Joey Wahler (Host): Welcome to One on One with Regional One Health, your inside look at how we're building healthier tomorrows for our patients and our community. Join us as we get to know some of the individuals who help provide life-saving, life-changing care for our community. Today, we're getting acquainted with Dr. Maunil Bhatt, a Vascular Surgeon with Regional One Health. Thanks for listening. I'm Joey Wahler. Hi, Dr. Bhatt. Thanks for joining us.

Dr Maunil Bhatt: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Host: Great to have you aboard. So first, in a nutshell, just remind us, please, what conditions does a Vascular Surgeon typically treat?

Dr Maunil Bhatt: So, a Vascular Surgeon treats anything that is related to the blood vessels in the body. It ranges from the plaques or clot buildup in the carotid arteries, which are the arteries that supply your brain, to plaque buildup or calcium buildup within the arteries of your legs that supply your leg and your feet, to aneurysms that can form in your aorta, which is one of the biggest blood vessels that come off of your heart and supplies the rest of the body that can balloon out. And when untreated, it can rupture and it could be life-threatening.

Host: So where are you from originally? And what would you say most shaped your interest in medicine and specifically in Vascular Surgery?

Dr Maunil Bhatt: So, I'm born and raised in India, in a small town in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, which is one of the western states in India. I moved to California when I was about 16, 17 years old. I did a couple years of high school. I had to repeat a couple years of high school here in California. And then, I went to college at UC Davis. And then, my medical school was in Richmond, Virginia. My residency was in Boston. And then, my fellowship was back in San Francisco, so kind of all over the place.

As far as my interest in medicine, I'd always been interested in helping with the greater good, taking care of people. I've always had a soft corner for people who aren't as well off as the rest of us or the majority of us. And so, I started out by deciding whether I wanted to be on a public health side of things or a medical side of things. And so when I finished my undergraduate, I went back to India and did some medical work there to figure out exactly that I needed to be on the medical side of things, rather than the policy side of things, which would be more of public health. And once I decided that I needed to be one on one and boots on the ground kind of approach to taking care of people; then I needed to decide whether I wanted to be on medical versus surgical side of medicine, and that's a whole different topic and preferences as to why I chose surgery versus medicine.

Host: How about the reason though that you chose to go into the vascular world?

Dr Maunil Bhatt: Yeah. So, vascular surgical world amongst the surgical specialties, I personally think is-- and of course my opinion is biased here-- but I personally think is one of the best subspecialties that are out there, for many reasons. One is we take care of our patients sort of in a holistic manner. And what I mean by that is as a Vascular Surgeon, we not only care for their medical comorbidities, but also offer them surgical interventions whenever necessary. Most of our patients have medical comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases that come as part and parcel of having vascular pathology. And so, we are fortunate enough to care for the patients, not only for their medical issues, but when those medical issues progress to become surgical issues, we can also take care of them surgically as well. That's number one.

Number two, is that when we meet our patients, we pretty much follow them for the rest of their life, regardless of whether we are going to operate on them or not. And we build these very long term, long-lasting relationships with the patients that are very rewarding and life-altering for both us and the patients.

Number three, is that part of being a Vascular Surgeon, you are trained in both endovascular as well as open surgical techniques. Endovascular means we access patients' blood vessels with tiny little needles and catheters and wires and treat some of the biggest pathologies, such as repairing someone's aorta from inside with tiny little incisions; obviously when the anatomy fits and when the criterias are met. And if the patient is not a candidate for minimally invasive endovascular techniques, then we have the skill set to offer them traditional open surgery and get to the bottom of the problem and fix the problem open surgical technique-wise.

So, not only do we care for the patients holistically, meaning both medical and surgical; but we can offer them a whole spectrum of surgical options ranging from minimally invasive endovascular to big open surgeries, which I think is very rare when it comes to surgical fields.

Host: Gotcha. And in addition to all of the above there, when treating patients, how would you say you provide care while also maintaining a human touch? What's your personal approach there?

Dr Maunil Bhatt: I have been fortunate enough to do a lot of work in low-resource or resource-limited settings, both internationally and locally. And I have taken the approach of putting myself or my family member in patient's shoes every time I meet a patient. And so, I always think about the patients and their issues, whether it's surgical or medical, and always make a decision, one, based on evidence; and I strictly practice evidence-based management of a patient's issues and problems.

But more importantly, as far as the quality of life of the patient is concerned and when it comes down to choosing an option based on patient preference, I always try to do what I would do for a family member. So if I'm meeting a middle-aged gentleman as a patient, I would always lay out all the options for them. But at the end, I always close the conversation by saying, "If you were my dad or if you were my mom, this is what I would do for them." And I think that's the right approach and the right combination of not being too paternalistic type of approach to practicing medicine; but at the same time, not just giving patients all the options and expecting them to make the best decision, just based on all the risk factors and risks and benefits for all the different options that we give them. Sometimes it can get overwhelming for them. And I think, if you give that a little personal touch, what I would do for my family and for myself or my father or for my mother; I personally think that it makes me connect to the patients better at a personal level, makes them trust what I'm saying personally as well. And then, we can build a stronger relationship on that foundation.

Host: Wow. It sounds like that really comes from the heart. I appreciate your answer there. How about you're also part of the National Trauma Task Force in India. You touched earlier on returning to your home country and the role that that played in you eventually becoming a doctor in the way that you have. What do you do on that front?

Dr Maunil Bhatt: That came about when I took two years hiatus from my residency as part of what was called academic development time. And what it is, is basically during our clinical residency for general surgery, it was five years; after completing the three clinical years, some residents were chosen to pursue their research interests and build their academic profile. And I decided to use that time to do international work and research, research in global surgery essentially.

And I was fortunate enough to have some connections still back in India, where I went. I connected with the local hospital there. And essentially, one thing led to the other and eventually the proposal that I had written to build a trauma system just for this single center, the hospital that I was associated with; got picked up by or gained some attention at a national level. And their version of NIH, essentially, really liked the proposal and they reached out to me and they said, you know, "Hey, what do you guys think about turning this into a multi-institutional project and a study to build a trauma system similar to what we have in the Western countries and bring in multiple institutions across the country and will be funded by the national government?"

And so, we got really excited. We went out and recruited five other centers across the country. And then because the whole project was funded by the national government, the PIs or principal investigators from each one of those institutions got invited to form what was called the National Trauma Task Force. And the idea behind that was that whatever data we collected and whatever results come out of that project, would be presented to the national government. And then based on that, there would be some policies that would be changed or affected when it comes to caring for the trauma patients in India.

That was pre-COVID. And then COVID hit, and as you probably know, India got hit pretty badly during the second wave. And so, their focus since then has changed, and it went into survival mode essentially. And so, the funding got pulled. And so, that project has been halted. But while it was active, we were able to make pretty significant changes in how the patients were being cared for, especially the trauma patients in India. So, that was pretty rewarding.

Host: Wow. Impressive to say the least. How much time do you spend working over there?

Dr Maunil Bhatt: So once I came back from there, I was a resident again, so, you know, barely had any time to go back there, plus the COVID started. So, I haven't been personally back there for a few years. But remotely, I've been working with the PIs there and the data that we had collected. We're still in the process of analyzing it. And eventually when it's done analyzing, and we get a little bit more funding, and if the Indian government's focus changes back to trauma and we get more funding, then we'll carry on the project. But for now, my role has been passive, in the sense that we're now just looking at the data, having meetings about how to properly analyze the data, and how really to present to the government to start making some of the big changes.

Host: That really sounds great. So, a couple of other things. Switching gears a little bit, doc. When you're not working, I understand you're a pretty active guy physically, right?

Dr Maunil Bhatt: I enjoy lots of outdoor activities, hiking. I rock climb, but indoors. I haven't approached any outdoor walls yet, but making my way up to it. Me and my wife, we go on bike rides quite a bit. And I try to spend some whatever time outside the hospital in the nature and doing some activities outside.

Host: Terrific. And you founded an organization that performs traditional cultural dance to raise money for charity. Tell us about that.

Dr Maunil Bhatt: So, that was during my college days and it's still ongoing. Basically, we formed a group when I was an undergraduate. And it started out as not necessarily a hobby, but a collegiate organization essentially, that performs this traditional dance form called Garba. It's picking up in popularity even here in the Western world. But essentially, it's a very local folk dance kind of choreography that comes locally from where I was born and grew up in Gujarat in India. And initially, it just started out with a group of 12 of us doing these dances at annual functions in college. And then, we started a formal group, teaching dances, which then turned into an organization that we were able to go perform at different places and charge. And then, what we do with that money is we donate it to several different causes throughout the year.

Host: Wow. That's awesome as well. Well, in summary, what aspirations, doctor, what goals do you still have as a physician? What continues to motivate you?

Dr Maunil Bhatt: That's a really good question. You know, I think, I would say what motivates me the most on a daily basis is our patients, especially at Regional One. We see patients from all walks of life; patients who have not been cared for in the community or for one reason or the other have not sought care in an appropriate amount of time. And so, every single day I am humbled by the patients that we see, their disease pathology, the problems and issues that they may have, whether it be medical or surgical or social or economic. There's multiple factors that play a role into how we first meet the patients here in the hospital. And it continues to humble me every single day about how many problems can one have actively going on in life and how they are juggling everything at the same time. And if I can be part of a solution of one or two or three of their actively going issues; that could severely positively affect and tilt their life in a positive direction.

And so, what motivates me every single day, I would say, is to do better for our patients. And there's always room for improvement. We can always do better. And I'm not talking about just surgically and our outcomes, but we can care for their social needs, we can care for their economic needs, we can plug them into resources that can care for them postoperatively that they wouldn't qualify for otherwise, because of lack of insurance or what may be. But challenging myself every single day to make someone's situation better one way or the other, I would say, still keeps me engaged, still keeps me motivated to work harder every day.

Host: That's great. Certainly sounds like you're a doctor that has his heart and his priorities in the right place. I'm sure our listeners will be very happy to hear that that's the case. Folks, we trust you're now more familiar with Dr. Maunil Bhatt. Doctor, keep up the great work both in and out of the OR, okay? And thanks so much again. I hope we can do it again.

Dr Maunil Bhatt: Thank you so much for having me.

Host: You got it. So for more information, folks, please visit regionalonehealth.org/vascular or call 901-545-7222. Again, regionalonehealth.org/vascular/ or 901-545-7222. I'm Joey Wahler. And thanks again for making One on One with Regional One Health part of your journey to better health. Join us next time as we introduce you to another member of the Regional One Health family.