chills and body aches I was shivering felt febrile, feverish I I really felt like I was going through the wringer. And I remember going downstairs and grabbing a Tylenol. Fortunate enough, I woke up the next morning sleeping it though with the Tylenonl, my symptoms had resolved. So I think the consensus that just from hearing other stories, just verbal stories is those who have had Coronavirus tended to have more stronger reaction. And my theory or grasp behind that, I think is that you’ve had a built immune response before into it and the introduction of this variant just kind of made a hyper aware and your body’s now mounting another immune response onto that, which is just showing that your body’s building that immunity building that health memory saying so when it comes in, be exposed to it. It can help you fight it off, if you can reduce the risk of getting it are getting more severity of the Coronavirus.

Nadia: I wanted to end by asking, what are your thoughts on the awareness we are receiving on the virus as well as the vaccine? Do you think it’s adequate? Is there anything you’d like to emphasize about the virus or the vaccine?

Dr. Mohamed: So I think media coverage has made it really hyper aware. And it’s, I think, been a politicalized issue on like Democrats versus Republicans. But I think at the end of the day, this is a human health crisis. There is simply an issue of opening up the economy and what’s safe for people. But also, it’s a kind of weighing the risks and benefits, like anything in life, you’re going to have to weigh the risk and benefits. And I think at the end of the day, we got to think of what’s best for us. And our human health is our biggest investment. So I’m in the healthcare field. I’m always an advocate for the vaccine. I know there’s individuals that are wary of it, is it is it just gonna inject something into us, that’s microchip or whatever. This vaccine that we’re taking is a new form of technology, but it’s been around for about 20 years now. They’ve maternal Pfizer is a mRNA variant of it. So it there’s no injecting DNA, there’s not altering the DNA. It’s just injecting some kind of material that encodes for a protein that codes for the spike on top of the Coronavirus. So that’s what it’s attacking. And its ability to form memory cells to that so that if you were exposed to a second time around, after getting the vaccine, your body can mount a response to that spike proteins and say Hey, I’ve seen it before. Let me Let’s fight it off, how am I gonna fight it off. And it limits the severity of us much more severe disease. We don’t know the definitive if it’s able to fight off and minimize the virus in general. But there’s gonna be more studies out as we go on throughout this year to figure out how effective is it to preventing disease and limiting disease in general. But at the same point, we can’t let our guard down and not wear masks. I know there’s individuals that do have in other states where they’re allowing the masks mandate to kind of be a little more free. I think it’s important that individuals continue to social distance, they wear masks, I know individuals are going to be more inclined to have group interactions I am as well. I’m just trying to minimize the amount of that and a lot of individuals that I’m are surrounded by a fortunate enough to have had the vaccine. So we’ve built some of that immunity, but we will see the long term effects of this vaccine and what it will do for our fight against the Coronavirus.

Nadia: So, that is all we have for the interview today. Thank you so much Dr. Mohamed, it has been great talking to you and hearing your thoughts. I’m sure everyone watching has gained some valuable knowledge from this. Lastly, I’d like to thank all the viewers. Please remember to stay safe and wear your masks!

Ashley: Hey everybody. Welcome to the next episode of “A Doctor’s Aspects On Healthcare”. We have a special guest today, Dr. Shrivastava. Thank you so much, doctor, for taking time out of your busy schedule to speak with us. So how are you doing today, doctor?

Dr. Srivastava: I’m good. Thank you for asking Ashley. How are you?

Ashley: I’m good. So would you like to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself? Like your profession?

Dr. Srivastava: Of course. So my name is Dr. Devika Srivastava. I’m a licensed psychologist practicing in Houston, Texas. Um, so I have had a very long journey in my field doing a lot of different things. So, you know, I guess in terms of my trajectory, you know, I, um, you know, I went, I got my master’s, I got my doctorate, um, in New York, you know, from Columbia and Fordham. And, you know, I’ve worked in a multitude of different areas,you know, working with veterans, working with adults, working with children, teens, um, in hospitals, community centers, um, university college counseling centers, and, you know, in big public hospitals. Um, you know, so I also was a psychiatry professor, supervising,um, you know, postdoctoral, psychology fellows, um, you know, training and helping, you know, psychiatry, residents, medical students, and, you know, teaching them a lot about social equity and I did clinical work. I covered an entire public hospital, you know, the medical units, um, and the ER and ICU. Um, I also, you know, worked at the VA for a long time, working with veterans and pain and medical issues as well. Um, a significant amount of my work also has been lobbying in DC and working on public policy for people of color or including South Asian-Americans and South Asians, immigrants, refugee students, um, people with chronic illness, AIDS, um, women, families, and children and veterans, so, you know, lobbying for healthcare policy, um, to improve access funding and programming and training. So, and I worked federally state and city. Um, I did a lot of work in hero’s County, working on program development and practice.Program evaluation, helping mental health services get better and how to also get funding. And I’ve done a lot of research in this area as well. Um, currently I’m in private practice, um, and a bulk of my clients are South Asian-American or second generation individuals or people of color. Um, you know, I also, and you know, my practice really does focus on what are our issues are family issues or different or identity issues. Our experiences and how does that affect our mental health? So I help people and support them kind of navigating through those issues. Um, in addition to other things that come up like depression and anxiety or adjustment, or, you know, other things that might be really challenging that affect our mental health as well. I’m also an editor on the first ever book on South Asian American mental health that’s going to come out. So that’s really exciting. It’s the first of its kind. Um, so yeah, that’s, that’s the long short story of me.

Ashley: That’s really interesting.

Dr. Srivastava: I forgot something else I do want to share is I was also president of the division on South Asian American. So it’s a giant community of mental health providers, students, um, and licensed professionals all around the country and world, um, that provide mental health care services and research mental health care issues for South Asian American. So if any of you were interested in becoming more part of a community or, or just wanting to know more.I, I suggest that joining those division on South Asian-Americans is something that you should do.

Ashley: All right all that is really, really cool.So where are you located?

Dr. Srivastava: I’m in Houston, Texas.

Ashley: Okay. Um, so what is your opinion of healthcare in Texas? Not only Texas, but have you experienced slash seen firsthand places that don’t have proper healthcare?

Dr. Srivastava: Yes. And a lot of my, my policy, my federal policy work in my state and city was about this. So I was doing psychological and political research in this area and advocating for change. So, you know, our. So the society has lots of changes and that also comes with funding and access to healthcare issues. You know, so Texas, you know, is still growing in that respect.And, you know, Houston is the most diversity in the nation. So with that, our populations in our needs are different. And so there are public mental health care services that I have been very strongly affiliated with. Um, but I am. And I think it is growing, you know, there are community centers, there’s lots of South Asian American services and Asian American services and for other populations.Um, but I think it’s still a growing area. You know, I am in private practice and I’m providing care and I do sliding scale for people in Florida and, and in Texas. But I think. It’s still very much needed, you know, especially when you’re looking at language justice, you know, having people, you know, that want to go to somebody and get health care or mental health care from.From somebody that speaks their language or can understand who they are or their issues or their culture, you know, especially when it comes to the manifestation of differences, DMS, you know, it’s really interesting because you know, you and I are both desi you know, and so, you know, the way that. We might navigate things like if we’re depressed or if we’re anxious might look very differently compared to somebody else, you know, we might have bodily complaints or we might feel tired or have headaches.So having somebody understand those things, in addition to speaking your language and that can understand our family systems is really important. In addition to our identity, you know, we. A lot of us are second or third gen. So meaning that our parents immigrated here, or we immigrated here before the age of 18, but our culture, our identity, our values might be a little bit differently.So as are the expectations. So finding somebody that can understand that can sometimes be a little bit challenging.

Ashley: Definitely. So in today’s world, there’s a lot of manipulation in the healthcare industry. From what I’ve heard, some doctors charge more money than necessary for patients, obviously not all doctors, but some.Does this happen in your area? If so, is the government doing anything to make changes to it? And what impacts does this make?

Dr. Srivastava: Well, you know, I know, you know, in terms of the United States, there are regulations and in Texas are definitely regulations as well. You know, in terms of that, Cap that a doctor or even a psychologist can make, right.Everything is kind of regulated what becomes high as if you’re going into, you know, maybe some of those private practices or specialties, and those can get higher, you know, but it kinda depends on the need, unfortunately, you know, and if somebody can afford it and if somebody can’t and I think therein lies the problem of disparity, right?What can some people get? And some people can’t given. Given what they can afford and their access to those resources. So I think that’s something that definitely needs to be addressed, you know, in terms of, you know, the doctors. I know, cause I wasn’t, you know, working in that hospital and medical school setting, you know, I, I, it, it has been through Medicaid, Medicare.Private insurances. So there is regulation in that way. Um, but again, I think, you know, we need to really tackle some of these social justice issues. Do have a little bit more equality in terms of healthcare and access to healthcare. Okay. Um, all right, so let’s move to the biggest predicament of our world today.COVID-19.

Ashley: So how have you, as a medical professional been impacted by COVID-19 at your workplace and at home?

Dr. Srivastava: So, this is actually a, you know,this is a, actually a very kind of personal issue for me. You know, I, you know, as I mentioned, I worked in a hospital setting. So, you know, when I worked at there during the start of the pandemic, so I was in the medical units, I was in the, you know, in. In the entire hospital, inpatient patient medical. So a number of my clients had COVID or had symptoms. Um, And so that was difficult, you know, we didn’t know a lot about COVID then, you know, and having to make a transition of, okay, well, can I do tele-health with this person? What is the risk there? Um, so that is something that I, I had to navigate and how do I keep my students safe? You know, my postdoc fellows where, you know, they’re not risking their safety, you know? So I think that that was something that, you know, we had to adjust to, um, Personally, you know, another thing is when you’re asking how I’ve been affected, my dad had to go to the hospital, um, for an infection and he actually caught COVID from medical staff and unfortunately died during. Depend DEMEC and it, you know, and so this, this pandemic has been pretty tough on a lot of people. A lot of people have experienced loss and all of us have experienced adjustment and anxiety over not knowing what’s happened and we’re still not out of it, you know? And now I think it extends if we have family in India or if we have family that, you know, In a place where vaccines aren’t readily available, how we’re having to deal and cope with those kinds of things. Um, you know, my practice and part of the reason I turned to private practices, you know, I safety and accessibility for those that aren’t readily getting mental health care. Um, but also providing a space that’s safe, you know, so a lot of my practice is virtual, right? So you don’t need to come in the office.We don’t necessarily need to traditionally meet, but you are getting the care that you need.

Ashley: I definitely get what you’re saying with like family in India. I like, yeah, I definitely get what you’re saying. Um, so do you think COVID-19 has impacted the access to health care? If so, how?

Dr. Srivastava: Well, I think a lot of people, you know, like I mentioned, or, you know, Our safety was a top priority.So a lot of people couldn’t come in to hospitals or were scared or anxious and rightfully so, you know, we didn’t know what was safe. We didn’t, you know, there was exposure. So I think a lot of people kind of stayed away from going to the doctor at first or going into hospitals or kind of. Waiting on medical care and mental health care that they needed.But also some of those issues got worse, especially if we’re looking at mental health, people were isolated. People had to stay home. And, you know, if so, you know, in terms of our populations, a lot of adult children move back in with their parents. They came home and then it was going back into that dynamic, which can be very stressful and readjusting.Um, but also people. If they had anxiety or depression, or even if they didn’t having to cope with isolation, having to cope with not being able to do things that they usually relieve stress through, like going to the gym or talking with friends or meeting friends. So having to adjust to that has been very difficult.And you know, a lot of people didn’t have access and don’t continue to have access to the care that they need as we’re getting out of the pandemic. All right.

Ashley: So do you think COVID-19 help people realize how unfair healthcare is in some areas? Not just people who don’t have access to it, but people who do, do you think changes are being made specifically because of this pandemic or are changes being made at all?

Dr. Srivastava: Well, I think a big shift is virtual, right? Tele-health telephone services. Like I think now, even if it wasn’t available and for a lot of places, it wasn’t available, right. That you can have video sessions that you can have checkups virtually. I think now that’s been a big shift and it. It has improved accessibility where people don’t have to commute or drive or people that can’t drive or too sick.Now they have that, that access. Um, you know, I think the disparity kind of there in lies, if you don’t have insurance, if you don’t have access to resources or even a culturally responsive provider, those can be difficulties as well. Um, so especially in underprivileged areas like India now with the second wave, COVID 19 has hit really hard.

Ashley: So how do you think we can help them?

Dr. Srivastava: Well, I, I think it’s, you know, a really complicated question, you know, we’re part of the diaspora,you and I, you know, you’re in California, I’m in Texas, but a lot of us still have family there, you know? So I think it’s providing our families, support our friends that are.Part, you know, that are in India or in South Asia that are being really affected. How do we support them from afar? You know, how do we help with resources? You know? So a number of people are giving to different donations, like the red cross or, um, You know, a lot of there’s so many now I am part of India, which is actually, you know, something, um, that two psychologists made, which is providing therapy for frontline workers and essential workers in India.Um, and it’s a whole community of mental health providers that are trying to get that care. And I know a lot of other nonprofits are trying to give therapy because. It’s not just the medical symptoms, it’s scary. It’s loss, your, your family and your friends are dying from this, youknow, and you’re scared.So mental health care, I think is something that we’re trying to provide as best we can, but there definitely needs to be more in addition to the resources like oxygen and then actual health care that, you know, as we’re seeing, it’s a really bad situation. So I think really kind of helping those NGOs, helping, you know, those medical and mental health organizations are critical right now.Um, so do you believe that the education via receiving on how to protect ourselves against COVID-19 is advocate, is there any information you would like to emphasize that you think everybody should know? Well, I think, you know, it kind of depends on where you’re at, right? We’re in the United States, so people are getting vaccinated, you know, people are able to go out more safely, you know, but I think that wearing masks is always a good thing, but also, you know, Meeting yourself where you’re at.I have a number of clients actually that now this is an adjustment to go out again and you know how to navigate that has been difficult. Um, but you know, in terms of your question, you know, I also think we have to recognize disparity. Not everybody is vaccinated, but also it depends on where you’re at.Like you’re mentioning India or other places, you know, how do we. Still recognize that not everyone is where we’re at in terms of the ability to going out and how do we support them. Um, and, and how do they still keep safe? And a lot of that is tied to mental health. People are tired of staying home. Um, but recognizing that this is still something that’s relevant, so you have to stay safe.

Ashley: Would you like to talk a little bit about the COVID-19 vaccine?

Dr. Srivastava: Well, I mean, I, you know, again, I’m a psychologist, so that is not my, my area, but, you know, I think that vaccinations are definitely, what’s making the difference here. People getting safer, you know, and I know that there are a number of them on the market and, you know, in a way it’s kind of funny. Cause people are like, Oh, I got the Moderna and I got them Pfizer. I get the Johnson and Johnson. I mean, I, I think that that’s, what’s critical. For keeping our population. And now that people are traveling internationally too, again, that’s really, really important and keeping our world safe right now. And if you have questions or misconceptions, ask, look for information, you know, get the facts about it.

Ashley: Okay. I’ve asked a lot of questions. Um, so what are some organizations you think people can donate to, to help these underprivileged areas? Are there any specific ones you would like to mention what they are?

Dr. Srivastava: You know, I know that, and there’s so many different efforts. Like I know the red cross. I know, you know, there’s like a lot of.And it can, it kind of depends on where, right? If we’re talking about India, India right now is really critical and there’s so many different organizations that are doing good work. So it kind of resonates with who you want to help, where you want to help, you know, what you want to do.Do you want to provide money for hospitals? Do you want to provide money to give people food? You know, so I would, you know, I have a number of web websites that I can share, but it is kind of where do you want to help the most. And where do you want to give?

Ashley: Okay. All right, everyone. So that’s Dr. Srivastava. Thank you so much for being here today.I wish you all the best and please stay, stay safe, stay safe, everyone, because COVID is still in the air. You’re not out of the in the clear yet.

Dr. Srivastava: Yeah. Thank you so much, Ashley.

(00:02)
Hi everyone! Welcome to another episode by Med n’Ed. Today we have Dr. Srushti with us. So would you like to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself?

Dr. Srushti: (00:12)
Hi Mallika. My name is Dr. Srushti Sahukar. I’m a doctor, like I said already. And I’m also the founder of medbites.nom. It is a medical education page that I mostly run on Instagram. It’s also there on Facebook, but I’m not that active on Facebook from med bites. Like you requested, I thought I’ll come on here and speak about the elective experiences.

Host (00:41)
Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us today. So basically what is an elective?

Dr. Srushti: (00:51)
So an elective is an away rotation that you do at a hospital that you don’t already work at. It is about broadening, both your professional network and gaining a new experience and also like, you know, learning how other systems work outside of what you’ve already seen. So there are two types of electives actually that you can do a clerkship or you can do an observership, but both electives are equally valuable because you get to learn a lot. They say that clerkships are better because you get new hands-on experience, but it really depends on what’s available at the time.

Host (01:32)
And how does one get an elective?

Dr. Srushti: (01:37)
So electives are mostly for students in third, fourth and internship year of medical school. These are actually hosted at hospitals in the United States that are tied with the medical school of that university. And you can, , there are four main portals of how you can apply to these electives. First one is if your med school, the one that you are enrolled at, if you’re, , if it participates with a, what is called the VSAS program that stands for a visiting student application services, u, this is a program that has been started by American association of medical colleges that allows, you know, allows students to connect with and, obtained rotations like in the United States, whoever is interested. They can do like even exchange rotations, or they can just go through rotation.

Dr. Srushti: (02:39)
So you just have to become a member, like get in touch with your school coordinator, become a member, uh, apply, uh, with all the prerequisites for the application. And you can go do your rotation and come back.There are also many agencies that provide this kind of service as in like connecting interest, his students to, hospitals or clinics who are willing to accept, students to, uh, under them to do shadowing and stuff like that. So the popular ones that I’ve heard of, or AMO opportunities, MedClerkships, AmeriClerkships, but I’m sure there are many other agencies like this. These are the ones that I’ve come across and I’ve personally used AMO opportunities twice. And I really liked them. They’re very reliable. Uh, the third one is you can individually, like, suppose let’s say that, , your college doesn’t participate with visa. You can, um, go to the individual university webpages and apply, just follow the instructions on the webpage. And you can apply through that. Or you can just network through contacts, or you can just send out emails to, uh, doctors and see if you get lucky. Some of my friends have done that as well, and it also works

Host (04:00)
Thank you Dr. Srushti. So what are the requirements to apply to an elective like sort of prerequisites do you needto be elegible to apply to one?

Dr. Srushti: (04:12)
Okay. So, um, I, like I told you, this is for international medical graduates and actually even in a United States, like one student from one medical school can do a clerkship at an other program. It does happen, but, I’m talking mainly for IMG because I am an IMG and I’m not an AMG which stands for, so AMG is American medical graduate and IMG is international medical graduate. So when it comes to requirements, you need to show them proof of being enrolled in a medical school. So, that can include, uh, various things like Dean’s letter of bonafide student’s certificate, marks card, or like, you know, uh, there are like many proofs of enrollment that you can, um, um, show to the, like, it has to be a part of your application package. And the resume especially is important because, um, this is based on which they will either offer you the elective or reject the offer the elective, or they might reject you because, um, resumes are important as it is quite competitive to get these electives. So your resume can include anything and everything from what you’ve done, like, you know, go and extracurricular activities in school, any volunteering that you’ve done, research, um, your test scores, all of these things come under there as you may. And then again, there’s the proof of enrollment that has to come from your, with the letterhead of your uh, your medical school.

Host (05:45)
Do you have any advice on how to build your resume to apply to these electives?

Dr. Srushti: (05:52)
Um, I wouldn’t say that you should be keeping the ultimate goal as applying for electives. It’s more about how you want to build your professional resume in general, uh, while that can be a separate discussion of itself. Uh, I would say, just go put yourself out there because, uh, if I can speak from my own personal experience, I did a lot of volunteering in second year of medical school, because it’s a, it’s a longer you’re compared to the others. Uh, instead of, um, 10 to 12 months, we got 14 months to prepare for the exams. And so I spent a lot of time, uh, campaigning, and, uh, we did like a breast cancer awareness month. We did, uh, aids awareness. We did, um, we went to local schools and taught them hand hygiene, like how to wash your hands because, um, a bad hand hygiene and bad hygiene in general.

Dr. Srushti: (06:49)
And for mites, I, one of the biggest causes for transmitting infections. And if we can teach them to do that at a young age, they can go on to be healthy, happy people in life. So I did all of that. And then, um, uh, I started my own YouTube channel, uh, for medical education and I have the megabytes, which is my main, uh, medical education platform. So it’s really about, uh, uh, see because for me, my passion is, uh, medical education, but there are other friends of mine who are really into research who have published, uh, three, four papers already. So it really depends on what you want to do, uh, like, you know, as your contribution to, um, the medical field, and that ends up adding to your resume. And this is everything that you’re going to put forward, uh, put forward in your resume when you even apply for electives,

Host (07:42)
That’s so cool and that all the volunteering work you did that’s really interesting. Other than proof of enrollment what other additional sort of documentation is required for applying?

Dr. Srushti: (07:59)
Some schools ask for Dean’s letters, some schools ask for like, you know, a Dean’s letter of recommendation, and some schools might ask for just a letter of recommendation. It can come from any doctor. Uh, so it really depends. Uh, but then, um, I think Mark’s card and bonafide student certificate would be standard. Yeah. Do you want to talk, want me to talk about the additional requirements now? Mallika okay. Also, there are also some additional, um, criteria that some, some of the programs look for, uh, sometimes

Dr. Srushti: (08:42)
They might ask for the step one score.

Dr. Srushti: (08:45)
Uh, step one stands for this first step of the U S Emily, which has a series of three examinations that, um, everyone who wants to practice medicine in the United, uh, have to appear for unclear. Uh, so sometimes they might ask for the first step score. Um, they might ask you for a BLS and ACLA certificate to make sure that you know how to do a proper CPR if ever, um, there is a Saturday night as to, for patient. And then, uh, then they can ask for toll free test scores as your proof of English proficiency, because these are important for them. Uh, sometimes they will even run a background check. So this depends because, uh, twice I was asked to run my own background, check check, and send them the proof of being cleared. And, uh, on two other occasions, they themselves run the background, check on me after I was accepted into the elective and I paid the tuition and everything

Host: (09:47)
What’s the timeline for applying? Like when should you start to apply and when will you get the result?

Dr. Srushti: (09:56)
Okay. Also for this, uh, Mallika, I want you to pull up the portals of entry once again, because it really depends on how you’re applying to the elective. Okay. So when it comes to the SAS and AMC, usually they ask you to apply within 30, sorry. Uh, within 90 days of starting the start of the elective, uh, which is like three months, uh, with AMR opportunities, it’s super quick, you could apply this month and be gone next month for the elective with agencies. It’s always faster because you’re paying them a commission for connecting you guys along with the tuition that you pay to the doctor or the program itself. Uh, if you’re, if you’re applying through individual web pages, this is the one that takes the maximum on the amount of time they want you to send in the application at least six months in advance.

Dr. Srushti: (10:54)
Okay. And some of them even ask you to send it like nine months in advance and especially, um, electives, which work on a first-come first-serve basis. They’re very competitive. So, uh, when I, uh, I actually applied, uh, to Montana hospital in, uh, in New York and I had gotten accepted, but I didn’t end up going there because the pandemic started by that time. But then for that particular elective, I had applied like, um, nine to 10 months ahead of time just to make sure that I don’t miss out on the elective. So it really depends on, um, uh, like, you know, what they even, but, but four to six months in advances, uh, is minimum with the coordinators. Again, it really depends on what relationship you have with the clinician who’s taking you under their wing.

Host: (11:47)
And once you do get accepted this year what sort of additional insurances do we need?

Dr. Srushti: (11:58)
Um, malpractice insurance, usually they, they ask you to procure it after getting accepted, but even before getting accepted as a part of your application package, along with the Dean’s letter and everything you have to, um, can you pull up the serology? Uh, the serologies?

Dr. Srushti: (12:22)
The hepatitis and the,

Dr. Srushti: (12:29)
Oh, it’s all right. Uh, I can open it on mine. Uh, I just open it on my WhatsApp. Yeah. And you this, what am I supposed to share the screen with you?

Host: (12:58)
You’re supposed to share the screen, but then others.

Dr. Srushti: (13:03)
Okay. So this share screen, uh, okay. You have disabled participants screen sharing, so just enable it

Dr. Srushti: (13:12)
Can you share it now?

Dr. Srushti: (13:24)
So you can see, uh, that, so whenever there is an application package, right? For example, when I applied to Mount Sinai hospital that is tied to Icahn school of medicine in New York city, they had a immunization farm, which the doctor had to fill out in as a test. Right. And along with that, they might ask you for report lab reports of immunity against hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, and tuberculosis. And they might also ask for proof of being vaccinated against NYSERDA meningitis. So these are all highly infectious diseases. And because we, uh, many of us are from a third world countries. And like, you know, tuberculosis is not even a big disease in the United States. They have eradicated it from their country. So they need to make sure that because we are in a hospital setting, we don’t accidentally infect somebody, uh, and cause, uh, an epidemic over there. So, um, they need to know that, uh, we’re immunized against all of these pathogens and sometimes the list is going to be longer, but these are definitely the standard ones.

Host: (14:42)
Okay. And are there any sort of things requiredbefore you go? I meant like the documentation required such as insurances and stuff.

Dr. Srushti: (15:02)
Uh, yes. You do have to show them a malpractice insurance. Uh, you need to purchase a mathematic practice insurance actually. Uh, so I used, can you share the ones with the insurances? Uh, so I use the first one, which is academic medical professionals insurance. These are the, are those which are offered, which I personally haven’t used, but I actually found this list on, um, an article that a friend of mine wrote, uh, on, uh, on a blog site called Indian medical student or the link of which we can share it with the viewers of our interview later on. Uh, but this is required because, um, in case you mess up when, uh, taking care of a patient and the patient sues you or the doctor, um, if you’re insured, then the insurance company will pay for the damages. If you’re not insured, you would have to pay out of pocket, which is really going to cost you an hour and a limb. So this is very important. Every elective is going to ask for a malpractice insurance. So

Host: (16:25)
What are the things to think about when you’re choosing an elective like what are the factors you should consider when you’re applying for one?

Dr. Srushti: (16:37)
Okay. Uh, so it really depends on your goals. Uh, so for me, I wanted to do one advanced elective and one time we get a letter, uh, I did, uh, the, the one which I did like the primary care one. I took history, the physical examination and discussed every case with the doctor and I entered the patient notes. Um, and then I also did, uh, an, um, Hamadan cology elective at Yale university, Yale school of medicine and Yale new Haven hospital. And that was really advanced in the sense that I saw sickle cell anemia patients who came in with acute chest syndrome, which is a complication of sickle cell anemia. And I even saw, uh, disorders of, uh, blood coagulation, where in there was, uh, uh, sometimes, uh, you know, the coagulation factor is right in your blood. There are factors one, two, three, four, five up to 12.

Dr. Srushti: (17:37)
So there was this one patient who had, uh, an anticoagulant antibody, uh, and sometimes because we’ve studied about hemophilia wherein there there’s a deficiency of the production of the clotting factor itself, but sometimes there’s even an antibody that, um, keeps the coagulation factors from working, which I thought was very interesting to see. Um, and then I even did a PMNR elective at Spalding, um, in Boston, that is the, uh, rehab hospital that is tied with Harvard medical school. And I saw some really amazing cases. Like I saw transfers my lightest, I saw anti MDA encephalitis. These are all really rare cases, uh, and to have worked on these cases and manage these patients, it’s really a mind blowing to me. Um, because these are the kinds of things that we hear about when he watch housing. And we think, okay, oh, this is like really high level stuff.

Dr. Srushti: (18:35)
But then I actually saw some of these patients and I was like, that’s really cool and amazing. And even at Yale, for that matter, they were running tests on patients, uh, which they had invented at Yale itself after rigorous the research. And these were tests, which I hadn’t even heard of before, because everybody knows a renal panel, a liver panel and complete blood count, but they were running tests, which I hadn’t even heard of before. So I thought that was really interesting and, um, definitely very aspirational. Uh, it would be an honor to go join a group of, um, highly qualified doctors, um, for my profession later on, it was very inspiring to me.

Host: (19:24)
All of that is so interesting and honestly just so inspiring.

Dr. Srushti: (19:32)
You should, everybody should take, you know, whether or not you want to eventually move to the United States. This is, let’s not even make this about residency. This is about learning and growing, you know, because broadening your horizons is always a good idea whether or not, uh, you end up taking up residency in the U S right. Uh, this, uh, the, the, the intention behind doing these electives should be for learning. And, uh, if you’re doing it for anything other than learning, it’s going to reflect on the letters they write for you anyway, right. Because you can’t go through life like that. Uh, you know, just thinking about resume and application and this and that, it really has to be about, uh, how this month is going to add to who I am. Right. Uh, and I, and even, uh, even I did like an orthopedic surgery elective, uh, that was actually based on convenience because that was being offered in the same, uh, uh, same locality when my sister was staying. Uh, and I, for the first time I saw in charge the killer handed on an injections and inter intraarticular steroid injections that the doctor was administering for patients with osteoarthritis. I had never seen that being done because, uh, when we talk about, um, managing osteoarthritis in India, I’ve only ever seen doctors prescribing painkillers. So this was really interesting for me to, to have, uh, seen how, uh, like, you know, how far you can take it when you really, uh, invest into healthcare.

Dr. Srushti: (21:13)
That’s so true. I think that if you go and do an elective for anything other than then learnning, that’s going to reflect in some way or the other. And what are the additional factors you considered while choosing an elective?

Dr. Srushti: (21:30)
I think it was more about, uh, even the job fluffy, um, because I wanted to do electives, uh, on the east coast because I really like new England. Um, and then for me, uh, Gail was really early because I didn’t even expect that I would get accepted. I had applied and I had just forgotten about it because I was like, there’s a chance I might not get approved for that elective. And I was working in the casualty when I heard back from them saying that I was accepted and I literally started crying and everybody was staring at me. Uh, so, um, the things that you want to think about is like local culture, like, you know, uh, for me, like, you know, going to Yale during the campus that was really special. And, uh, you should also, uh, plan ahead for your accommodation, uh, your food and commute.

Dr. Srushti: (22:30)
And, um, definitely also remember that, uh, they value punctuality and sincere sincerity more than anything else you could be at the bottom of your class, not getting very good grades, but it is see that you’re committed to what you’re doing and that you’re, um, working hard and doing the best that you can, right? Because there are so many of us were capable of so many things, but we still keep half asking it, right. Uh, that’s not appreciated. So being very functional and sincere is very important when you’re on the elective, uh, ahead of time, you will have to, um, look from a, for good accommodation and make sure that, uh, your commute is no longer than 15 to 20 minutes so that you don’t spend energy commuting, and you can actually put that energy into researching. Um, whatever you learned in the hospital, you can go on, up-to-date read up about like, make notes about it, or use that, um, you know, feed them into your flashcards and use that to really connect to the topics that you read on your, um, on your textbooks.

Dr. Srushti: (23:39)
Um, and food is usually, uh, like usually they’d be having cafeterias, or if you’re into meal prep, you can like, you know, prep it, box it, take it, uh, because nobody, there’s not an actual lunch break officially in the United States. They all do like a quick lunch at noon. Um, and, uh, if they’re ever hungry in between work, they’ll just grab a bite or two, uh, there’s no, like, you know, the way it’s in India, like breakfast, lunch, dinner, there’s no, that kind of culture really. And, uh, the main meal for them happens to be dinner actually. So, um, just the focus is on work on, not on anything else about work. Yeah.

Host: (24:26)
Thank you! Those are really important factors to think about.

Dr. Srushti: (24:29)
Oh, one more thing I want to add Mallika is about making, not just professional network with older doctors who can write letters for you. It’s also about building connections with your peers. Uh, because when I did my elective at Yale, um, I met so many students who came from China, India, Pakistan, and Malaysia. And some of them were even from south America, like Colombia and Brazil and everything. And I made friends with these people and I’m still in touch with them. And one of them has actually become one of my best friends who I tell everything, uh, and we’ve really helped each other come out. And one of them actually really supports me with the whole med bites page. Uh, so it’s really about, uh, building every thing and it, and if you’re moving to the United States is might actually end up becoming the foundation for your life in the U S

Host: (25:29)
Yeah. That’s so true. And do you have any sort of popular electives that people apply to or they should?

Dr. Srushti: (25:38)
Uh, I do. Uh, so, uh, actually these are the ones in my experience, which, uh, most of my peers have applied to the first one is, uh, Harvard. Um, then, uh, there’s Stanford, Yale university of Chicago, Mount Sinai, uh, hospital at Icahn school of medicine, Florida international university, Columbia and Keck school of medicine and university of Southern California. So these are just a few of many that are many that are at least a 5,200, uh, program that are, that accept international medical graduates to come do electives at their hospital. Um, uh, so it’s really about staying aware, speaking to your seniors and, uh, doing a lot of Googling or just a lot of Googling. This is how you get to know where, what is and what all you need to do prep ahead to get these electives done.

Host: (26:39)
And how was your whole experience with the application process?

Dr. Srushti: (26:45)
The application process honesty’s quite stressful, um, because there’s a lot of, uh, proof that you need to, you need to really sell yourself. And that’s the, it’s the same thing even with when applying to residency, you really have to sell yourself, right. Uh, so that happens even with the electives. So the application process was definitely quite stressful because I was running around getting my blood, tested, getting the reports, filing everything. Um, some of them it’s easier because they ask you to upload everything, uh, to their Backpage. And that’s the application, but Howard especially wants, uh, physical documents. They want like, you know, copies of everything to be mailed to their office in Boston. So it was just a lot of running around. It was quite stressful, but, um, and I did everything very meticulously and it really paid off.

Host: (27:42)
How was your experience at the electives during the electives?

Dr. Srushti: (27:47)
What I noticed Malika is that, so one of the doctors that I worked with, actually, all of the doctors were amazing, but I’m going to talk about one particular doctor that I worked with at Yale. I mean, this is mind blowing. He did his undergrad at Stanford. He did his med school at Yale. He did both his residency and fellowship again at Harvard with Massachusetts general hospital and Dana-Farber hospital where he did his EMR. And then he’s back at Yale university doing, um, he’s an, he’s a professor at Yale university teaching HemOnc and treating patients with cancer. And he has done just so many things with his life. He, um, he has published articles in the highest impact journals, but I think the one thing that struck me the hardest is how humble all of these people are. They don’t show off. Uh, they don’t act like, oh, I’m so high and mighty because I’ve done so many amazing things with my life.

Dr. Srushti: (28:47)
He treated me with so much respect. And, um, it’s the kind of respect I never got, not even, I mean, I’m, again, not the thing, India or anything like that, but no one has ever treated me with that much respect. At least someone who’s that much older and that much more experienced than me. And I felt like the way he treated me, I felt like I really mattered, uh, that he was paying attention to me and he wanted me to learn and he wanted me to succeed. And there was just this amazing rapport. Um, and I felt that with quite a few doctors that I worked under, even at, um, even at Harvard, there were two PMNR doctors, uh, PMNR stands for physical medicine and we have limitation. Uh, so even they were so welcoming and so chatty and, uh, they never felt, it made me feel like, um, uh, that I was from India and I didn’t know anything. They, they, they treated me with a lot of respect and they wanted to know how it is in India. And they wanted to, they wanted my perspective on things as well. Uh, so it was really amazing. I think that the thing that struck me the most is how kind humble and hardworking everybody is no matter what their, um, professional statuses

Host: (30:09)
That’s so inspiring to hear. And that’s honestly just an amazing experience. So that’s pretty much all of the questions we have for today. Thank you so much. Dr. Srushti. Like, this will help a lot of people and I’ve learned so much. I’m sure that everyone will learn so much from this.

Dr. Srushti: (30:28)
Uh, thank you so much for inviting me. It has been a pleasure to talk about this. Um, I really want more or more and more people to gain good experiences and fight in the professional horizons. Thank you for choosing me to be here, uh, and have a wonderful day.

Interviewer: Hey everyone, my name is Rutu. Welcome to our new series called The Doctors Journey. For our very first episode, our very first guest is our future doctor, Dr. Desai. Welcome to our very first episode. How are you doing? 

Farah: Yeah, not too bad. Thank you. How are you?

Interviewer: I’m great. Thank you for asking. So let’s just get started. So what do you like to tell the viewers a little bit about yourself?

Farah: Yeah, so my name is Farah. I’m a fourth year medical student in London, and spent pretty much all my life in London. And,, yeah, I go to King’s College, and I’m currently in my clinical years. So the last two years now. And, and that’s about it really? 

Interviewer: Well, that’s good to know. Um, have you always wanted to be in the medical field? Or was there a particular moment when you just decided that this is it?

Farah: I don’t ever remember having that moment when I had the realization that I wanted to be a doctor. I think some people do have that. But for me, I don’t remember. And I have always wanted to do something in this area. And I was always quite interested in science. I was always very academic. And, yeah, I think medicine was always something that I was quite interested in. But yeah, I’m so sorry. That’s almost always something that I’m very interested in. But I do know people who have had that moment of realization, and I was speaking to somebody through Instagram, actually, not long ago. And she said that over the pandemic, she started volunteering with an ambulance service. That’s in the UK, but she’s in another country. And she was volunteering, and she’s decided she doesn’t want to do the course that she’s applied to  uni, and was asking about how she could potentially get into medicine said, So it happens to people, but for me, I just didn’t have that.

Interviewer: I guess that makes sense. I really like science. Well, it’s just kind of interesting. So yeah, that makes sense. Um, how does it feel to be a medical student? Like, what are some difficulties you have faced as a medical student? 

Farah: Yeah, I mean, to finally get into medicine after having tried and failed the first time. It’s obviously really great being here now. though, it hasn’t been easy. So when I was in sixth form, which is like 17-18 years old, and I really struggled to get through the application process, everything. So I grew up in a quite deprived area. And so the school that I went to, they were supportive, but I just don’t think that they could match my needs. And which is, you know, fair enough. My parents couldn’t help at home because they, we didn’t know anybody who was a doctor, or anybody who was studying medicine at the time. So that was really tough. And it wasn’t until after I did my undergrad, and that, you know, kind of realized certain things had to be done and in order, and I had to get experience, and I had to do so many things, to make sure that I would be a good candidate for medicine. I think things have changed. Now, there’s so many things available online, so many free resources. And I think, yeah, it’s just about pointing people in the right direction.

Interviewer: I mean, I understand like, I’m 18 too, and I have like, started applying to a lot of universities. But for me, there’s a lot of information outside and I I can ask a lot of people too. So I kind of understand, like the struggles of applying to universities a little bit stressful. And it’s always hard at the beginning, I guess. So what is the process that you needed to follow to get into the medical field in the United Kingdom? Do you have any advice for the students who want to pursue the same career?

Farah: Yes, so in the UK, if you want to go straight from school, to medicine, to uni, and you basically have to do so you start your application process in the summer or so when you’re 17, it’s, we call it six, four years. So you have 17-18, you’ve got two years of sixth form, and that’s before you go to university. And after your first year, you start your application process. And during that summer, you basically have to do an entry exam. So depending on which universities you’re going to, there’s different entry exams you have to do. And then you also have to start your application process, which every year, the deadline is October 15. And, and yeah, you just have to do all of that there, and depending on how well you do the exams, depending on your predicted grades, you then decide where you want to go where you want to apply to, and just kind of maximize your choices. But you know, before that way before that, you have to organize lots of work experience, you have to shadow people in that, and, you know, within the profession, have done loads of things to kind of reaffirm your decision to study medicine. And I think that was the part that I struggled with the first time around, you know, you’re 18 now, but I think that’s really young to have to decide what you want to do for the rest of your life. And especially if you don’t have that guidance around you, it can make it even more difficult. So, and yeah, but there is, there is a proper order of things to do before you can apply and get into medicine in the UK, and also your application if you then get invited to interviews, and then you either get an offer or you don’t.

Interviewer:That’s really good to know. Thank you. So do you have any memorable experiences during university or internship year that you would like to share with our viewers?

Farah: Yes, so my first block this year was women’s health. So there’s loads of, you know, like obstetrics and gynecology, and my very first week in clinics was on the labor wards. So I went from zero to 100, literally in the first week. And I always thought before that I would never have children. And the thought of labor was just horrible. I just thought, like, I never want to put myself through that. But actually, it completely changed my mind. And which is surprising, because I thought it would just make it worse for me. And yeah, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve cried that we’ve just seen babies. It’s so overwhelming. But it looked really nice. And I think the first couple, I watched gibber. And I think they may have named their baby and the name that I suggested. So I don’t know if they have but they said they liked it. So I’m gonna take it. 

Interviewer: Aw, that’s really sweet. That’s, that’s actually a great experience to have. It’s really memorable. Um, how can students find such internship opportunities? Like what are some necessary requirements for these internships?

Farah: I think it’s possibly quite difficult to get face to face experience now. And you know, considering the whole COVID-19 situation, but there are loads of online work experiences, so you can get virtual work experience. I know a friend who’s running loads of online talks and lots of zoom sessions. They’re inviting doctors and nurses and loads of people within the profession to come in, give talks and run workshops overdue, which I think is really good, considering, you know, that students, like sixth form students probably don’t have the opportunity to go into hospitals in person to have experience. But usually, you would just when at least when I did it, I would just contact hospitals and see if they could potentially take a student on for a week or two. And people were really good. I also volunteered initially at a nursing home, and I worked there and ended up getting a paid job and worked there for over a year. And which was a really good experience that I mean, that was a lot more helpful and informative to me than my week in the hospital stay. And because yeah, you don’t really get a taste of what medicines about, you know, by going to a hospital for a week, you do need to take something you need, you do need to experience something a little bit longer than that, but more hands on, and at least I think it’s more useful.

Interviewer: Okay. That’s great. Um, so, how did COVID-19 personally impact you in like the workplace at home in school, because everything’s online lately, and it’s really hard to communicate with others. So how do you manage?

Farah: Yeah, I think initially, I was really worried that it’s gonna make me really unproductive

not being in uni and you know, kind of being in a working environment. But actually I’ve, I’ve been okay, studying from home, I think we’re all quite good at adapting. And I think it’s really helpful in terms of virtual clinics have been a really good thing, one of the good things to come out of this. And so lots of people can now access, you know, the health care system through that people who may be, you know, work, live really far. And they couldn’t potentially access, a very specialist clinic says, and there are still face to face connects happening. And obviously, people still have to go into the hospital. But I do think it’s a good thing. It’s a more efficient way of doing things. And there have been some downsides as well. So while I was on my and women’s health block, not so we’re having to come into their pregnancy scans alone, which is quite daunting, especially because some of those women have had symptoms, like pain and bleeding. And so there’s always that, you know, they’re quite nervous, quite anxious. And, and I think that’s quite tough. So people having to come into hospitals alone, my sister gave birth. And while, she had her husband with her during her C section, but he had a two hour slot. So when she was recovering from the C section, she had to do it all by herself for two days in the hospital, which is really tough for a new mom, somebody who’s just had a C section, you know, they can’t even move. And yeah, so I think there’s loads of things that we have to work on. And that, yeah, I think we’re all quite good at adapting.

Interviewer: Yeah, COVID has really been a huge problem for a lot of people right now. And it’s really sad that there’s not a lot we can do about it. And yeah, it’s tough at times. So, um, you have been in the medical field for a long time, are there any changes that you think should be made in the healthcare structure to increase equality and improve accessibility?

Farah: Yeah, um, well, I, as I said before, virtual clinics are a good way to improve accessibility. And yeah, in terms of equality, I was looking at something the other day, it was the healthy eating food, posters that are usually seen in hospitals and schools. And a lot of the time they don’t take into consideration foods from different cultures. So it’s always very kind of like generalized westernized food groups. And I think things like that, and they need to be changed, or they need to be made so that it can target other groups of people as well. And

yeah,, I’m not quite sure what else at the moment suggests. But, I mean, of course, there are loads of ways that and that healthcare system can be improved. Hopefully, it will be.

Interviewer: A certain thing, like our community, as a whole can do to help any solutions or anything, which can help. 

Farah: I think schools are a good place to start. And so schools should be taking on more healthy lifestyles, teaching. And they should be delivering loads of that to their students, and embedding it into their own practice. So when I was in school, I remember a chef, one of like, quite a well known chef in the UK, came to our school and, and introduced a more healthy eating program. And so my school scraps or the vending machines, there are no crisps and chocolates in the school anymore. So like, healthier options. And which I think was really good, because obesity, I think, is the second most important thing, in terms of Pediatrics at the moment in the UK. And so yes, childhood obesity is very important. And also schools now are doing something, what some schools are, and taking all the children out for a mile walk or run, passing in the morning. So a nice way to start the morning. So I do think that it should start with education in the schools. And hopefully that can have some kind of structured change within our communities. And I think things that you guys are doing, for example, providing education and awareness that’s really important, and providing free resources for anybody who’s looking into training. Make a change in their lifestyle or even students who are looking into potentially studying medicine or other similar degrees. And yeah, I think it’s really important to have a good, good range of free resources available to those people.

Interviewer: Thank you so much, really appreciate your support. I really enjoy helping others who need it, and it really helps them as well. So I think it’s a good organization as well. And I’m glad that we can help. Well, that’s all the interview questions I had for you today. Thank you so much for interviewing with us and giving us a lot of helpful information. And we really loved having you here today.

Farah: Thank you. All my pleasure.

Interviewer: Okay. That was the first episode for a doctor’s journey. Thank you, everyone for watching.

Shreya: All right. Ok. Uh, hello, everyone, my name is Shreya, and welcome to Episode two of our interview series, A Doctor’s Journey. So today we have a very special guest with us, and his name is Dr. Darsh
shah. Doctor, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to speak with us. With that being said, let’s get started. How are you?
Dr. Darsh Shah: I’m doing great. I’m living the dream. So thank you so much for having me on here. I love doing these so.
Shreya: Of course, would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and even your specialty?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, sure. So like you said, my name is Dr. Darsh Shah. I am a first year physical medicine and rehabilitation resident at Penn State Hershey currently doing my first year. So it’s a preliminary medicine year. I just graduated from medical school from Virginia. So out at Blacksburg, Virginia. And, you know, my goals are to practice integrative and functional medicine eventually. So I love the alternative treatment, holistic type of care. Fellowship wise, we’ll see maybe sports medicine, maybe something like regenerative medicine. And then in my free time, I’m just I’m very active on social media. I’m a premed coach. I am a host. I am the host of a podcast called Medicine Redefined, where we try to talk about putting the health back in health care, which we can probably get into as we go on here. But that’s that’s essentially me.
I’m i’m really into fitness, working out, optimizing everything mindset and lifestyle. So that’s kind of that’s kind of what I do on the Instagram.
Shreya: That’s really interesting. You’re kind of like all over the place, right? Yeah, I love it. Love it. So can you tell. So like you said already, so can you tell our viewers just specifically one more time
where you’re located and where you practice?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, so I am at Hershey, Pennsylvania, doing a physical medicine and rehabilitation residency.
Shreya: So now dedicating your life to helping those in need. Truly is a really big commitment. Right. So can you tell us a little bit about how or when you decided that you wanted to pursue medicine?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, so it’s really funny because I really don’t think anyone knows they want to do medicine until they’re actually a doctor to really understand how. This is, this is why I went into it. So the earliest I can remember me being interested in medicine was
probably like first, second, third grade. You know, when anyone asked, like, hey, would you want to be when you grow up? And I had to write it down, I would write a neurosurgeon because I knew the E came before the U. And even then I thought I was like, “Oh man, I’m super smart. I’m probably only third grader who knows this. And I’m not a neurosurgeon”. So but like going growing up, you know, my my parents and again, being brown, you would think they’d
be like, oh, why don’t you go to sciences or something? My dad was always like, why don’t you try business? You know, like everyone we know goes into medicine. Like why why be blinded by a field
just because, you know, people are going into it. So I was I like, no, I was very good at math. I was very good at sciences so I kind of stayed on that track. I ended up going to Temple University being like BSMD programs like three years undergrad, four years med school. However, I
missed the GPA cutoff 0.02. So that was like the biggest blessing in disguise. But still it was still set in stone that I wanted to go to med school. So, you know, after two gap years, three application cycles, I finally got in. And, you know, as you go through the journey, you keep asking yourself, like, why am I doing this? Why am I really here? And it’s funny because I think it was probably about three or four months ago where I really, really honed in on to why I love what I do. And I just remember, ever since I was younger, I loved helping people that I didn’t even know. So like I would always volunteer to be the tour guide. I would always volunteer to, you know, if people are lost on the street, I would go up to them, go, hey, do you need help with directions? And to me, it was more about building a social connection and a meaningful connection with people that I didn’t even know. And I just thought that was the coolest thing. And I thought I had a knack for that. I just really love understanding people’s stories. Uh, what makes people the way they are and helping them so that they can live you know, a better, healthier, more prosperous life.
Shreya: Wow. And to kind of go on that, it’s interesting because like as a kid, like I kind of was this kind of
same person. Right. Like, I always want to help people out. I was always trying to do whatever I can to help people out. And I think that’s such an interesting quality when you start to grow up and you realize that, OK, maybe I want to help people in terms of biology. I want to start helping people as a doctor. And I don’t know, I always found that kind of as an indicator of perhaps if you really enjoy helping people, maybe biology, maybe medicine is the way to go for you. OK, moving on. As a doctor, I’m sure you are very, very busy. How do you manage to keep the work and life balance?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, so it’s so again, everything you’re asking, I was like I literally think about on the daily. And so one of the things is like, I don’t like to tell people I’m busy or I don’t like to think I’m busy, because I think busy is a way of telling ourselves that we’re important and that we don’t have time for anything else.So I like to view it as productive, right, because a single mother working two jobs or three jobs is
busier than I am, right. There are people who are doing way more meaningful things to their own personal life than I might be
doing. So for me, looking at work life, I look at as a way of looking at how productive can I be. So, you know, there’s let’s say you work on average 20 hours per week. So one hundred and sixty eight hour a week, and then you’re 70 hours, you’re working. Let’s say you’re sleeping for eight hours a day. So that’s sixty four. If you add those up and then you subtract the 168 from that, it’s about like thirty five to forty hours. You still have 40 hours per week. So if you divide that by whatever seven, let’s say you have five hours per day to still do whatever you want. And so in those five hours, let’s say an hour a day I use for working out and fitness, another hour I’ll use to read another hour, I’ll work on my podcast. Another hour I’ll use to eat or like cook and make healthy stuff. Like there’s still enough time for us to do the things that we want to do. I just think it’s easy for us to make excuses when we say we’re busy and all these things. But I think the work life is
always going to be there. If you want it to be there, know. And again, like I don’t identify myself as a doctor because the momentI do, I take away from everything else in my life. And so a doctor is what I do. It’s not necessarily who I am. Right. That’s that’s that’s the best advice I received in medical school was from a microbiology professor who said that and sticks with me till this day because it allows me to kind of get my hands dirty in a bunch of different things.
Shreya: For sure. That was really insightful. Thank you. And, you know, our viewers are all I’m sure they’re learning so much from this experience. Could you tell us about a specific moment during your medical journey or when you started becoming a doctor in which you were faced with a great difficulty? So perhaps how did you overcome this or was there anything that you learned from that moment that really helped you grow into the pers that you are today?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, yeah, definitely. The hardest moment, I would say, was not being accepted through that seven year med program, missing the GPA cutoff by 0.02 thinking, you know, everything is going right for you, thinking that, oh, this is this is going to be a piece of cake. I’m going to be a doctor. Right. So high school, like frustrated. Very well. And the reason I tell my stats, I got 2140 sat, top two percent, ranked 19 out of a 1050, MVP of tennis team. All these things I tell these stats because once you see the Temple University, it’s the exact opposite. I slowly become a nobody, so to speak. Right. Nobody really knows me. I’m here to thirty five thousand class size. A GPA is not the greatest idea to be that twice because your stats don’t define you. None of those numbers make you who you are. And that was a big wake up call for me is when I didn’t get in, you know, letting that ego drop and say, wow, you know, I’m not maybe as special as I thought I was. I have to work just as hard as anyone else. But that was the biggest blessing because I
don’t think I was ready enough to go to medical school at the age of twenty one or twenty two. There’s no way. And that’s why I think there’s the average age for a first year. Medical school right now is about twenty four. Twenty five years old because you need that mental maturity to kind of just grow up and, you know, learn who you are. And so in those two years that I had a gap year really learned a lot about myself. Right. So I was a medical scribe. I was a lab technician. I did cancer rehab research. I drove for Lyft, I backpacked to Europe. And in those times, those two years, I’ve really delved into self-improvement,
self growth, reading a lot of these books. And that’s really shaped me into who I am. This is why I got into Instagram and decided to be, quote
unquote, like a life coach, even though I don’t have any certifications but just mentorship and trying to become the best version of myself every day. It was because of the two years that I had off
Shreya: Wow. I see. Wow. Yeah. What, in your opinion, define success? I mean, success has such a broad concept, kind of different for everyone. Right to you. What do you think?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, it’s a great question. Me and my mentee. We’re talking about this two weeks ago. For me, success, I think, comes down to you being comfortable and living in your own skin. I just think, like, as long as you don’t have to prove anything to anybody. Not necessarily. That’s not necessarily saying that you shouldn’t be proving. I think we’re all proving ourselves every single day. Right. It’s the only way we kind of climb the ladder. But being comfortable when you’re doing it right and join the journey, I think success is not necessarily always looking at the destination, but being present, enjoying the journey and where you are and being grateful through that journey, I think defines success because in the end, you might make it or you might not. But as long as you enjoyed it, you were successful.
Shreya: For sure. Wow. Yeah. A lot of people today, especially like people that I know that I’m personal friends with. So it’s often that people consider success as like numerical value. One hundred percent. Yes. I think that’s like. Yeah.
Dr. Darsh Shah: So I think is exactly with the social media, with Instagram, with TikTok. All we’re seeing are the glam
side of things right. Now, anyone can label themselves as anything they want, right? I was just in I don’t know if you know what clubhouse is, it’s like this new social media app that’s like audio chat.And so they were just talking about this in one of the clubhouse was like, you know, nowadays, like all these personal trainers, whoever can just label themselves as an expert in something or I’m successful, is this right? So now we get a full sense of what success is when we see other people’s
profiles and that’s what’s dangerous. Right, because now you lose what the hard work means what the journey means and all those things when just a quick fix. Oh, I can just become anything I want.
Shreya: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like success. Yes, it requires hard work, but at the same time, you know, you have to be enjoying it. And it’s not necessarily about the numerical values, the test scores, what you
what you’ve achieved really.
Dr. Darsh Shah: Or the number of followers.
Shreya: That’s true. Are there any particular goals or ambitions that you are currently working towards?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah so I think there’s a lot there’s personal goals, there’s goals in work.There’s goals outside side. There’s goals of my relationship you know with my wife. Everything everything is almost a goal to strive for. Right. So just looking at the business aspect of things, trying to grow this podcast, trying to get it to as many people as possible, trying to change the mindset of a lot of our doctors and a lot of
our med students and those going into medicine, becoming more holistic, integrated, realizing that, hey, there’s this chronic illness out here and we’re not really learning or doing anything to treat these
things. But in the end, I think the biggest goal for me is just becoming a better version of myself every singleday. I don’t know who that’s going to be. It says Matthew McConaughey says when you ask him who’s
like your who’s your greatest idol? And he says it’s myself in 10 years because you’re never going to catch up to who that person is. So it’s always going to be ahead of you. But at least you’re trying and
striving to be a better version of yourself.
Shreya: That’s true. Yeah. OK, so on your social media, I’ve seen that you recommended some really, really interesting books that actually took time to kind of research. They were really interesting, actually. Is there any one book in particular that you think everyone should read at least once in their lifetime? What is the main message or theme that they should take away from the book?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, this is really easy for me usually. Like when people ask me about books and certain topics, I’m like, oh, but there’s one. It would have to be How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Dale Carnegie is like the master of self development, self-improvement books back in the 20s, and this is one of the first books he wrote in terms of how to create better relationships, better value and how to get what you want by giving. Right. So there’s another book called Give and Take by Adam Grant, which is kind of like a spin off off of this. But How To Win Friends and Influence People by far has changed the way that I talk to people, has changed the way that I look at different scenarios when, you know, you might be in a catch twenty two, but how to get the most out of it. And what I love is it’s about giving, it’s about looking at the other person about being genuine and authentic. And by doing those things you’ll slowly start to see like that law of attraction work for you.
Shreya: Yeah, for sure. You’ve got to get it right. Thank you. What do you believe to be some of the most pressing health issues today that we are dealing with on a national and global scale now looking towards the medicine side?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, I mean, obviously got covid right. But that because we all know it’s covered right now. But again,
chronic illness, especially here in the Western society, like the United States, it’s insane. It’s like 90 to 95 percent of diseases that we see in the hospital are chronic. The problem is we’re treating these
chronic diseases with acute treatments. Right. So they come in for heart failure. They come in with a COPD exacerbation or they have diabetes. All we’re doing is treating their symptoms and telling them to go home. There’s nothing about the rootcause in there that we’re figure we’re not bringing out the lifestyle. Yeah, we’re not preventing it. Right.
So even if we can’t prevent and they’re well under way with diabetes, how can we at least mitigate some of that? Right how can we at least teach them to live a better lifestyle so that they don’t have to
come into the hospital so that they can lose the weight, so they can take their medications, raise a lot of habit changing. It’s a lot of just lifestyle intervention. But obviously, given the insurance system, doctors are pretty much practicing with both hands tied behind their back. And so in 15 minutes, there’s no way somebody can influence a patient to, you know, change their life. So that’s definitely one of them is like chronic illness, obesity right now. Forty one percent of the nation’s obese. That
number is, well, going to be above 50 in the next ten years. So definitely some scary stuff. So, yeah, just trying to make everyone healthy.
Shreya: And that’s what you kind of mentioned at the beginning. You’re like put the health back into healthcare and that’s what I think you mean, right. Yep, exactly. OK, so how is Covid and I’m sure it’s a very generic question, but how is Covid-19 personally change your lifestyle or impacted your workplace.
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah I would say as a resident for sure. Right. Not necessarily in terms of it being busier and schedule changes, like, of course those things actually happen. But I can’t really compare it to a Maskell’s residency. But I can tell you from what I’ve heard from a lot of people that residency is also supposed supposed to be like a very social experience, you’re supposed to get close to your co residents like
their family, right? You’re all going through 70, 80 hour weeks, it’s tough. It’s grueling. You’re always looking for that shoulder to lean on. And it’s very tough to do during covid when everyone’s wearing a
mask. Imagine me doing the interview like, you know, it’s like, how do you even get to know who I am? Unless you can really see my emotion the way I’m smiling. All of that stuff. It’s really tough to get to
know your co-residents in a time like this. You know, obviously, we all understand like what’s going on. It’s it’s tough. Do hang out. We try to hang out whenever possible. But that’s the toughest thing, is having that social support, especially when times can be grueling like now.
Shreya: For sure. For sure. Now, as an organization, Med N’ Ed, right now we work towards and with the underprivileged communities to provide education towards basic sanitation, education, health care
practices, and to generally help raise awareness on global health, rightly so with that being said, now are what are some ways that you believe we can work together and create positive change for our
global society regarding health care medicine?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, you know, first and foremost, it comes down to changing our mindsets as physicians like physicians have to walk the walk in order to be able to tell the globe what needs to be done right, even if it’s basic sanitation and stuff. I really do believe that physicians need to be more educated in terms of nutrition, fitness, lifestyle, basic lifestyle, things that matter, especially globally. We look at blue
zones, right? The only blue zone the US is and so I should I should preface the blue zones are blue zones are areas around the world where they have the highest number of people living above one
hundred. And Loma Linda, California, is one of them. And you look at their lifestyle and you look at what they do. And it has a lot of movement, a lot of plant based meals, a lot of social compatibility
with the community. So those are the things that we need to embody ourselves before we can even go out and teach anyone these things. And again, I think just listen to a podcast about this, about
creating change and creating lifestyle habits. We often think that it’s about consistency. It’s about, oh, if you do this habit for sixty six days, it’s not going to be ingrained in your head. And now we’re
starting to realize that’s not true. It actually comes down to the emotion attached to that habit. So you always have to figure out your why behind the action. So for example, if we’re trying to cut down
sanitation or if you’re trying to help sanitation and cut down dirty water supply, all these different things, it’s understanding why those things matter. Right. So when you talk to the mother saying, hey,
do you want to you don’t want to lose your child. You don’t want your child to grow up motherless. Right. If you’re talking to the grandmother who needs to start working out, getting more fit, don’t you want to be able to get down on the ground and play with your grandkids at some age and, you know, these types of things? So I think we really have to rewire the human brain in the way that we talk to patients and other people for sure, because you could you could say that, OK, this this this has to get done.
Shreya: But if you don’t attach any kind of emotion to it, if you don’t explain why, then no one’s going toactually go through with what you’re saying.
Dr. Darsh Shah: Exactly right.
Shreya: Finally, is there any piece of advice or just a general message that you would leave the viewers today
with?
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, so are most or most of your viewers like premed? What would most your viewers be?
Shreya: We have a couple of high school, a lot of high school students actually this premed as well. A lot of students are in college. We have a couple of medicine students as well.
Dr. Darsh Shah: OK, so definitely undergrad like a younger kind of age in high school. All right. So my biggest advice to them would be. You know, there’s a lot of talk about finding your passion and finding your purpose, figuring out these things, figuring out your truth, just remember that your truth is always going to evolve. You’re never going to catch that purpose or passion. So don’t focus on it. Don’t focus on your passion, focus on skills, focus on diversity, focus on experiences that make you happy and increase your knowledge base. I think what you can do, those things delve into so many different interests you know, if I could go back, I would not have done a biology major. I was actually forced to because I was in the program. But even if I wasn’t in the program, I would have done some business or computer science, because if you’re only four years left where you can delve into a topic, you’re going to be doing medicine the rest of your life if you choose to do medicine. There’s no point. None of that stuff really translates into medical school. But then on the flipside, too, is just that your truth is ever evolving. Don’t vote like if you don’t want to. If you don’t know if you want to do medical school, don’t jump into it. Figure yourself out, take the time to understand yourself and you’ll be ways happier. And then again, enjoy the journey as you do of it. But just realize passion, purpose, truth. These are all things that were taught at a young age with what you want to be when you grow up. But a lot of these things can shape the way you think. But don’t let it just focus on being yourself and enjoying the journey. Shreya: Wow. Thank you. Now, with that being said that does wrap up the interview. Uh, I just wanted to thank you so much for being here today, and for our viewers, please be safe. Alright, so Dr. Darsh shah, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Dr. Darsh Shah: Yeah, thanks so much Shreya I really enjoyed it thank you much for having me.
Shreya: Of course. Alright take care.
Dr. Darsh Shah: Alright bye.
Shreya: Bye.

Interviewer
Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode six of our series “A Doctor’s Journey” . We have a special guest
today, Dr. Jovita, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us here
today. So how are you doing today? I am doing good.
Dr. Jovita
Unfortunately, I’m starting a little later because I was in surgery earlier today, but, you know, that’s the
life of the doctor. Yeah, but thanks for having me.
Interviewer
Would you like to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself, just some background information, such
as your specialty and where you’re located?
Dr. Jovita
Absolutely. My name is David Wari. Like you said, I am a breast cancer surgeon. I’m located in St.
Louis, Missouri. I’ve been in practice for about 20 years or so and I don’t look that old, but I’ve been in
practice for about 20 years.
Yeah, that’s that’s really basically. So I take care of women, all sorts of women and sometimes men
who have any sort of breast problems or breast issues .
Interviwer: Really interesting. So to start off, have you always wanted to be in the medical field or was there a
particular moment when you decided that this is what you wanted to do?
Dr. Jovita
I’ve always verbalized to my family that I wanted to be a doctor since the age of three, so that’s a
really long time. I don’t remember that, but that’s what I’ve been told. And that’s really what I’ve pretty
much talked about my whole life. I knew I was going to be in medicine.
I did not know at the time what part of medicine I was going to be in. I just knew I was going to be a
doctor. And, you know, then I remember as far as my memories goes through high school, that’s what
I wanted to do. So high school prepared me for college, which is where I majored in premed and
subsequently ended up going to medical school to become a doctor. So all my life will be my answer.I
know that everyone has different experiences and reasons why they want to go to the medical field.
So thank you for sharing yours.
Interviewer
So like you said before, your’e a breast surgeon. So how does it feel to be a surgeon? What are some
difficulties to face and how did you overcome those difficulties?
Dr. Jovita Surgery is definitely one of the toughest specialties to do in the medical field. Not just because of the
actual work that’s involved, because I believe anybody can do that, anybody can do anything when
exposed long enough. So if anyone out there, thinks they want to be a surgeon and think, oh, my God,
surgery, that sounds so hard to let that not be your reason for not doing it, because anybody can be a
surgeon. For me, the hardest thing about surgery was going through the training or the residency, just
kind of background for the younger people in high school, that may not know the whole process.
So once you’re done with high school, you go to college, and college most people that want to do
medicine will major in some kind of sciences, but you don’t have to. I majored in zoology and in
chemistry, that was my choice, but I have friends that are physicians that majored in English so that
majored in the arts. What’s important to do while you’re in college is make sure that you take the core
prerequisites to take your MCAT examinations, which is generally done around the third fourth year of
college. And the MCAT is.
Basically, an examination that you take to get into medical school, kind of like you take the SAT fees
and the ACT ‘s for college, this is what gets you into medical school. That’s kind of a benchmark
cutoff point that you have to get for some of the schools to accept you and um, some people want to
go to big name schools like Harvard and some people want to go to their local medical school. To me,
it doesn’t really matter because you’re going to get the same education anywhere.
So don’t think that the medical school that you go to is going to prevent you from doing whatever you
want to, because at the end of the day, everybody graduates from medical school with an M.D. degree
or degree. So don’t let that prohibit you. But anyway, so once you’re done with the MCATS and you get
into medical school of your choice, the medical school is four years of learning pretty much
everything about the human body, the human body anatomy, the human body physiology, the
pathology of the pharmacology of it, just all the building blocks that teach you how to become a
doctor.
And through this, each year, you can build on what you learned the previous year. So by the end of the
third and fourth year where they actually get you to start taking care of patients, not by yourself, but
with physicians. So you’re in the hospitals, you’re seeing patients you put into use what you’ve learned
in the first couple of years of medical school. And that’s when you kind of start to make a decision.
What part of medicine do I want to go into?
Some people go into medical school knowing what they want they to do. I went into medical school
thinking, I wanted to be a gynecologist. But in the third year, once I did those rotations, I realized that
that was not for me, because once I rotated through my general surgery rotation, I pretty much fell in
love. I fell in love being in the operating room. I fell in love with surgery. So I ended up deciding that
that’s what I wanted to do with my life.
And there are so many different specialties in medicine. Could be surgery, could be gynecology, could
be pediatric psychiatry, anesthesia, pathology, radiology. That is just so much. So what I would advise
once you get into medical school and then that third and fourth year try to get exposed to as much as
possible, because it’s that exposure that’s going to help you figure out what you want to do for a
living, for life. So at that point, once you figure that out, then you start to apply for residencies.
And residency is pretty much the training to hone your skills in that particular field. So for me, it was
general surgery and for me that training was the hardest. All training is hard because you’re really
learning to do things that you’re not used to. Again, you’re building on things you’ve learned in medical
school, but now you have actual human beings that you’re taking care of. Now, of course, a lot of it
comes with fear because you’re afraid you’re going to kill someone because that’s the absolute worst
thing you can do.
But remember, there’s always someone watching over you. So you’re not 100 percent on your own.
They make you feel like you’re on your own, but you’re not 100 percent on your own. So there’s always
someone and never be afraid to say, I don’t know, I can’t do it and ask questions. But surgery,
residency, there’s a lot of haze and general surgery, residency. That’s why it’s one of the toughest
residencies. They it seems that a lot of residency programs and it’s a lot of it is changing now.
They specialize in trying to break you.
And if you go into training, knowing that that is the intent, you’re going to be fine, you’re going to make
it through because nothing that they do to you should break you. General surgery is the longest of all
the training programs is five years. And most people spend an extra year or two doing research, which
is what what I did. So for me, I was in hell for seven years. But once you’re done with residency or
training, then that’s when you’re actually out there in practice as a physician doing what it is that
you’ve spent all these years trying to do.
So for me, that’s really when life began, when I was done with residency, because all of that was over
all of the haze and whatnot, and you actually start to practice and you’re on your own practicing and
taking care of patients. And that is the absolute best part. But what made residency hard was not just
the hazing, but just the hours of really hard surgey started early. A lot of times it started at five a.m.
and we did not go home till seven, eight, eight p.m. at night.
A lot of the residency programs have changed today where they have more regulated hours, where
people have not been overworked. But there still some of them where you’ve been overworked. So you
are just constantly exhausted, just never having enough sleep and then through it all, you still have
exams that you have to take every year to stay in residency because being a doctor is all about taking
exams. You’re going to get really, really good at taking exams because it’s nonstop exams.
But yes, hazing, the long hours, the lack of sleep, the just the volume, the sheer volume of what you
need to know. Is what makes it hard by the time you’re done, you’re what we call a chief resident. So
you’re 00:00:00.630kind of at the end of it where you’re starting to teach junior residents, things start
to get better for real. But I’m going in now, which means that I’m all done. So I’ve been unattended for
20 years and things are just so much better because I’ve been doing the same thing for a long time
and the residency days are way behind me, but it’s ahead for you guys, but just so, just be aware that
that’s going to be the toughest, I think, for you and for a lot of other friends of mine that are
physicians.
And we talk about it for them. That’s been the hardest, whether they went into pediatrics or psychiatry
or surgery, it is the hardest of everything that we have to do, but we all get through it. If did find that
anybody can.
Interviewer
Yeah thank you, really good insight. So, for going to medical field and specifically surgery, you kind of
answer this question already. But what was the process that you thought where you are now? And are
there any other pieces of advice you would like to tell?
Yeah. So the medical advice is really the third and fourth year to make sure that you get exposed to as
much as possible, because that’s really the only time that you have to um, to, I guess, to learn about
its specialty and that’s not a lot of time. And I tell you this only because some people know, some
people know, like I did as soon as I scrubbed into surgery. I said this is absolutely what I’m going to do
with my life. But some people kind of thing, but they don’t now. So I have a very personal story about
this, which is my daughter. My daughter just graduated from medical school in May and she marched
into obstetrics and gynecology. That’s what she wanted to do, although her dad and I kind of knew
because her dad is also a physician, that she didn’t really fit the mold of obstetrics and gynecology.
But you can’t really tell people what you know what to do.
So a month into residency, she’s called off and she is in tears. I absolutely hate this. I cannot do this
for the rest of my life. And we’re like, well, what did you do for two years, you spend two years rotating,
trying to figure out what you want to do and that’s what you decided to do. And all of a sudden you
don’t want to do it. It didn’t make sense to us, but she is now in the process of switching residencies.
And in order to do that, you have to complete the year because you just can’t leave in the middle of a
training program. You can, but there can be ramifications. So she has to finish off the year she’s
reapplying and she wants to do Anasthesia and she’ll start that July 1st. So it’s not really a waste of a
year because she’s learning through this year. But it’s just kind of like a caution to you guys out there
to just be exposed to as much as possible and make sure that when you decide that this is what I
want to do, that is really what you want to do.
Definitely good advice. I’m pretty sure all the viewers will find this information really useful in the
future. So as a surgeon, I’m pretty sure you’re incredibly busy. So how do you manage to keep a work
and life balance?
A work life balance is super, super important to me, as if you follow me on Instagram, you’d know all
about life, work, life balance. I’m married, I have two kids. And, you know, I chose to go into surgery,
which is one of the busiest of the specialties. But I also knew I wanted a life. I wanted if I wanted a
family, I wanted to be married. I wanted to have kids. And I also want a social life. I’m very, very social
and I like to travel. So breast surgery, which is a subspecialty of general surgery, is a field that allows
me to do that. I did not want to do trauma surgery because I knew I didn’t want to live in the hospital.
So you have to choose according to what you know, what fits your lifestyle or what you see your
lifestyle being. I knew that there were really no true emergencies in breast surgery and I like to sleep
at night. So I did not want to be caught in the middle of the night to come take care of my acute
appendicitis or to take care of a trauma patient or a patient in the unit. So the specialty that I chose
really fit my lifestyle amazingly well. I’m make it a point to leave work at work, and when I’m home, I’m
home when I’m home, it’s all about the family and the kids or my friends or whatever social activity I’m
doing. And it’s something you kind of have to start to try to cultivate from med school and not wait till
you’re an attendent to do that. There’s going to be very little time in med school, but make sure you
find time to reach out to your friends.
And people who are not in medical school or keep in touch with your family and do things with them
because you need that lifeline, because the people that are going to support you through really
difficult times. And if you maintain that lifeline, they will keep you connected to the outside world. So
that’s basically my advice. Keep yourself connected to the outside world. Don’t let it be all about being
in medicine. Go out to the movies with your friends, go to the mall to go shopping, go go to theater,
so, you know, whatever it is that you’d like to do normally, make sure you do it. If you play an
instrument and you’re and a band continue to do that, those things are important for me personally. I
am a runner, so I continue to run. I am a fitness fanatic. So I make sure that I keep up with all that
because I’m very social. Unfortunately, the pandemic is killing me right now because I love throwing
parties. I like going to parties. I like hanging out with my friends and haven’t been able to do a lot of
that. I love to travel. I haven’t really been able to do that. But if it were not for the pandemic, those are
the things that I kind of do to try to keep connected and to. Maintain my work life balance and my
sanity.
So becoming a surgeon, you have to go through the pathway of university, medical school, residency
and fellowship. Do you have any memorable experiences during your university, medical school or
internship fellowship years that you like to share00:06:58.130Wow. College, I’m going to say not too
much memorable because I was very hyper focused on college. It was all about getting into medical
school. I don’t want to say I was a nerd, a bookworm, but OK, yes, I was. So there was really not much.
So I did not I did not take my own advice. I was all about studying and getting into med school. Once I
got into med school, though, I relaxed a bit at a very active social life in medical school. Medical
school is tough, but that’s when I really learned that it was important to continue your outside
activities, so you have to make time to study. You have to make time to have fun and you have to
balance the two. So most memorable experiences of medical school is my medical school had a
men’s rugby team. And myself and one of my classmates and I think towards the end, the first year.
We’re like, well, why do the men get to have rugby team? Why can’t we play as women? So we started
a rugby team at women’s rugby team in my medical school. So that was super fun. So that was what
we did to blow off steam. We played women’s rugby. It’s it’s funny now thinking about it. But that’s
really one of my most memorable experiences of medical school and just the times that we had in the
gross anatomy lab dissecting cadavers and just learning and having fun and building those lifelong
connections. But I’m still friends with a lot of my medical school mates.
Residency, I guess residency was tough, but. I remember. Residency, I remember our tight knit group
of residents in my year, we were all we were all really close to my year and we kind of had each other’s
backs. So if I had something I really, really had to do with my family was easy enough to switch call
with one of my colleagues so that I could go do it. But we cannot allow each other to have a life
outside of residency, and that was really nice for me. I also had my two babies while I was in
residency. So that’s really memorable. It’s really hard, but very memorable. And then attendant, as an
attendant, one of my most memorable one of my most memorable events was.
And then an attendant, one of my most memorable one of my most memorable events was at the
very beginning and I would say within the first two months or so of being an attending. Being in the
operating room by myself, without anyone above me, checking on me, making sure I was OK where I
was, I was the surgeon, I was in charge and having something happen where the patient was bleeding
and I was able to calmly get control of the bleeding without having to call for help, because I was just
so confident in the training that I had in residencymand I’m just very comfortable in my own skin
handling things on my own. So that those will be my members.
Interviewer
Thank you for sharing those. They’re really interesting, too. Are there any particular goals or ambitions
you’re currently working towards?
Dr. Jovita
Yes, I’m always working towards something. I hate being bored, so I’m always doing something right
now. I think I created or founded a fitness group, fitness group of women that are really a motivation
group of women where I, I coach them through fitness exercises and challenges and whatnot. And we
do this monthly where people sign up and this prices at the end of the month. So that’s just been
something I’ve been working on for the past year and it’s just been great and I think it’s getting more
and more popular.
I have one more people join in every month and I’m also writing several books. So those hopefully
within the next few months I will have at least one or two of them ready to be published and. Just so
many things coming up in the future, which I can’t even talk about right now, but yes.
Interviewer
OK, so looking forward to the future. Yes, definitely so bring up covid, how has it affected you
personally and professionally?
Dr. Jovita
OK, so personally, I guess personally and professionally kind of intertwined. So I’ll talk about both
together. So personally as an employed surgeon with a hospital and because of the loss of revenue
from covid, in the beginning, I was one of about 60, 70 physicians that they cut from the hospital
because they couldn’t afford to pay us. So I wasn’t I was not really upset about it and. It just give me a
little pause to think about, well, what do I do now what’s the next act? But I didn’t have long to think
about that because within a couple of days of hearing from the other hospital, another hospital called
and said, we want you so I can move from one job to the other. So through the pandemic, I’ve started
a new practice. And that’s been interesting where you’re working with a whole new set of people that
you’ve never really seen their faces other than little behind that mask or through zoom in press
conferences, which we typically have every other week at conferences where we meet in a conference
room with radiologists and pathologists and everyone and social workers and what not. And we all
discuss patients who have not been able to do that in this new hospital. It’s all been assumed. So,
again, I haven’t been able to really make my colleagues the way you usually meet colleagues in
conference rooms on the cafeteria. So that’s been interesting and very challenging for my patients. A
lot had to change the way we did things. Your patients came in and typically we have full exam rooms,
but we can’t have that anymore because we have a social distance. So we can only have maybe one
or two patients in the waiting room at the same time. And then when they do come in to be seen, I
used to have patients that would come in with family members because especially for what I do is a
lot of support that’s needed. We can’t have many people in the room with the patient at the same
time, again, because of social distancing and then a lot of elective surgeries. In the beginning, we
could not, too.
But luckily, we’re still allowed to do the cancer surgeries. So the cancer surgery has not changed, but
things that were not cancer or elective, we had to hold off on or. Kind of prioritize who had to have
surgery first, so those are some of the ways things have changed. And, you know, even with getting
mammography and screening, a lot of screening was not done for about two or three months during
the beginning of the pandemic at about April, May and a lot of that is picking up now. But what that
means is that there are a lot of women that did not have that screening, mammograms made last
year that are not coming back. And we’re finding cancers that were less left on diagnosed the year
before. So things are picking up now because we’re seeing a lot of cancers that we should have
picked up last year but couldn’t because we’re not doing imaging. So those are some of the ways
things have changed for us.
Interviewer
So as men and as we work with those in underprivileged communities to provide education towards
basic sanitation, health care practices, and generally just to raise awareness of global health. With
that being said, are there any changes that should be made to the health care structure to increase
equality and provide accessibility
I think the pandemic is really taught us a lot about that, and we it’s sometimes a discussion that we
are having continuously at our institution because my current hospital is in not only the inner city, but
it’s more underrepresented area, and we are trying to figure out ways to deliver care to people who
cannot make it. So just really bringing care to people where they are, whether it be bringing them
mammography vans to churches or neighborhoods, or being able to do a lot of telemedicine, where
we are seeing patients through Zumar, through FaceTime, just to be able to deliver care to people who
cannot physically make it in. So those are things that have been done in a lot of places and being
explored further in a lot of places. But, yes, a lot is changing in health care as far as the way we deliver
care to underrepresented.
Interviewer
Yes, thank you for sharing your insight about this important topic, so to wrap it up, is there any last
pieces of advice you would like to tell the viewers? Just anything.
Dr. Jovita
Anything anything. OK, so I am in minority, and I’m sure a lot of your viewers are too. Double minority,
I’m African-American and I am a woman and I am of Nigerian descent, so triple minority. So what I
want to advise you all is that. You are probably going to encounter a lot of people that say to you that
you cannot do this or try to steer you through a different avenue if this is something that you really,
really want to do and only you can answer that question if this is something that you really want to do.
No one should be able to deter you or stop you from your goal. But you have to work hard. You have
to study hard. You do have to pass those exams. None of it is impossible. It’s all doable. So. Like I
said earlier, if I can do it, anybody can. So we are all capable. So just know that that you can do it. If
this is what you want to do. Absolutely. Go for it.
Interviewer
Really good advice. So that was the last question and that wraps it up. So thank you so much for
answering these questions with us today and giving us really great information that I’m pretty sure all
the viewers will appreciate.
Interviewer
Thank you again for taking time out of your day to join us and all of your stay safe.
Dr. Jovita
Thank you so much for having me.
Interviewer
Stay safe, everyone.

Ashley: Hi everyone I’m your host Ashley Vincent and you’re watching the fourth episode a doctor’s journey, our special guest for today is doctor Kaur thank you so much doctor for taking time of your busy schedule to speak with us so let’s get into it how are you doing today Dr. 

Dr Kaur: I’m doing great thank you so much for having me on your channel. I am so happy to be here and I’m hoping that the information that I have to share with you, everybody’s going to find it valuable. 

Ashley: So can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your specialty. 

Dr Kaur: Yes I’m a general dentist I graduated in two thousand and four from the university of western Ontario which is in a city called nineteen ninety close to Toronto and currently I reside in the greater Toronto area and my practice is located in Toronto Ontario we’re very close to downtown Toronto and I’ve been part of that practice I bought that product is in two thousand and five and took over in early two thousand and six so I got some pretty much in terms of my professional career outside of dying I am a mom of two boys who are twelve and ten years old and other than not I disobeyed in a couple of charities and keep myself busy with all of these things. 

Ashley: Nice. Can you tell us a little bit about what led you to make the decision to go to dental school? Was it a particular moment or was it something you always do? 

Dr Kaur: So I knew I wanted to go into some medicine or healthcare fields I knew I wanted to be a doctor however it dentistry didn’t come to me from a young age it actually happened that I made the decision to go into dentistry at about second year of that university when my really close friend of who we were I guess you could say we were really best friends we were always in the same classes together she decided to go into dentistry and at that time she decided to move to block this time even though she was studying here we were both going to university of Toronto however she decided to go to dental school there and I really used dot turning point to decide in terms of the ok. what do I really want to do because second year is when you kind of have to make a decision which career path you want to take and I thought about the time I was considering. Comment three or medicine and then when she went to debt dentistry that really made me really look deeper into it and that was something that appealed to me at that time and that’s how I started thinking about it. And then made it a goal I wanted to go into dentistry. 

Ashley: That’s really nice so how do you think your high school and college journey impacted your experience in dental school?

Dr Kaur: Well through high school and university I was always a good student I was competitive I wanted to do well in school and I set goals for myself right so I knew right from the beginning or from a younger age that I wanted to be in medicine and I knew I had to hire a certain average or a GPA in order to achieve that so the type of friends that I had, so being in the right environment and having goals is what helped me to keep focus of what I wanted to achieve and I’m going to university as we know it’s very challenging in terms of the course load especially when you want to get into professional school it’s very competitive to get into so keeping that focus keeping that hard working ethic in mind not really hopped me up in here means for dental school because that’s exactly what you needed to kind of survive and get through and make sure that you got the skills that you needed. 

Ashley: So would you like to talk about your experience of getting into and going to dental school what were some hardships you have to face?

Dr Kaur: So getting in what is a very competitive process in Canada because we don’t have a lot of schools that you can apply to so for example in the state or in our province of Ontario we only have to dental schools and thousands of people are applying to maybe like a hundred and fifty spots available so it is a very competitive program that’s the same for any type of medicine or Tom tree programs as well so it was challenging in terms of what type of March you needed but on top of that they were also looking for a well rounded person not just in academics but what else were you doing so I didn’t get in the first time that I applied and got on the waiting list and then the second year that I applied was when I got the offer for admissions I so that was exciting because. I think the by the time you get it and it was a chance of you apply and then you have to be selected for an interview so one out of four I believe get in into at least university of western Ontario so having made that job a chief man it was very exciting and god and the hard work started because I thought okay you know we got it and it’s it’s going to be easy but obviously not because it is a very rigorous program of for years where you are constantly being challenged in this is a new skill that you’re developing a technical skill as well as developing Haitian skills as well so one of the hardships I would say that I encounter was different dealing with different types of personalities and this is something that comes with experience if so many different types of. People that you have to deal with their temperament, their personalities in terms of professors that you have to I. Figure out how you will you get the information that you need to learn during that time and being a rigorous program you have to obviously be good at time management in terms of balancing your school life and you’re having a little bit of fun as well but I think the biggest hardship was figuring out how to develop the listening skills and how to develop the people skills. 

Ashley: Yes so what does the word success mean to you. 

Dr Kaur: Well done to me has changed over time so. When I was younger it meant something okay I’m gonna grow up and I’m going to become a doctor right so I came and I got my degree and I became a doctor now in terms of what success means and. And then I wanted to have my own practice success was achieving a goal so success is setting goals and achieving them and knowing that you know a different stages of life you will have different measures that you put yourself against and then as time goes on I success is also above being content with what you have and being I’m confident in that you know you have achieved your goals to the best of your ability so thanks John when you achieve something yes I’ve done it being content and being happy with that and then as you move on as you grow and that doesn’t mean that you don’t set your goals but it just means that at the state that you are the hawks beat and don’t be jealous or be you know somebody has something more so don’t be jealous, set higher goals for yourself. 

Ashley: So what’s your favorite part about being a dentist. 

Dr Kaur: Being able to change somebody’s life by helping improve their smile we have. Several. Asian stock we’ve hired to help because they were embarrassed about their smiled or something that they did in the lake and the feeling that you get by changing something when they see that you’ve done something to improve their smile their self esteem go up their self confidence go up it it’s just so heartwarming and this is why I love doing what I do because I get to make an impact on somebody’s life to such a great degree. 

Ashley: So I ask you your favorite, so  I have to ask you what’s your least favorite part about being a dentist. 

Dr Kaur: So I don’t think there’s anything I don’t like about the actual technical part of being a dentist however there is the side of being a dentist is also being a business owner so that’s where I feel I don’t enjoy things on so much and which is things like stock management hiring somebody training them dealing with the day to day care the stock management I must say it isn’t something that I enjoy but in terms of actual dentistry I love most of what I do another thing I would say is dealing with some when something doesn’t go wrong or something isn’t going the way you are expecting it to go and then dealing with patient complains about something a skill that I’ve developed over time. 

Ashley: Okay so as a dentist you definitely have a busy lifestyle. How do you manage to maintain a work and life balance?

Dr. Kaur: So I’m a workaholic and this is still something I’m working on I like I said I have two kids I like to do some charity work as well so setting priorities is the biggest thing that I have learned to do what is important to me as setting those goals on a daily basis of really organizing my time every day has really helped to spend equal amount of time on things that are important so for example I have to turn myself in terms of okay during this time I’m going to allot to working this is then spending time with the kids doing homework or fun or going out or spending time with family to prioritizing and then really sticking to a schedule is really help with that work-life balance 

Ashley: So how would you say covid-19 has affected your life professionally and personally?

Dr. Kaur:  when covid happened on March 2020 I thought we were just going to be closed for like two or three weeks we were closed for two and a half months and we didn’t know what was happening and it really was a stressful time as a practice owner because I have six other team members that work and their livelihoods depend on the practice being open so I wasn’t able to pay them during that time and that was really stressful that was very emotional and when we were allowed to I made sure that we implemented the highest standards that are college had given us so that I knew if this is the case is kept going up we would be prepared to make sure that we wouldn’t have to close down again and thankfully because of the measures that we put in place and gave were something that we had to really get you examples of PPE we have to wear the equipment that we had to bring in like extraoral evacuators to reduce the aerosols the physical changes that we had to make they were expensive and they were something physically we had to get used to as well however my team they were Champions I must commend them defensive best attitude positive attitude that we knew that we had to get through this and together we worked and now we’re at a point that you know going to work wearing the same people it’s not a big deal patience ask us how do you work in those big masks and how do you work in the down all day and just something like a hobbit that you’ve gotten used to and then not personally my kids have been schooling from home virtually so that was a challenge because having to sit in front of a computer all day long trying to learn self-discipline I can’t even do not most of the time they’re expecting them to do it with challenging but thankfully I have my husband who works from home and having his support to do with the kids where they need help has been a tremendous help and then on the flip side like you know we’ve all been going through this mental dealing with not being able to see or extended family not being able to see your friends that’s taking a toll by focusing on the positive that you know we have each other and we have ways to connect with each other like this like with zoom and Counting the fact the blessings up behind that were healthy and us knowing that we’re financially okay has really kept us moving forward. 

Ashley: This will be my final question today what advice would you like to give to Future students want to pursue Dentistry 

Dr Kaur: so Dentistry is a great profession and if you’re thinking about doing it make it a goal because you have the power to change somebody’s life and it’s not everyday that you can say that in a profession that you know by doing something by having been blessed with a skill that you can serve others in such a powerful way and working hard keeping a positive attitude no matter what field you’re going into is a bias that I’d like to give it to anybody who wants to pursue Dentistry or otherwise but keep going for your goal have that goal in your mind and keep focusing on it and one day if that’s your true calling you will make it and it’s a great profession and I encourage you to pursue it. 

Ashley: Thank you so much doctor for coming today. I’m sure everybody who’s watching enjoyed it. I would also like to thank our viewers for watching thank you everybody and a reminder to stay safe. 

Dr Kaur: Thank you

Speaker 1 (00:01): Hey, everyone. Welcome to the doctor’s journey for our episode our guest is Dr. Alex Schupper. Welcome to the very first episode. How are you doing today?

Speaker 2 (00:15): Hi, this is Alex. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate the time, I’m doing well. Today is our academic day, so I was able to work on some research and spend some time outside of the operating room. So it was pretty productive. How about you?

Speaker 1 (00:30): That’s good to know. My day went really well, too. Lots of classes. So what would you like to tell our viewers a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 2 (00:40): So just to introduce myself again, as you mentioned, my name is Dr. Alex Schupper. I’m a neurosurgery resident in New York city and here to essentially provide resource for you guys, to answer any questions you have about either the journey of becoming a doctor or becoming a subspecialist in medicine and really here to help you guys, to give you guys some perspective of someone who’s been through it, if you will.

Speaker 1 (01:08): That’s awesome. I totally agree. Have you always wanted to be in the medical field or was there a particular moment when you decided that this was it?

Speaker 2 (01:19): So it’s been a really long time that I’ve known that position. I have a bunch of family members who are doctors. My dad is a surgeon and I really always knew that I wanted to not only be in medicine but to be an interventionalist as someone who performs procedures every day. So it’s been a really long time. I would say probably since high school. I knew I wanted to be in medicine at least.

Speaker 1 (01:45): Perfect. how does it feel to be a med student? What were some difficulties that you faced?

Speaker 2 (01:55): So it’s, it can be very challenging to be a medical student, but it’s incredibly rewarding at the same time. For the first time, people are really placing a lot of trust in you. They’re telling you their most personal information, they’re exposing themselves, both literally and figuratively, and they’re relying on you to, to heal them and, and to be able to help their problems and make them feel better. So it’s a huge responsibility. It’s a large learning curve is, you know in medicine there’s an immense amount of information that you have to learn. And the reality is you’re never going to learn all of it. So you have to figure out the best things to learn in the most effective way to learn, to do, do well by your patients. UI feel like all, all med students really go through many challenges at different stages in their training, especially during medical school. I would say the first year, the challenges can be, can revolve around just knowing your way around the hospital and learning how to talk to a patient appropriately learning how to examine patient. And this is something that you progressively will improve on during your four years of medical school that hopefully by the end, you at least have a basic, basic knowledge of how to perform a history and physical exam, how to take a focus history and how to create a differential diagnosis for really anyone that comes into your office and into the hospital.

Speaker 1 (03:20): Yeah, I definitely agree. Personally speaking, like I’m into medicine because I just feel like it’s such a gift to be able to help others in a time where like they’re the most vulnerable. And not only that, but I also feel like every day is literally like a learning experience because you’re getting to meet all these new people and you’re getting to learn more about yourself as well. Personally, I was first intrigued by medicine because I really liked the sciences, but I feel like the more I got to explore the field and especially being where we are today, I just think that the different healthcare disparities had also stood out to me and like basically wanting to make the world better from like a holistic point of view. So yeah, I feel like there’s definitely like a lot of introspections when it comes to the medical field. And I definitely agree with like all the points that you made. What is the process that you need to follow to get into the medical field in the U.S.?

Speaker 2 (04:21):So it depends where you’re coming from. It depends on your experience. And it says at least in the United States, you have to go to college for four years. You need an undergraduate degree or the equivalent. So I suppose also junior college and have enough pre-med requisites. You have to take the MCAT, which is the standard admissions tests in the United States, again, to get into medical school. Nowadays medical school admissions is becoming so competitive that you also need research experience onto your experience and a good amount of extracurricular activities to be competitive enough to be considered for medical school.

Speaker 1 (05:03):Do you have any advice for like the students who also want to pursue the same career?

Speaker 2 (05:11): So for students who want to pursue really any type of medical career, there, there’s no substitute to hard work. I wish there was an easy get-around to not having to take the MCAT or not having to take your pre-med classes, but the truth is you really have to be successful on multiple levels. You have to get good grades, you have to study hard, you have to do very well in your MCAT. If you want to get into some, some reputable medical schools. And I would highly encourage people to conduct research. It doesn’t have to be the highest level of research, but you have to be able to engage in, in the sciences. You have to understand basic science or else you’ll make learning in medical school much more challenging because all, all the physiology learning. It, it all grows from much of this knowledge of basic science and people understand everything from basic biology and chemistry and building from there. It will be very appreciate how the different systems in the human body work. And so it all builds and having a really strong foundation, which you’ll receive most of that knowledge in colleges is really important. And I think it demonstrates well in the U S medical training system.

Speaker 1 (06:29): Definitely. speaking of college, do you have any memorable experiences that you had, like during one of your internships or one of your university classes that you would like to share with us?

Speaker 2 (06:44): So I had a really great experience in college. I went to Johns Hopkins and just loved it, made a great group of friends and participate in awesome extracurricular activities that will stick with me forever. For me, the biggest thing was surrounding myself with a really positive network of students. It can be really tough as a pre-med student, where you’re often in more of a cutthroat environment everyone’s trying to do better than the next person, because everyone wants to top grade and it can be really challenging environment. So I, I was really fortunate in that. I surrounded myself with a good social circle of people who were really supportive and we all studied together and worked hard together and really build each other up. And at the end of the day, we were all very successful. And I think that was really integral to me being successful in the, in the next journey and really carrying me through, into medical school.

Speaker 1 (07:38): Perfect. what were your networking experiences like during your time at John Hopkins? Like for instance do you think it was often accessible when it came to finding i internship opportunities, and if so, like what are some necessary requirements that you think students should pursue in order to make the most out of the opportunities that are around them?

Speaker 2 (08:01): So it’s a good question. Again, I was very fortunate to go to Johns Hopkins where there’s a very rich healthcare culture and medicine and global public health culture.So it wasn’t that hard to find opportunities throughout the hospital and the medical campus. They’re always looking for a hundred undergraduate students to conduct research, to volunteer, to participate in different types of activities. So it wasn’t really challenging there. I, I definitely feel for students who have much more limited resources but especially nowadays with the pandemic, everything is now remote and it’s much easier to, to connect with different people. For example, I often give lectures to different medical student groups and organizations and the access the students have today is infinitely more robust than what I had when I was in college. There’s no way I could listen to a neurosurgeon in New York city when I was in Baltimore in college versus now it’s, it’s very easy and the world is truly connected in a way that it wasn’t over a year ago. So I think with that opportunity students, especially those who are, you don’t have the same resources in college or in high school, definitely have an opportunity to bridge that gap.

Speaker 1 (09:21): Yeah, definitely. How did COVID-19 personally impact you in like the workplace at home and basically like your everyday life.

Speaker 2 (09:34): So COVID definitely had a large impact on last year of residency training for me being in New York city, we are truly the epicenter of COVID-19 when it hit early last spring and it totally changed our curriculum. I was taken out of the operating room. I was treating many, COVID really sick, COVID positive patients, both in the ICU and the emergency department and throughout the hospital. So it definitely affected my training. But I think through that, we all learned really how to, how to deliver healthcare and effective way, and it really challenged us, but it reminded us of why we’re in medicine in the first place and that before we’re neurosurgeons or with the PDX or pediatricians were all doctors. And at the end of the day, that’s what matters the most. And when the pandemic hit, we all really had to step up to the plate and kind of step outside of our job description if you will, to care for patients. So it was a really humbling time and very sobering, but looking back now, as I’m optimistic that we can now kind of look back on this moment as, I’m optimistic that we’re beyond the kind of the peak of it. It was a really rewarding time in a weird way to be able to take care of those patients since really part of that team was truly powerful and definitely an experience that I’m never going to forget.

Speaker 1 (11:03): Yeah, definitely. Are there any changes that you think should be made to the healthcare structure today in order to increase equality and improve accessibility?

Speaker 2 (11:16): Absolutely. I think that’s a great question. If I had a good answer to that, I would probably a lot of money and have a lot of people listening to me. I wish it was easy that there were just, there was a little change or even a couple of changes that can make healthcare more equitable for all and improve accessibility. I think the Obama administration really moved that in the right direction by, by increasing the amount of people who have access to care. As we’ve seen, there are definitely some shortcomings to that plan and just socialized medicine as a whole has some potential shortcomings, as we’ve seen in, in other countries have more of a socialized infrastructure in terms of delivery of healthcare. But I think the general concept of improving access to care is really important, especially in this country. That’s built on capitalism and I think it’s incredibly important. Honestly, I’m not exactly sure the easiest way to do it, especially in a country like the US that is already so capitalized in terms of the healthcare delivery. I mean, if you look at our economy, one-sixth of our GDP, our gross domestic product goes toward healthcare, which is larger than any other country in the world. So I think when you start off against that elephant is it’s really hard to overcome, but I think we’re slowly moving in the right direction, but it’s obviously dependent on leadership in this country.

Speaker 1 (12:42): Yeah, definitely. What are some ways that you think general members of the community can basically contribute in terms of overcoming these healthcare disparities?

Speaker 2 (12:55): So if we’re talking about disparities and not just improving accessibility of care, that’s totally different story. I think there may be things we can do to improve healthcare disparities. I think that one of the biggest things is just public health and awareness. I think the disparity in health awareness in this country is incredibly vast and we see it in pockets of lower socioeconomic says that there are many, many things that we can do as a community to improve health disparities. And it just doesn’t just mean giving healthcare to people. There are many other ways: just by informing the general public, primary prevention of disease is one of the largest factors. If we can find ways to reduce the rates of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, all these predisposing factors that are vicious cycles and lead to lower accidents with care and that further, this disparity gap, I think that would create a huge improvement in this country.

Speaker 2 (13:52): But again, I think it’s all starts from primary prevention, really on the battleground of the primary providers and just public health officials really starting this. So that by the time we get to these patients they haven’t already developed all these conditions and comorbidities and are at increased risk. You know, we see that in the case of COVID where people who have obesity have lung disease, heart disease these people who when affected with COVID tended to do much worse than their healthy counterparts. And we see that it’s related to race, to ethnicity, to socioeconomic status, right? And these things are in coincidences. So I think by improving primary prevention of just basic disease, of reducing obesity rates of improving, basic public health factors like smoking and healthy diet things like this, it can make a huge difference in terms of this country and how we’re spending these healthcare dollars.

Speaker 1 (14:58): Yeah, I definitely agree. Do you have any thoughts on the current distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine?

Speaker 2 (15:07): Without getting political? So I would say it’s definitely picked up and moved to the right direction. There have been a large number of Americans who have now gotten the vaccine. Over a quarter of adult Americans have now received the vaccine, which if you look at how many received it a couple of months ago is, is truly an impressive number. It’s more impressive than I think anyone believed Joe Biden would actually be able to do once he became president in January. So that’s definitely a step in the right direction. However, a kind of interesting debate that I’ve been listening to is about hearing about delaying secondary vaccines, being the second dose of the vaccine to people who haven’t gotten the first dose, because people who get the first dose then just receiving the first dose is actually pretty effective in terms of warding off COVID or at least being able to infect others with COVID or having severe symptoms from the disease.

Speaker 2 (16:09): So public health officials are making the argument of maybe we should hold off on giving some people the second dose in exchange for using those doses for the first vaccine. So I think that would require a little bit more strategy in planning, but I’m optimistic that in the next couple of months we’ll be approaching, hopefully, what’s going to become herd immunity. But we’re still far away from their. Estimates are thought that between 60 and 70% of the population are needed to be vaccinated to get to herd immunity with this virus similar to other viruses or other pandemics thathave required herd to immunity to be effective popular, losing control. So,we’re still not there yet but I am optimistic that we’re moving in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (17:01): Yeah, definitely. I agree. So basically thank you so much for being here today and for taking time out of your day to talk to us. I think all of these are very wonderful ideas and I feel like a lot of our viewers are able to learn as well, especially those who are looking to get into medicine and look into like the different intersectionalities in the healthcare system. So yeah, definitely had a great time talking to you today. And thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (17:32): Thank you, so honey, and thank you to Matt and ed for the time. I really appreciate it.