The EthnoMed Podcast

Provider Pulse Ep. 29: Dr. Anuj Khattar, MD (Part 1) - The Making of a Community Doctor

• Dr. Duncan Reid, MD @ EthnoMed.org • Season 1 • Episode 29

Share episode

Send us a text

What happens when an idealistic pre-med student becomes a physician and discovers the healthcare system isn't quite what they expected? In this first part of our conversation with Dr. Anuj Khattar, we trace the path from a diverse San Jose childhood to six different healthcare jobs across Seattle.

Dr. Khattar currently works as medical director at Cedar River Clinics, teaches at Swedish Family Medicine and ICHS, provides care at Planned Parenthood, runs a ketamine-assisted therapy practice, and works urgent care—a portfolio that reflects both passion and the complex realities of modern medicine.

In Part 1, we explore:

  • Growing up in 1990s San Jose during the tech boom, where white students in his school were the minority and diversity was the norm
  • The mobile clinic experience at UCLA that cemented his commitment to serving underserved communities and taught him to see systems of power and inequality
  • Undergraduate research experience and his realization that this was not his path
  • The challenging first two years of medical school at OHSU— endless exams and questioning his path
  • Finding redemption in third-year clinical rotations and discovering his mentor in family medicine

This episode is essential listening for anyone considering medical school. It's honest about the challenges—the grind, the depression, the culture shock—while showing why some people persist. Anuj's story isn't a warning to stay away from medicine; it's an invitation to enter with eyes wide open.

Coming in Part 2: What happens when idealism meets the constraints of the American healthcare system.

Visit EthnoMed.org for additional resources. Follow us on YouTube and Instagram @EthnoMedUW

251029 Anuj Part 1

 [00:00:00] 

PART 1 : "Learning to See"

COLD OPEN: Six Jobs, One Physician

Anuj: I have six jobs currently. My primary job is as the medical director at Cedar River Clinics, which is based in Renton, I work for Planned Parenthood affiliates, I work for ICHS, which is International Community Health Services as a community preceptor.

I work at Swedish Family Medicine, cherry Hill, as a teacher as well. I have my own private practice doing Ketamine assisted therapy, and I work in a urgent care after hours clinic for Seattle Roots.

Duncan: I don't think I can even keep that straight. So a [00:00:30] lot of different places.

Anuj: A lot of different places and a lot of different ways.

INTRODUCTION: Provider Pulse Series

Duncan: Welcome to the EthnoMed Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Duncan Reid, a primary care physician at harborview's International Medicine Clinic and medical director of EthnoMed.

In our ongoing Provider Pulse series, we continue to highlight healthcare providers and the diverse paths they took to their current positions.

We also explore how their experiences impact the care they provide today. Whether you are a medical student, medical professional, or someone who's simply [00:01:00] interested in the stories behind medical professionals. This podcast is for you.

If you're listening to this episode, you might be thinking about a career in medicine.

Maybe you're taking organic chemistry right now. Maybe you're shadowing a doctor. Maybe you've already decided I'm going to be a physician. Maybe you're still not sure. This episode is for you.

Dr. Anuj Qatar works six jobs, which requires a tremendous work ethic and breadth of expertise.

But as you'll hear these diverse roles reflect a more complicated reality. It's what happens when [00:01:30] an idealistic pre-med student becomes a physician and discovers that the medicine he hoped to practice and the system he's navigating aren't quite aligned. Before you think this is a warning to stay away from medicine? It's not. It's a discussion of the real challenges that providers face in medicine and how one doctor's path took him from idealism to acknowledgement of the frustrations of a broken medical system and how he shows up for his patients each day and has created his own unique diversity of practice.

In this two part conversation, You'll hear more about the moments that [00:02:00] inspired him. 

But you'll also hear about the constraints. The frustrations, the gap between what a career in medicine seems to promise and what it often delivers. 

In part one, we follow Anuj from San Jose to Seattle, watching an idealist form. Part two explores what happens when that idealism meets reality.

 If you're considering medicine, pay attention not to be discouraged, but to go in with your eyes open. Let's begin.

Anuj: My name is Anuj Khattar. I'm a family medicine physician, [00:02:30] and I work in Seattle area

I graduated medical school in 2012, and I graduated from residency in 2015. I did a one year long integrative medicine fellowship, and finished that in 2016.

Growing Up in the Bubble: San Jose in the 1990s

Duncan: Before we talk about the six jobs, before we explore how a Anuj practices medicine today, we need to understand where he came from, the idealism that would eventually be tested, and his ability to clearly see larger systems at play. Both began in the same place, San Jose, [00:03:00] California in the 1990s.

And can you take us back Where are you from originally?

Anuj: I grew up in San Jose, California and I was actually born in Florida of all places. But my dad was there for graduate school and that's how we ended up in the United States. My parents moved here from India and then when I was four, we moved to California, 

But growing up in San Jose, California, was quite the bubble in the United States. I feel very privileged to have been able to grow up there and very [00:03:30] sheltered in many ways. And it wasn't until I left California that I feel like I had an awakening of what America is. But I feel grateful that I had that opportunity to be there for those formative years of my life.

And I think it gave me a framework, to try to aim for and achieve as I move forward as well.

San Jose in the 1990s was experiencing growth and a demographic shift driven by the tech boom. In Anuj's schools, white students were the minority. The neighborhood was [00:04:00] Asian, black, Hispanic, a place where diversity was normal.

Duncan: What aspect of the sheltering comes to mind

Anuj: Mostly the diversity, I grew up in a part of California and San Jose, where honestly white people were a minority. I think 70% of my high school was people of color, and that was a really normal thing for me growing up.

Most of my friends were, Asian, black, Hispanic, I mean I had white friends obviously, but it [00:04:30] wasn't, a large part of my growing up. So it was a culture shock to move to Oregon for medical school, and just realize how many white people actually exist in this country.

Children of Immigrants: The Khattar Family

Duncan: And growing up, so your dad came to the US for engineering.

Anuj: My dad was a mechanical engineer.

Duncan: And your mom, was she working?

Anuj: She was, she got her degree in teaching, as a educator, like a grade school educator in India. Unfortunately that degree wasn't transferrable, so she [00:05:00] did go back to college when I was in grade school, and finished her, degree and became a teacher again though she was teaching adults and she was doing English as a second language, because that was something she struggled with during her move here, and she wanted to give back in that way.

Duncan: And growing up, how was school?

Anuj: School, honestly, I don't remember much. It was normal. It was fine. I don't think it was as traumatic as many people remember grade school to be. You know, there was always the bullying and [00:05:30] the not bullying and the sports and the friends like, you know, it was, I felt like a pretty routine school experience without anything particularly traumatizing for myself.

Duncan: Which I guess is all we can ask

Anuj: Yeah. Yeah.

Duncan: and it was diverse is what you already

Anuj: It was so diverse. And I think I just got exposure to so many different cultural backgrounds, different foods. Like I feel so privileged to be exposed to pho when I was so [00:06:00] young and other Vietnamese food and Cambodian food and Chinese and Taiwanese food and dim sum and sushi and just even the differences in Indian cuisine, like India is a huge country and having friends from all different parts of India because of family.

My parents' friends, they were all from different parts of India. It's not like they were all from the same state of India. It's just when people are gathering in a different community in a different space that isn't primarily theirs.

Like I think any sort of affinity brings people [00:06:30] together. So you get exposure to all sorts of different things within that microcosm as well.

Duncan: Growing up as a child of immigrants in San Jose gave Anuj in an early education in both possibility and limitation. His father came to the United States for graduate school in engineering and built a career, the American dream, working exactly as promised.

But his mother had been a teacher in India, a qualified educator with training, with expertise. When the family moved to the United States, that credential meant nothing. The American system [00:07:00] didn't recognize it. So she volunteered in schools eventually working her way into positions as an aide.

Anuj watched this. One parent whose expertise transferred seamlessly. One parent whose expertise was dismissed entirely.  

Identity Formation, Discovering Systemic Injustice

Duncan: Your identity growing up, did you feel like you had some Indian identity? Did you have an American identity at that time?

Anuj: Oh gosh. Identity politics are so challenging. Being a first or second generation. I never know how to identify myself in that regard. 'Cause I was the first generation born in this country, [00:07:30] but often people say we're second generation Americans. But there was always that struggle growing up of, am I Indian or am I American?

And the racism still existed even though we were growing up in a very diverse area, but like, I don't think any of that really stuck out to me until later. I think it was all in retrospect that I was like, oh, those things that people said to me were like racist statements or microaggressions or something else.

But I do [00:08:00] remember growing up and having this clear thought in fifth grade being like, I think I identify closer to black people than white people in this country. But I couldn't understand why. And now, I mean, it makes sense, that we are others and we will never be the dominant race in this country.

But yeah, it was, it was an interesting experience becoming aware of that growing up, but not necessarily it being the primary focus of my youth. Like I wasn't necessarily [00:08:30] othered because there were so many others of us. if that makes sense.

Duncan: And how was San Jose at that time? So this is nineties.

Anuj: this was the nineties and early two thousands.

Duncan: San Jose was still in this kind of transition i'm guessing it wasn't the huge boom town it is today.

Anuj: It's not, there were more orchards. I remember going for walks and runs and biking around and seeing cherry trees and apricot trees like those orchards don't exist anymore. They've all become townhouses. It is interesting to go back and see how much development [00:09:00] has happened, but in a lot of ways, San Jose is still kind of a sleepy town that it was, that I grew up in, specifically the neighborhood and area I grew up in.

going back this past April, 

 I got to run by the house that I grew up in and there's an Indian family living there with young kids now, and I was like, oh, what a full circle moment. Like this house has been passed on to another family that looked like mine growing up.

Duncan: And how were you a student in middle school, high school? Was there a lot of pressure to do well?

Anuj: Yeah. there was, I think that [00:09:30] was more internally. There was an expectation for me to excel in STEM. So my dad specifically didn't feel like what we were learning in school wasn't enough.

So there was always additional homework that he would assign and additional math and science and reading. So school was generally easy for me because I was always doing more at home. That was beyond what was being taught at school.

Duncan: And how did that work out at home? Were you willing, participant in all that extra work 

Anuj: Uh, [00:10:00] sometimes you just don't have a choice. So I, did what I had to do.

Duncan: Did you like learning or did you like school at that time?

Anuj: There were things I enjoyed learning. I actually really loved math when I was young. And I loved the puzzle of it, and I loved logic stuff. I didn't particularly like English or language, and I found that to be a struggle in reading comprehension and all that stuff. But I think as I got into high school, I started appreciating reading in English more.

Language at Home and at School, Codeswitching

Duncan: [00:10:30] And growing up, what language was spoken at home?

Anuj: Yeah, that's a great question. It transitioned between my older brother and myself. When, my brother was born, it was just Hindi spoken at home. And when he entered school he was put in ESL classes and I think my parents were, worried that it would inhibit his ability to excel in school.

So they transitioned to English as a primary language at home before I started grade school, which is a sad [00:11:00] point for me, is that I never really embraced Hindi as my primary language growing up, and I regret it now, but, you know, it's never too late to learn, but it does feel much more challenging to become proficient, in a language at this point in life.

 So I always responded to my parents in English and they encouraged me to speak in English to them, even if they spoke in Hindi to me.

I would say the home life was mixed English and Hindi.

Duncan: Did you feel any of that code switching when you were talking to your parents at home versus when you were talking to your friends

Anuj: Absolutely. [00:11:30] Yeah. I think, being an immigrant, or child of immigrants in this country, all you learn how to do is code switch all the time. I don't think I said any bad words in front of my parents until 2015 when Trump was elected into his first presidency. I said the F word at the Thanksgiving table and my mom was like, what did you just say?

And I was like, oh, I forgot that I usually do not utter any bad language in front of my parents, but, that has now long gone

Duncan: So what were you thinking [00:12:00] in high school? did you have an idea of what you wanted to do when you grew up?

Anuj: I had no idea. And all I knew was I liked science. And you know, that STEM, background that my dad really pushed for, made me enjoy science. And I found, again, the puzzle, the logic, everything around that to be really fascinating. So I did want to study science, and that's what I applied to when I applied to colleges, specifically molecular biology.

And the reason I pursued that was I did an internship when I was in high school [00:12:30] in a genetics lab and I found it to be really interesting and I was like, how can we learn from this? How can we study this microscopic level and how it's changing expression of things, and I was just really fascinated by the idea of doing research That's what I wanted to pursue in, college. And I always thought I was gonna be, become a PhD like my dad was, granted he was in engineering. And it was only during college that I realized I missed talking to people when I was working in labs all the time.

And I was like, oh, I don't think I can [00:13:00] do this forever. It's a very isolating career, and I need to be in a job where I get to speak with and interact with people regularly.

UCLA and Finding a Career Path

Anuj:  Anuj went to college at UCLA and was majoring in molecular cell and developmental biology. He enjoyed the coursework but remembers receiving a low grade in the general biology course, and his first thought was about disappointing his parents.

 I found the classes to be very fascinating. it was, exactly what I wanted to be learning in college. It was challenging in a lot of ways, but I think [00:13:30] it was helping me understand and unlock human biology and physiology in a really cool way. So I, I loved all my classes.

Actually, the only class that I disliked was the general biology class. That was my first C in life. I got my first C in college. no regrets, like, it just wasn't interesting to me. but yeah, that was,

Duncan: How did it feel at the time getting a c.

Anuj: You know, I think I was more afraid of disappointing my parents than anything else. But after I told them.

They [00:14:00] just didn't seem to care as much as I thought they were going to. And I was like, oh, okay. Like, my education is up to me. Like I shouldn't be doing this for anybody else. So I think their lack of expectations really helped me realize that whatever I do is for me, at that point. So that was, I think, a good turning point for me in that sense.

The Research Path Not Taken

Duncan:  Anuj was thinking of pursuing a research career and began working in a lab as an undergraduate. He had the courage to walk into the lab and ask for a position.

Anuj: I started working out in [00:14:30] a drosophila lab, so I did fruit fly experiments with genetics and breeding to see if we can get recessive genetic things to be expressed and how to isolate that. And, a lot of it ended up having to do with how methylation can change that sort of expression.

And like, yes, something can be purely autosomal dominant or recessive, but phenotypes can also be changed in expression through methylation. I ultimately felt very sad about having to kill [00:15:00] flies, so I moved to a lab that studied plants and plant expression under different stress. But it was kind of the same, bigger picture of just like how, does methylation affect expression of different proteins and phenotypes?

Duncan: So that was the new field of epigenetics, or actually they were talking a lot more about it in the science. just for young people who are in undergrad, how did you find those research opportunities or how.

Anuj: you know, I think a lot of it depends on what institution you're at, I can only speak to being at a large institution like [00:15:30] UCLA, and I just walked into different labs and asked to speak with a PI, and I think you kind of have to be bold to create some space. I feel lucky that the first lab I walked into said yes, but I don't think that happens to everybody.

And I think you just have to be okay with disappointment and okay with being told no. And, I think we're gonna live in a world where we hear no all the time and it takes a certain level of acceptance to understand that the nos are not personal. [00:16:00] So, let people say no to you, but you're never gonna get opportunities unless you ask for them.

So I think it's important to ask.

Mentorship and Decisionmaking

Duncan: So just showing up would be the advice just going and asking, And did you know anything about that lab? 

Anuj: No, I just, just walked in. I,

Duncan: walked in. Wow.

Anuj: So we had a counselor dedicated to our department, and I remember meeting with my counselor and saying like, Hey, these are things I'm interested in. Do you have any recommendations or thoughts for me? And they're like, you should consider doing some research. [00:16:30] And the nice thing about my department is it was located specifically in one building, so there were only five or six different labs that were doing this kind of research.

So I didn't have a ton of opportunities to have to sift through. So I will say it wasn't like I was dipping my hand into a deep pool. Yeah,

Duncan: And, what about mentorship during this time? Do you remember having much discussions maybe with some of the PhD students or the postdocs or the PI themselves kind of guiding you through how to think about science?

Anuj: [00:17:00] yeah. you know, not so much from that first lab. I was at that lab for two years and then I transitioned to the plant lab. The plant lab, I had a lot more mentorship. It was a little bit of a bigger lab. It had a bigger budget. And I have some good friends still that were PhD students or postdocs, doing research in there.

The Mobile Clinic: A Formative Experience

Duncan: Experience with lab research was important for Anuj. Helping him ultimately decide that the research path was not for him. It was through a public health course that he was first introduced to a mobile clinic in West Hollywood. [00:17:30] There he became inspired to pursue medicine through the human connection.

He was full of idealism, but he also began to see where the medical system fails the most vulnerable. 

Anuj: I will say concurrently I was also figuring out what I was interested in. So even though this research was happening on the side. I was still growing and developing as a human being in other ways. And one of the special classes I got to take at UCLA was a public health course that was a year long and it involved working [00:18:00] with an organization called the UCLA Mobile Clinic. So part of your credits is through volunteering with this street outreach clinic, in West Hollywood. So I started doing that during my freshman year and I continued doing that for the entirety of my undergrad time.

So I was finding joy and meaning in this work that I was doing as a volunteer, working with other human beings.which ultimately led me down the path of medicine.

Duncan: And even [00:18:30] talking to some of the undergrads right now, I just am realizing how much is on people's plates. But I think what you're pointing out is it's so important to have been pursuing these different things because they were developing different facets.

Anuj: Totally. I think one of the beautiful things about undergrad is you have all these interesting opportunities to explore who you are, what you want, and what's out in the world. Like in a way that you don't get when you're in high school. And you're not really ever gonna know what you want [00:19:00] to do until you try different things.

So if you don't enjoy what you're doing, find some other opportunity or allow yourself to grow in different ways.

Duncan: This mobile clinic, were you thinking of medicine? Had you had any contact with medicine before?

Anuj: No, funnily enough, my uncle is a physician, but I didn't know that until after I started medical school. It's just not something that I'd ever talked about with my family. So medicine wasn't a career choice that I had considered at any point prior to being [00:19:30] in college and working with people through that UCLA mobile clinic.

Duncan: West Hollywood is a few miles to the east of the UCLA campus home to the Sunset Strip, legendary nightclubs and a unique cultural identity. 

And what was the experience like? Can you paint a picture? 

Anuj: yeah, so every Wednesday evening,we would set up a truck that was outfitted with a pharmacy and we also created these pop-up exam rooms with tarps. And we had basically everything that you would [00:20:00] need to have a primary care office, ophthalmoscopes, otoscopes, manometers to do blood pressures, all the things that you need to do basic healthcare.

And then we would also have a table of resources and supplies. So condoms, lubes, socks. We'd also have a legal expert out to help people fight, cases like jaywalking, things that they would get because they were under resourced and couldn't pay those fines anyway. And we would be, next to a [00:20:30] food bank that would be serving dinner and they served dinner every night of the week.

 And we would just say like, Hey, if you want to be seen by the doctor today, sign up. And we'd see somewhere between 10 to 20 people a night. And as an undergrad we were there kind of to shepherd patients through the process and keep 'em company. So they'd have somebody to be a point person if they needed to have some advocacy done.

So we were like, navigators of that process as undergrads because we can't necessarily make medical decisions. and you know, we're not [00:21:00] allowed to dispense medications. But we worked closely with the residents and physicians from the UCLA family Medicine department, and we worked closely with the pharmacist that would be there to make sure that meds were being dispensed appropriately.

And ultimately I ended up being one of the undergrad coordinators of this organization to train other undergrads that were doing this work, and making sure that the logistics of the organization ran well. And it was a really cool experience for me and I feel like I learned a lot.

And it made me realize [00:21:30] that I want to be an advocate for my patients and I want to have a voice for them when they don't have a voice. And that's what made me want to pursue medicine. 

Duncan: You stuck with that for four years,

Anuj: I stuck with that for Yeah, the entirety of my undergrad.

Duncan: and what was it particularly about that experience that made you continue to devote so much time to it?

Anuj: I think just the connections that I developed with the patients. I mean, I call them patients now, but back then they were just clients for me. But it [00:22:00] exposed me to a world that I'd never been exposed to before. You know, I think homelessness and poverty for me growing up were not something that had touched my life particularly, personally.

There was a one or two people in San Jose that I would see that'd be homeless and I would ask my parents about them, but we never really interacted with them. And I think it's easy to dehumanize a person that's on a street and not know anything about their life or what they've been through or what kind of support they need.

And I, think being given the opportunity [00:22:30] to so deeply connect to some of these folks was really meaningful. And I befriended some of them and we were able to get some people off the street into adult family homes and I would visit them in their adult family homes. you know, we'd have ceremonies for people when they die.

Like it just felt like a very humane, respectful thing to do for the people we were caring for. And I think it helped me realize how much human connection mattered to me.

Duncan: I imagine that the other people that you're working with probably had a [00:23:00] very similar ethos as well.

Anuj: Totally. I mean, so many of my colleagues from that time have gone into medicine or social work or law or other fields that support people, in different ways. I think a lot of people who pursued that class during undergrad went into social service careers in some way.

Duncan: It's incredible to think that that program has such a enduring impact across people.

Anuj: Yeah, totally. 

Duncan: 

But this mobile clinic, you point to that [00:23:30] and said that experience is really what was pushing you towards medicine. How

Anuj: Yeah,

Mentorship and the Decision for Pursuing Medicine

Duncan: When you are thinking about medicine did you have any mentorship from any of these doctors or residents that you kind of talk to and ask? You know, like, what am I getting myself into because I have an idealized version of street medicine? Did anyone sit down and talk to you and did you have a forum where you could ask all these things?

Or did you just feel like, okay, I am gonna go for this?

Anuj: You know, some of my closer mentors and the people that I'd built [00:24:00] relationships with were not physicians actually. I had a mentor that was a master of public health. And I had some research mentors that I was very close with. And I had talked to them about those things and they were like, oh yeah, it sounds like research is not the path you want to take, you should consider going into medicine. But surprisingly enough, I never really had mentorship going into medical school. It wasn't until I was in medical school that I had physician mentorship.

Duncan: But it sounds like these other mentors were very formative for you, and they were open to the [00:24:30] idea that you're gonna go into a different field.

Anuj: Yeah. I think a good mentor isn't attached to the outcomes of your life, in the sense that they don't necessarily need you to fulfill their own ego, if that makes sense. I think yes, they're attached to the outcomes of your life because they want you to succeed and be happy, but they don't necessarily need you to follow in their footsteps.

Culture Shock in Portland: Arriving at OHSU

Duncan: So Anuj applied to medical school. He had the grades, the research experience, the MCAT scores.  He also had something else,  clear motivation. He knew why he wanted [00:25:00] medicine from his experience at the mobile clinic.  He was hoping to stay at UCLA for medical school, but ultimately ended up at OHSU in Portland.

 

Duncan: So you were thinking UCLA medicine and you ended up where?

I ended up at OHSU, in Portland, Oregon. And had you been to Oregon before?

Anuj: Only for the interview. and oh boy, that was, I remember that specifically because it was November, that I flew up for the interview and it was a hot, sunny day in LA so I was in my shorts in a t-shirt on the flight, [00:25:30] and I landed in Portland and it was the first day of snow and I was like, what I should, I need to learn to start looking at the weather report.

 And I had to go buy a sweater and some pants. that was a just, yeah. Funny, funny experience. And actually, one of the reasons I interviewed at OHSU is one of my colleagues from the mobile clinic, who was a year ahead of me, was in medical school as a first year at OHSU. So I knew somebody that had gone there from the mobile clinic, and I think that connection made me more [00:26:00] invested in even looking at the school.

Duncan: But then the advice for proper clothing didn't trickle down.

Anuj: Yeah, I, I, you know, at some point we all have to take responsibility as an adult and look at the weather report.

 

The Struggle of the First Two Years of Medical School

Duncan: How was medical school? How was that experience? Was it what you thought it was gonna be?

Anuj: You know, I didn't know what to expect. I knew it was gonna be hard. I specifically remember a conversation during my first year of medical school, calling my parents and being like, this is so hard. It sucks. I [00:26:30] feel, dead inside is extreme, but like, I just feel like I wasn't living life. I think I was very depressed and I was like, I don't know if I want to keep doing this.

And my parents, lovely as they are, said, well, you don't have to if you don't want to. And I think the reverse psychology just worked too well for me. And I was like, well, I'm gonna effin do it. I'm gonna finish medical school. I signed up for this. I actually want to do it. I'm going to do it. but the first two years were rough.

I think medical education has changed a lot. I don't [00:27:00] think the system is the same or the structure is the same. I think there's a lot more emphasis on getting students into clinical experiences earlier than we had. I think we had one half day a week of clinic, during our first and second year of medical school.

But it was so much didactic book work tests, like it just felt like this endless slog that was rough to get through. And I don't know, it's hard, to do it when there isn't really an end goal in [00:27:30] sight. And I think, you know, I knew I wanted to go into medicine, but I didn't know what kind of medicine I necessarily wanted to practice.

So that was also really challenging for me because I was like, why am I, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why am I taking these tests every two weeks? yeah. So that was, it was a hard couple years.

The Importance of Community, Anuj as Uniter

Duncan: But then the interesting thing is I know a lot of people that went to medical school with you and the thing that you're known for is bringing all sorts of people together, and you would have a lot of dinners, a lot of things if you were [00:28:00] depressed and all this. where did you find the energy to do those sorts of things?

Anuj: Ooh. Uh, well, I think the only thing that keeps people moving forward as community and staying together. And I think you have to create your own sparks of joy, in places that feel really challenging. And I imagined if I was suffering that much, other people in my class were probably as well. And if somebody didn't take the initiative to gather, then I need to take the initiative [00:28:30] together.

Duncan: and that's something that you've continued.

Anuj: I think so 

Duncan: if you are a pre-medical student listening to this and thinking, that sounds terrible. Yes, the first two years of medical school can be a grind: classroom learning memorization, exams, limited patient contact, but then third year clinical rotations, time in the hospital, direct patient contact, and for Anuj, it was redemption.

Redemption: Third and Fourth Year Clinical Rotations

Duncan: So first two years it's all didactics. and then you go onto the wards.

How was that?[00:29:00] 

Anuj: Yeah. Well, so the first, year of my medical school, I got paired with a family medicine physician out in Hillsborough at this FQHC called Virginia Garcia. And I think that was my first true mentor in medicine. And it was an awesome experience. It made me understand that medicine could be practiced in a holistic way, and family medicine was a career choice

that could be something I'm interested in doing. Flash forward, I was able to organize my third year family [00:29:30] medicine clinical with this person. So I was able to go back in a more regular fashion. But, clinicals were really exciting. I loved clinicals. I felt like redemption after the first two years of, the didactic bookwork.

And it felt like we were finally getting to apply what we had learned. And I think I loved every single rotation during my third year, which is rare, but I also had the privilege of doing half of my third year of rotations in more rural [00:30:00] areas, there weren't residents at a lot of the clinical sites that I worked at, so I got to do a lot more as a medical student. On my surgery rotation, I got to first assist for almost every case. And it almost made me go into general surgery because it was so fun. And you know, in retrospect I'm like, wow, they really respected and trusted me to let me do some of the things that they let me do as a medical student.

Maybe that's also just a reflection of the trust I was able to provide to them, and how I cared for the [00:30:30] patients I was caring for. But, yeah, it was, awesome. I don't think there was a rotation that I disliked during my clinicals

Duncan: It sounds like it's as good as it can be 

Anuj: for that all

Duncan: you, the, the, that's all you can ask for, 

Anuj: That's all you can ask for. I mean, the hours were challenging. it's not fun to be sleep deprived. At that point we didn't have any work hour restrictions, so on internal medicine we were still doing 30 hour shifts. so there, there were still things to gripe about and I think there were still life events that I missed.

Part 1 Closing: What Comes Next

Duncan: [00:31:00] The clinical years of medical school gave Anuj what the first two years couldn't  actual patients,  actual medicine,  different possibilities for specialization. Anuj saw clearly the medicine he'd hoped for actually existed. You could practice with your values, you could serve excluded communities, you could do work that aligned with why you went into medicine in the first place.

He'd found his work, he'd found his mentor, and that belief, that vision of what medicine could be, would be tested.

 Thank you for listening to this episode of the EthnoMed Podcast. [00:31:30] This is Dr. Duncan Reid. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. See you next time for part two of our interview with Dr. Anuj Khattar.

 

********************************************************************

End of Part 1