We Need to Cultivate Relations Beyond Medicine
We Need To Cultivate Relations Beyond Medicine
President Obama and Dr VK Shah
Though his tenure as President of the American Association of
Physicians of Indian origin (AAPI) comes to an end, Dr Vinod K Shah has
plenty lined up to contribute to the organization, the community as
well as the nations of his birth and adoption, India and the US,
respectively.
Dr. VK Shah addressing the convention
A man of clear vision and motivated with the noble intent of
touching and healing people’s lives – Dr. Shah’s life and mission are
an example for thousands of doctors who take the Hippocratic Oath each
year.
Bottom Row: Avni Shah, MD; Geeta Nayar, MD; Manish Shah; Parag Shah;
Adarsh Gupta; Vipul Shah; Prakruti Shah; Parul Jani, MD; Bhargesh Mehta,
MD; Chirag Parghi, MD
2nd Row: Suresh Patel, MD; Kiran Mehta , MD; Sharmila Mehta; Kiren Mathur; Krishan Mathur, MD; Ila Shah, MD; Neelam Shah; Vinod Shah, MD;
Nayan Shah MD; Jayu Shah; Dhiren Shah, MD; Avani Shah, MD; Umed Shah, MD; Shakuntala Shah; Suresh K. Gupta, MD
3rd Row: Samish Shah; Nila Patel; Kirit Patel, MD;
Sushila Shah; Tarun Mehta; Sanjib Mishra, MD; Rahul Jindal, MD; Shambhu
Banik, MD; Suresh C.
Gupta, MD; Pankaj Lal, MD; Rakesh Sahni, MD; Raj Samtani, MD; Pushma
Samtani, MD; Bhasker Jhaveri, MD; Rita Jhaveri, MD; Beena Shah, MD;
Anil Shah, MD; Arpana Shah, MD; Amish Shah , MD; Dhara Desai; Minal
Shah, MD; Madhu Mohan, MD; Mahesh Chandra, MD; Anantha Rao, MD
4th Row: Kishor Shah; Amit Sheth, MD; Milan Sheth;
Sheriar Demehri, MD; Anil Kankaria, MD; Sushil Jain, OD; Genny Demehri;
Asha Jain; Pradeep
Simlote, MD; Anu Simlote; Parvathi Mohan, MD; Madan Mohan, MD; Smita
Patel, MD; Atul Shah, MD; Aruna Shah; Mukesh Mathur, MD; Nelson
Benjers, MD; Naresh Patel, MD; Adinath Patil, MD; Sukatu Shah; Aruna
Patil, MD; Raj Patel; Shalin Shah; Vidya Sagar, MD; Megha Sagar; Savera
Sehgal; M.F.O. Lafeer, MD; Ajay Sehgal; Devendra Desai
On the occasion of completion of his one eventful year of fulfilled
promises, Dr. Shah spoke with NRI Today and shared his views on
milestones achieved.
"I had specific targets lined up to achieve during the year. The
first was to make sure that we made enough funding available for
increasing the Residency slots for Medical students and communicate
the need to the concerned authorities clearly," he says. Dr. Shah. In
order to make that possible, he met President Barack Obama personally
before the end of the first three months of his tenure and submitted
him the document requesting increase in funding for the same.
Increasing the participation of young physicians in AAPI was the second
major agenda on hand. Hence he had a series of leadership seminars
conducted throughout the years and recruited new AAPI members, doctors
who were born and brought up in the US, the next generation of
torchbearers who would take the mission and activities of AAPI forward.
In this process he also got senior AAPI members involved at personal
level to introduce and recruit the new members.
Dr Vinod Shah, Dr Illa Shah Dr Amish Shah standing in right Dr Arpana Shah,
Dr Meena Shah and Dr Nick Khatri along
with Sameer and Neelam
Third on his list was the idea of organizing a "robust convention"
with maximum participation. "We gave incentive for early registration
along with industry partnership program. And I am proud to say that
first time in 28 years, we received full registration four months prior
to the convention. More than 2000 members have already registered,
which has never happened before," Dr. Shah says.
Next, the team under Dr.Vinod Shah’s leadership developed a theme
for each day of the convention. So on June 23, the first day, they have
a cruise along the Potomac river to promote the theme of "Friendship
and Camaraderie" among its members. "We decided to have a ‘Unity in
Diversity’ as the theme for day two. In India people live in harmony
despite the diverse cultural backgrounds and our members are
representatives of the same diversity. Hence to celebrate the same
sentiment we will have cultural programs which will bring the best of
all the states," says Dr Shah.
Ba and Dadaji
Day three of the convention is devoted to public private partnership
events that will have leading personalities and White House
Representatives speak.
"We have also invited the President but for security reasons we
wouldn’t know until last few days if he will grace the occasion. We
will take 550 doctors to the US capitol to have a dialogue and
reception with the Senators and Congressmen," he says. These are just
some of the firsts, which have and will take place in the history of
AAPI.
Brothers, Sisters , Sister-inlaws
and Brother-inlaws
During the year, Dr.Shah personally visited a list of pharmaceutical
companies and initiated a dialogue to explore ways in which doctors,
institutions and pharma companies could work together for the
betterment of the community at large.
Life will continue to remain increasingly active for Dr.Vinod Shah
even after the completion of his tenure. When asked how he plans to
remain involved in the initiatives undertaken as AAPI president, he
says, "The incoming President Dr.Ajit Singhvi and I have worked closely
together. I had also organized a global health care summit in New
Delhi where people from as far s Dubai, UK, Australia, New Zealand,
Canada and the US had participated and the entire program was drafted
by Dr.Singhvi. I will now be working with him on following the same
line of thought process of increasing participation of young doctors.
We are likely to add 2000 new members this year and plan to have
another 1000 in the next year. We want to have a unified body by
bringing the young doctors under the same umbrella."
Philip J. Bean Center
Mumbai office
Chartable Activity in Medical College
Earthquake Relief Work
View more Photos in PhotoGallery
The passage of the Health Care Reform Bill has given a boost to the
health care sector and Dr.Shah believes most should be made out of the
Accountable Care Organization provision where a group of physicians
either come together as individual practice association or a large
multispeciality group and find a relationship with a large hospital for
a unique area. "It is a very strong provision for people to work
together," he says. Secondly Dr.Shah wants more work to happen in the
area of Malpractice Reform. "Currently the laws are set by individual
states but not centrally. In USA litigation is common. That is one of
the nightmares that all physicians face in a country where it is very
easy to sue. The second problem is escalating costs – the cost of doing
business is going up – and that includes malpractice insurance, health
insurance, the benefits we give to our staff, salary and wages. So you
have escalating cost and declining reimbursement, which is a double
jeopardy. Also, the average doctor comes out with $130,000 – $150,000
debt that they have to pay off. So a lot of these factors can lead to
people losing the passion that is so necessary to practice medicine.
Surgery in Rural Village
I honestly do not think that people go into medicine just for money.
With the rigor of training, the amount of money that goes into
education and practicing, there is a greater passion that is there. Due
to the current system in the U.S., more and more physicians are
retiring and telling their children not to go into medicine. This needs
to be addressed effectively. Because if you take the incentive away of
being a doctor, in the end it’s the people who are in need of care
that ultimately suffer."
However, Dr.Shah believes that the US has the best health care
system in the world. "Being doctors of Indian origin we have a very
critical role to play between the two governments of India and America.
Currently both the countries have best relationship in the last 30
years. I was fortunate to be at the First State Dinner, which
significantly was in honor of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and even
President Obama is likely to visit India later in the year. It will
further strengthen the ties. We as doctors are in a position to play
goodwill ambassadors with our dedicated services and relationships,
which we build with average Americans as well as the legislators. We
need to cultivate relations beyond medicine."
And that’s the principle Dr.Vinod Shah and his wife Dr.Ila have
lived by all along. This Maryland-based doctor couple has several firsts
to their credit. At a time when no one was willing to move to the
rural American county of St.Mary’s they decided to start a medical
practice there. Despite being just 50 miles south of Washington DC the
community was in acute shortage of medical specialists with not even a
pediatrician to name. So the Shahs decided to work at St.Mary’s
Hospital, where Richard Martin, head of the hospital at that time,
described them as "answer to his prayers."
Feeling at home in Southern Maryland, Shahs along with brother
Dr.Umed K Shah, a gastroenterologist initiated a group practice in
1974. Members from their extended family apart from friends joined in
years to come and today the two generations of Shahs serve several
generations of Southern Maryland families that account for a majority
of the county’s 1,10,000 residents.
Of course the going wasn’t easy. The Shahs faced a lot of prejudice
from the community initially and local doctors were hesitant to join
them. With dedicated medical care and efficient management they could
win over both. In mid-90s they consolidated much of their practice in a
60,000 square feet facility and named it Philip J Bean Medical Centre
after a country doctor who practiced in the county for 66 years. "During
those days there was a lot of discussion about gatekeeper concept
where a primary care physician would direct a patient to specialist who
would further decide what diagnostic care the patient needed. We
thought it would be a good idea for us to develop a center of
excellence instead where all kinds of specialties and facilities would
be available under one-roof," says Dr.Vinod Shah. The concept proved
successful and at present 90 doctors from 21 specialties work under the
umbrella of Shah Associates across 14 locations.
In order to provide comprehensive clinic services the Shahs also set
up a BPO in Mumbai where all the billing and recordkeeping is done
electronically overnight. "President Obama wants to encourage use of
electronic patient record by 2011 but we did it six years ago. Even
though we are in a smaller area, we implemented electronic health
records. When people were not even considering it, we invested a lot of
money in order to have a connection to each office and electronic
access to each patient’s record even from home. We are a very
forward-thinking group and focus on identifying what’s going to make a
real difference."
The Shahs are keen on focusing on disease management protocol where
the doctors take advance care of patients. "In a traditional system you
approach a doctor if you fall sick but in advance care doctors will
focus on preventive health care," says Dr.Shah.
Born in Ranpur near Surendranagar and raised in Mumbai, Dr.Vinod
Shah, a cardiologist, met Dr. Ila, a pediatrician at Seth GS Medical
College in Mumbai. The couple came to US in 1967 to pursue further
studies. When he came down, his immediate plan was to return to his
home country after all of five years. But upon completing prestigious
fellowships in internal medicine and cardiology at Georgetown University
Hospital in Washington, D.C., Dr. Shah had a choice: either return to
India or use the resources he had gathered over the years since his
arrival to do something truly revolutionary in the U.S. Dr. Shah chose
the latter.
Dr.Shah has been a member of AAPI from the inception. "When Dr.
Kiran Patel was president, he had asked me to chair a legislative
conference and it was one of the best legislative conferences put
together by the group. We had 51 congressmen and senators and among our
speakers were Senator
Biden, Bobby Jindal and Congressman Steny Hoyer. The conference
really showed the ability for us to excite people and invite them to
come and be a part of what we were organizing. There was a crowd of
about 250 people, and the idea was for us to really show our
involvement in the health care dialogue moving forward. Because of that
effort we got a $500,000 grant from the U.S. government to study
diabetes amongst Indians, which was yet another landmark."
So, what’s the best part about being a doctor, we ask before he
signs off, "The best part is I think I’ve made a difference in the
lives of many, many people. It’s the most rewarding field. When you
care for people and you come through for them, and they tell you "You
know doc, you saved my life," it’s an indescribable feeling. That is
what is motivating us to be hardworking doctors. I am very fortunate
with the grace of God that I’ve never faced litigation in my 30+ years
of practice. That is the nightmare, if you do honest and hard work and
someone questions your integrity. But the joy of medicine is so much
more that everything else is not important."
Dr Shah lives in Mechanicsville, Maryland with wife Dr.Ila. His son,
Dr.Amish is a cardiologist, daughter-in-law Arpana is a dermatologist.
They have two children, Samir and Neelam. Dr.Shah’s daughter Meena is a
cardiologist fellow at Georgetown and son-in-law Nimesh will be
gastroenterologist fellow at Georgetown. All his brothers,
brothers-in-law and sisters-inlaw are doctors and live in Southern
Maryland. Their group now has 102 physicians and network of additional
350 doctors.
Ribbon Cutting for the Patrick Jarboe Center
Medical Center Named After Dr. "Pat" Jarboe
Lexingon Park, MD - 7/18/2011
By Dick Myers
Courtesy of the Baynet.com
Dr. Vinod Shah of Shah Associates
He has been a family
doctor for thousands of St. Mary’s County families for more than 50
years. Dr. J. Patrick “Pat” Jarboe’s contributions to the community were
recognized on Saturday with the dedication of a new medical center
named in his honor.
The J. Patrick
Jarboe Medical Center relocates the Breton Medical Center from San
Souci Plaza to the new building on Buck Hewitt Road in California behind
the CVS Pharmacy. The center will include family practice and other
specialties of the Shah Associates, MD, LLC, which includes more than
100 physicians in 14 locations around Southern Maryland.
At the ribbon
cutting ceremony Saturday, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D: 5th) called Dr. Jarboe
“an extraordinary human being. We are all in your debt.” Hoyer also
praised Dr. Vinod Shah, a long-time personal friend. Hoyer said, “The
Lord, I am sure, sent us the Shah family.” He noted they were of a
different color and a different culture than the typical St. Mary’s
County family, but they quickly earned the respect of the community.
“Dr. Jarboe and Dr. Shah came from different schools and different
places of birth but with the same commitment to the community,” he said.
Dr. Jarboe, in
remarks read by his daughter, said that he and his partner Dr. John
Fenwick chose to align themselves with Shah Associates because the Shah
family shared with them similar values.
Dr. Vinod Shah
noted that times were different when Dr. Jarboe opened his family
practice in Great Mills in 1960. Many of the diagnostic tools available
today were not available then. It was just “one man in a small community
providing health care.” He said it was an honor and a privilege for his
family that Dr. Jarboe agreed to have the building named after him.
The Shah
Associates practice was founded in St. Mary’s County 37 years ago. Dr.
Shah noted the changes in health care from the time he was practicing 40
years ago in the emergency room of a small hospital in Glen Burnie. He
said there were many challenges ahead for health care. “We need for all
of us to come together for better health care in the community.”
“I have always
received enormous support from my family, friends and community,” Dr.
Shah said and singled out St. Mary’s Hospital, MedStar and their CEO
Christine Wray. Dr. Shah’s wife Dr. Ila Shah sat with him at the
ceremony along with two grandchildren. His brother, Dr. Umed Shah also
spoke, and praised Hoyer, who he called “the community’s leader.”
Also speaking
at the ceremony was Dr. Michael Szkotnicki, who founded of Breton
Medical Center in 1992. They joined Shah Associates in 2000. “It’s been
an interesting mix of two cultures,” he said of that union.
Among Dr.
Jarboe’s many accomplishments include appointment and then election to
the Board of St. Mary’s County Commissioners, a founding member of
Health Share, and volunteer medical work in Guatemala with his friend,
Dr. Martin Barley, a local dentist.