Host: Hello listeners!
This is your host, Rohan Tandel.I welcome you to this podcast produced by InnovatioCuris, with a mission to spread awareness and knowledge of various facets of Healthcare Innovation.
This podcast is the 1st podcast from the ‘Voice of ICInnovator’ series from InnoHEALTH magazine, the first magazine in India on healthcare innovations. In this series, we would be exploring the essence of the ICInnovatorCLUB through its club members’ perspectives.
Today, we are going to have a conversation with our guest speaker Dr. Pankaj N Surange who is the director of the Interventional Pain and Spine center and also the Honorary Secretary of the Indian Society for study of pain.
Welcome, Dr. Pankaj to our podcast. How are you today sir?
Dr. Pankaj: I am good Rohan, Thank you.
Host: Now coming to the podcast, Let me elaborate on the flow of this podcast. I would be asking you a series of questions and we may discuss your views and opinions on it.
So, let us begin…
We do know that people learn various important life & career lessons through learning, experiencing, and realization but it happens through years of struggle and hardships so I would like to know from you is
1. What is that one thing or that one lesson that you wish you knew at the start of your career?
Dr. Pankaj: Yeah so Rohan since we are talking about doctors and the medical field, for the doctors I think what I feel nowadays at this stage of career the most important thing like you said the thing I missed in the initial phase of my career, one thing which I miss is that in our medical training we should also be taught of the management side. Like when we are undergoing medical college and post that we go into specialization and super specialization so we are progressing in our field which is okay which one part is present which is clinical side. Which I feel is too streamlined. But we never saw healthcare as a complete spectrum, healthcare is not just the clinical side it’s an industry. So we didn’t see healthcare as an industry in the initial stages of the training period. So I think this is the one thing that we missed a lot, had this been there in the initial stages of our training in medical school what would have happened that if management aspects of healthcare would have been a part of the initial training, then there would have been more people motivated to choose healthcare professions. Right now what is the scenario of some doctors who went into the management side who were not able to perform optimally so to say or who were like casualties from the clinical side so to say. But if we choose from the start the aspect we want to learn in healthcare management is what we missed a lot in the teaching stage.
Host: True sir, a lot of miscommunication can be avoided if all the facets are covered during the teaching stage.
So coming to the next question
2. What are the resources that had a major influence on you as a professional or as an individual??
Dr. Pankaj: So I would say that resources since I was the second doctor in my family but from allopathy side, I am the first in my family and what I feel is through experience best resource for a doctor is knowledge and expertise and if one can direct it in the field it is the best resource one can have.
Host: Talking further about influence, in this age of seamless connectivity we are overwhelmed with various personalities, which leads to my next question
3. Which person or say Who are the people you idolize and why?
Dr. Pankaj: if you talk about from early stages of my life as I mentioned earlier my grandfather was also a doctor he lived through the age of 100 years, so definitely he was an idol for me because firstly he was a doctor, second he was a freedom fighter, so that is why I could inculcate the nationalism inside in me which was the reason I joined the army, so it was present from early stages of my life observing him. And maybe that is a reason I became a doctor also. He was the one person who had a great influence on me.
The second person would be my guide during my specialization in an army hospital, so I did my specialization in anesthesiology from army hospital Delhi. So Colonel CVR Mohan who later turned to Brigadeour was an ideal for me, and one thing that I learned from him is positivity in life, teaching. He always had a positive outlook and was always ready to perform all the time.
Third-person who inspired me who came in touch with me during super specialization the Pain Medicine. Dr. Gautam Das who was my mentor and teacher during this course, I’ve learned many things from him but as a personality what I learned was the more you teach, the more you spread the knowledge the more you will develop. Which I started implementing too and have started to be open to people who want to learn from me.
Host: Great Idols you have there sir!!
4. Now coming to careers, many people face various hardships through their career so I would like to know some of the hardships you faced in your career and how you found inspiration from such situations?
Dr. Pankaj: So talking about the hardship it is there in everybody’s life, but the outlook differs from person to person. But what I see hardship is as challenges. If we take hardship as a negative aspect of life then we cannot progress. So the best way to overcome this hardship is nobody can claim to be 100 percent successful, so whatever you do you have to face challenges so one should always target it towards the higher side which will enable you to think outside the box and develop the ability to absorb the failures, not as a failure but a learning experience.
Host: True sir.
5. Besides your current profession, what profession would you like to explore?
Dr. Pankaj: So suppose if I was not a doctor if I get an option as of now to switch career it would wildlife photographer, Photography is my passion.
Host: Great Sir, coming to the next question,
6. What makes you feel your best self/ Rejuvenates you from the daily workload and stress??
Dr. Pankaj: So depending on the age or say stage of life/career you are you have a different method to rejuvenate yourself when you come to a stage where you a decision-maker, everything depends on you, entire projects depend on you, at the end of the day you would want to introspect on your day on whether you were able to perform optimally or not. So talking about me being on the clinical side I introspect whether I was able to give the patient proper relief or not. The day any of my patients is not happy, or say operation ran into some complication those days I feel really bad. So this is the way I find relief at the end of the day.
Host: That’s a new way to rejuvenate sir, introspecting on the daily achievements/activities.
7. Talking about the ICInnovatorClub I would like to ask what it means for you to be a member of ICInnovatorCLUB??
Dr. Pankaj: So I basically attended one conference in 2017 in taj hotel and couldn’t join the club but later in 2019 I joined the club. But since then we are in lockdown off and on I was not able to interact frequently with the IC club but I’ve been attending webinars. So what my idea of this club is it is a platform not only for doctors but professionals from various domains, which enables the doctor to interact and share experiences from various fields of the healthcare industry. It bridges various segments of the healthcare industry.
Host:
8. Moving ahead, I would like to ask what are the functions that this club performs and how does it help a member to grow as an individual?
Dr.Pankaj: So as I mentioned before that, for doctors it is very essential to attend such a program/session as it covers the Healthcare industry as a whole. I wanted to suggest to the club to arrange such programs for doctors, where we can have interactive sessions more frequently where we cover various aspects of Healthcare covering finance, marketing, costing, etc. So if we can give such 3 hours of session for doctors it will be a lot beneficial and will enable innovation from various ideas derived from such collaborative interactions.
Host: Yeah sir,
9. What does innovation mean to you considering the healthcare industry?
Dr. Pankaj: So for me, innovation is a product of needs and demand. If there arises a need in society the innovation should come, it’s like an invention keeping in mind the requirements of the community. For example, online consultation which existed long back before covid too but people adopted faster under the constricted atmosphere, right. So innovation was there but it was just not part of the need of the society until now.
Host: Great sir, lastly I would like to ask you
10. Where can our listeners connect to you??
Dr. Pankaj: you can note down my email address:ceo.ipscindia.com. IPSC is my center with 3 branches Hyderabad, Delhi, Bangalore and we are coming to pan India now. It is a single-specialty chain of hospitals that is coming up right now. You can also reach me out on email and website too.
Host:
The link to connect with our guest Dr. Pankaj is as under.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-pankaj-n-surange-505b2019
Website: www.ipscindia.com
Email: CEO@ipscindia.com
To conclude,
Thank you Dr. Pankaj for joining us for the podcast.
I would also like to call out to our audience to leave a comment with a review and let us know whether you liked the podcast. Drop down a comment if you have any podcast ideas or recommendations. You can also connect with us if you have a healthcare innovation journey of your own to be a part of our podcast series. And for more such content on healthcare and innovation visit Innohealthmagazine.com. Stay Safe, Goodbye.
“Composed by: Rohan Tandel”
