Q: What aspect of patient care is most rewarding?
A: My favorite part is seeing my patients recover quickly. I also enjoy interacting and forming good relationships with my patients and their families, albeit during a short hospital visit. When people are sick, you see them at their most vulnerable. To know that they trust your care during that time is very humbling. Last week, the wife of a patient suddenly hugged me and thanked me for taking care of her husband. It was totally unexpected, but it was also a great feeling that I helped someone get better.
Q: What is your biggest professional challenge?
A: One of my biggest professional challenges is learning how to get diverse and often different groups of medical professionals to come together and collaborate on system changes in the hospital. No matter how many times you do it, each experience is different and presents its own unique challenge.
Q: When you aren’t working, what is important to you?
A: I love spending time with my family and friends. Since I am usually busy during my weeks on service, I catch up with everyone during my weeks off. My husband and I like exploring Philadelphia when we can. We’ve been enjoying the amazing new vegetarian restaurants that have opened in Philly over the last year.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
A: I see myself in hospital medicine leadership, since being a leader has given me the opportunity to impact positive change for my hospital, my patients, and the hospitalists in my group.
Q: If you weren’t a doctor, what would you be doing right now?
A: This is a question that I was asked during my medical school interview. I believe that I didn’t have an answer at that time; however, if I really had to pick, I would want to be an artist and a performer in Broadway musicals. I love all forms of dance, especially contemporary dancing, salsa, and bharathnatyam (a classical south Indian dance). I also enjoy singing, although my skills, I’m afraid, have deteriorated due to disuse.
Q: What impact do you feel devices like Apple and Android products have had on your job—and on medicine in a broader sense?
A: I think that the new mobile technology has had a significant and positive impact on healthcare as a whole. The most beneficial is the ease of access to information, both related to patient care and medical resources. The next wave will be the integration of these devices into the actual delivery of patient care.
Richard Quinn is a freelance writer in New Jersey.