Watch: Doctor's Thoughts on Life in India from 14 Years of Living After 11 Years in UK

3:37 So the idea was initially to stay in UK for 5 years or so so not much of orientation was there so whenever somebody is wanting to go to UK and I'm sure a lot of doctors are aware of this you need to pass an exam called plab so once you pass plab you get an eligibility to go and work in UK and nowadays the plab is being conducted in India itself in Hyderabad and in many other places but in those days you have to physically go to UK to write the exam so myself and couple of my close friends we decide to go to UK to write the exam so there was hardly any awareness and no internet at the time this is I'm talking about 96 997 so we landed in UK and then a lot of difficulties in before taking the exam itself because to start with they we could not start out an accommodation for almost couple of weeks or 3 to four weeks proper accommodation so once we sorted the accommodation there not much of time for

4:38 Preparing for exam then finally to cut the shory a little short finally passed the pl exam and then took a job in 98 the that was my first job in UK so when I a job in UK a postgraduate training is kind of staggered at the time not as streamland as it is now so if you want to pursue postgraduation in UK you need to apply for jobs in different hospitals it is like a self-paced training program you need to select a hospital you need to select a department where you apply and get trained yourself so once you complete two years of training you are eligible to take the postgraduate exam that is called MRCP so I passed my MRCP in 2000 then again I wanted to pursue postr wanted to pursue super speciality so the options were by heart I was interested in cardiology or

5:38 Gastrology but again getting into these two top branches in medicine was almost next to Impossible because lot of bias in selection process and lot of what you call U I would say favism but but the local graduates are obviously preferred over foreign graduates so it is not easy to get into these speciality again I tried for a couple of years doing experienced jobs in Gastrology then finally got a place in Gastrology so any super specialty training program in UK is for five years and for example if somebody is pursuing a career in India they do mbbs they do MD for 3 years then do specialization for example Gast for another 3 years but in UK you do postgraduation for 2 to three years then you do specialization for five years it's almost like a double D at the end

6:38 Of super specialty training program you'll be awarded what we call CCT so when somebody got CCT in a particular speciality that means they have undergone fiveyear training program structure training program in UK and only people with CCT UK are eligible to become a consultant in UK so that's a process of escalating up your career so punish my CCT UK from Manchester de then again we kind of never get satisfied right sometimes you want to do more so the initial plan was to come to India after four or five years then the next plan was to come to India after speciality which is another five years then I wanted to do something more so I wanted to do a fellowship at sub speciality in part of the gastroenterology which is inflammatory bis and advanced endoscopy so in third year of my training I started exploring

7:39 Other options for fellowship and one of that was a beautiful Fellowship which came up in Australia prant near part Western Australia so I took it up so this is I was finishing my specialty training 2008 and accepted Fellowship in 2009 so accept almost more than one year in advance yeah So the plan was again to come back to India after my specialization then suddenly something interesting came up when I was finishing my Gastrology training there was a very lucrative job which came up in UK itself because one of the consent in that region he was kind of stock off from GMC for what whatever reason so that poort suddenly became vacant so that con had a lot of Private Practice and also UK there are two types of practices one is NHS which is a government setup second is a private practice for example in US majority of

8:40 The practice is private setup in UK majority of the practi is a government setup called NHS private setup is small but people who do well in private setup they make lot of money which a very lucrative job so suddenly this job came up and my program director asked me where I would interested to take it up it was very tempting to be honest because it a very well established job and very kind of high paying job and all but once I take it up I was sure that I was not going to come back to India so that will put everything kind ofid form rather than kind of what I've been planning for the last 10 years or so so I thought for a while then I said I decided to stick to my original plan that was from UK I would go to Australia for one year and go back come back to India after finishing the fellowship so I resorted to my original plan so this is 2009 I

9:41 Went to Australia for fellowship and by the time I already had once my wife is a software engineer she's not a medical she used to work for NHS she there a software programmer in NHS and we had one Elder son at the time abai Bak was around 6 years old at the time

10:02 And my wife was pregnant with second child so again there a lot of confusion whether we the plan was to go to Australia for one year yeah and then come back to India so the option was whether we all of us stay in UK take up the consant PO one option second option was whether we all go to Australia and finish my fellowship come back to India then third option was I go alone and because setting up family for one year in Australia with pregnant wife and can be very challenging so the third option was wife with Elders son move back to India I go to Australia for one year come back to India after that so decide to go to the third option so wife my pregnant wife and my Elder son they both moved to India in 20 9 I moved to Australia for one year of Fellowship but

11:03 A very very tough time for us because wife was pregnant and my older son was 6ye old who couldn't understand Telo much at the time he couldn't communicate well with grandparents so wife was on our own here of course I did make three or four trips in that one year to India but that very short trips about four five days one week 2 weeks sort of thing so but wife said don't worry we'll cope somehow because the fellowship was very very crucial for my future career in India and because there not many people at that time was done postgraduation and speciality in UK would return back to India and even if you consider people postgraduation specialty in UK then a fellowship in some other country like Australia that are almost non-existent so I thought that will give me a very unique profile of probably one of the very few gastrologist in the country who

12:06 Got experience in UK experience in Australia and then coming back to India so that was a very unique proposition we have the wife said no problem we will cope somehow so she had a lot of courage to take it up and then stay on her own for one year and with the Elder one was not easy at the time Elder one was very child to maintain because he was very very active he was not happy for moving back to India he always wanted to live in UK and but he was six year old yeah so we could manage somehow and then I went to Australia then came back to Hyderabad in 2010 no by the time wife and kid they were already in IND for one year so I joined them one year later got it so Journey started in 2010 got it so thanks a lot for you know such a detailed overview just maybe couple of questions that I just want to quickly check there so the desire of moving back to India was

13:06 Always there you know before even leaving India right I think you know as soon as so just curious why such a strong desire I mean not like exploring you know for few years and then kind of come back I think there is this perception at least if you start this you know consultant role in UK you know which is sounds very lucrative then you know the chances of you returning back to India might be low you know so that's why you're making a decision at that point not even like you know wait for a few years just wondering about that like you know the strong motivation and why this perception of hey if I take this job it might becomes much more harder just curious what's going in your mind and the thought process behind

13:47 It U mainly there are two reasons why which motivated me to come back to India one is parents I was the only son I have a sister younger sister but I'm the only male child so so I was very keen to look after my parent once I come back that was first motivation and second Motivation by heart also I always felt I'm an Indian and I always feel familiar mingling with our own people and all those two factors were there in me from the beginning but the deserve was to pursue higher grader postgraduate training and higher speciality training that is the reason to pursue experience abroad and read them to come back and once I know that once we start working in UK managing six-year-old son itself was not easy so when the children become 10 years and all it becomes even more difficult to come back I know a lot of my friends who stayed for started working once children cross 10 years I feel it's difficult for them to get adjusted completely makes sense

14:49 So it's more to do with the kid than I think in from a career perspective yeah so if if we can continue on that like I think you know from a doctor profession you know you have worked while you are also doing your postgraduation specialization along that and you have been working in India on a doctor profession for almost 14 years is there anything from your experience from your insights you know let's talk about maybe for a doctor profession how the work culture could be you know between India and UK in in your case you know your thoughts your insights on that I think that would be very helpful yeah so so it will be completely

15:30 Different certain extent there are some similarities if you work in a corporate Hospital in India for example there are certainly some s similarities are there but the work culture is completely different for example in UK you work from 9 to 5 5 days a week and weekends are off but you work on call or weekends but it's something like one weekend in four weekends or one weekend in five weekends but in India you are expect to work from 99 to 9: or 9: to 10 around the clock and then U the weekend starts on Sunday afternoon not on Friday night it starts Sunday afternoon and then even Sunday mornings we go for around sometimes so I knew that it is going to be long working hours and little less organized the working system but you have a lot of flexibility also for example in UK if the work starts at 9:00 you got to be there by qu to 9 if you're there by 9:00 you are no hero so

16:33 Because everybody will be there by 9:00 so if you really want to kind of impress your boss impress your colleagues and all you have to be about 15 minutes or half an hour before the work starts and that is not that in India you can flexible you can inform patients wait of course patients suffering patients may not be liking to wait but by 10 minutes here and there doesn't make a big difference so in India if you say 9:00 that means not before 9:00 it is only after 9:00 so that flexibility is there the system gives you that flexibility that's from working hours point of view from patient persp the disase perspective there are certain medical conditions which are more common in UK certain more common in India for example in our specialty Gastrology I specializing inflammatory B diseases like alertis and cron disease these are thought to be almost non-existent in India in 2010 but in the last 10 years or 14

17:34 Years the insance of ibds significantly increased in India and I'm really enjoying my specialty here because when I was moving down I was not sure whether I should continue my special area of Interest yeah or whether I should be changing my faal area of Interest so I had interest in both endoscopy procedures and IBD which I'm fortunately able to continue here so that is from the disease perspective from colleagues perspective and working atmosphere nowadays there are quite a good amount of people who are trained in top institutes working as your colleagues in corporate hospitals so luckily the work culture is not going to be kind of anything different you'll be more familiar and more friendly working colleagues as long as you you're getting along with them well you will not have any problem in working atmosphere the fourth point is the the corporate Hospital structure that's where little controversy comes so there's a lot of

18:34 Perception for people who are returning back to India that the corporates will keep you targets and then you will be pressurized to work and lots of other things that is a common worry for people who are thinking of coming back to India I would say that with my experience of 14 years in India I would say that yes corporates might have their own targets and other things but to be honest I worked in almost four hospitals since I moved back to India Hyderabad I worked in medic City Hospital Global Hospital Citizens Hospital now I'm at a hospitala all these places what I observed is as long as you're good at your work you are the management knows what you're doing you don't have to kind of devate any of the boundary you can do a quality practice stick to your rules stick to your practice and corporates will respect that so of course you need to be working harder you need to be working long hours but you don't have to De with any rules that's one of the misconception I would like to clarify my

19:36 Colleague who want to come back to India yeah no thanks a lot for giving that a comprehensive you know covering all the points along the same lines are there any insights that you can share from a healthc care in UK versus in India you know just in a regular healthare accessibility health care costs you know for people like you know just to give a little bit of a flavor you know some people who are thinking about a retirement who have spent lot of years in abroad like us UK and when they're thinking about retiring in India you know they think about the healthare that's one aspect and then maybe something you know in general like in general about like if you have a like a fever or something that you need to go through like just to compare and contrast anything that you can share from your experience you know between the abroad like you know UK or us and then India yeah so there are two aspects to that

20:33 One is Financial aspect second is access to healthare in people were living in UK for example I I take it you wanted to know if somebody worked in UK not necessarily doctor somebody UK worked for some time and returned back to India for retirement yes yeah it's not doctor professional like you know medical profession so this is for any Common Man you know in terms of healthare access you know in abroad very very valid point very valid point so I would say that in UK the cost of healthare is zero your NHS will take care of that you don't have to P single penny to access any health care services whether it's emergency or elective in India the cost of getting a good healthare or quality healthare is very very expensive but the biggest problem in UK and even us for example is accessibility if you

21:36 Want to see a specialist you got to wait for few months to see a specialist and that makes it very very frustrating for people who want to access healthare so in India you can get a specialist access within few hours that's the biggest boom our country has I think so if you think from that perspective for example I'll give you an example if somebody wants to get an ercp which is a specialist endoscopy procedure in UK or even in US you have to wait for few weeks but in India people come to my chamber by 9:00 get to be seen by Me by 10:00 11:00 get the proceed done on the same day and go home on the same day so that's a beauty of our system so the accessibility is fantastic but of course it comes with the cost because health insurance is still not widely taken up in Indian population of course if somebody has health insurance the cost factor is also being taken care so you have to know

22:38 Whom to approach wait which hospital to go which consant you need to see as long as you know that you can access good excellent Quality Health care for a price and on the same day or even half a day so that makes it a lot more just a lot more Comfort people especially what plan to retire back to India so don't worry about that you'll have all the facilities which are there abroad even better I would say but for cost cost is not a problem that'll be fantastic got it so let's switch the gears a little bit so I know you mentioned your Elder son was 6 years old when you made the move to hyad just curious I think you already mentioned that think you know he's not so familiar with the native mother tongue and you know the Indian languages so wondering which curriculum he has chosen you know after moving back and how did he cope up with the languages I know he six years old maybe he might be flexible but just wondering like how his journey was

23:40 After the moon very interesting topic so my son Elder son when he move moved to India he

23:48 Was six years old so he was not familiar with Tel language at all and so we were inquiring schools I mean whatever I'm expressing there's no kind of respect or disrespect to schools I'm just telling from my experience yes or our experience so when we move back to Hyderabad VI was one of the Fantastic school still it is a fantastic School the curriculum they were offering was cbsc so we thought okay that would become fantastic school it might suit him well so my wife did most of the research and all of this I'm talking on behal of her yeah so we joined him in B vione School he stayed there for two two two years two and half 3 years maybe but he never ever enjoyed he was not fitting into system at all and he was struggling so he was not exceling his studies he was not coping with the friends and it was a real real struggle but we were pushing him saying that this is a good school you have to adjust and other

24:50 Things then we realized well he not going very far so then we moved him to Meridian School madapur again one of the very good schools no bias or whatever and that was a cbsc curriculum so I think he moved to that school when he was seventh class or sixth class I think so even there he was not enjoying his studies so he was struggling he was okay better than b VI but still was struggling and all so at the time my wife made a very bold move saying that no because I think we are thinking from a neutral point of view which school is better and other thing but we should think from his angle what is best for him so we decide to move to igc's Cambridge curcle so we decide to move to a smaller school which is Rockwell International in kapet where we live we moved him to kapet

25:50 Rockwell International the moment it happened Something Magic happened we transformed like anything he moved there in eth class I think or nth class yeah so he did he started doing extremely well both academically and extracurricular activities co-curricular activities so he studied there from ninth class and 10th class then plus one and plus two that was all Cambridge curriculum so immediately started his grades started to improve and he scored A+ in all the subjects and then he became head boy for the school and he was the captain for football and then he was playing drums so he personality completely changed and we were extremely happy with his progress of course the younger one by the time younger one was born in 2010 so he was stagging along with his brother and finally Elder one finished Cambridge curriculum and when

26:51 He was in 11th 12th class he wanted to pursue ha studies in UK or in USA so again we were not sure whether he should go for postgraduation or undergraduation and so but he wanted to pursue engineering side he didn't want to come into medicine so finally to cut the story short he pursued undergraduation us he was interested UK us but finally decided to go to us so he moved to us and then finished his computer science now B in Minnesota and he passed with h and he got one of the highest Mark and the grades and other things so in h in us there is system called they give Suma kumade Magna kumade and kumade these are the honors degree so he scored highest award which is Kum kumade and he also got a job now last week so he just finished graduation he joined a job last week everything went on well so

27:52 What people who are relocating our message only from my experience we have to choose which school based on your child's interest where he can fit well and what the school does to him a lot of things to be taken into consideration yeah for sure yeah thanks for giving that so definitely I think based on the kid you know as particular curriculum could be much more beneficial it's not only the school's reputation but also like the mode of teaching and engagement can make a difference so what what suits him better is is what is I mean the younger one is still in rock International doing well is in 10th class but that's what we should choose a school based on child's interest and child's comfort and all that great now I mean I think let's talk about the life in India so you always wanted to go move back to India there is this strong love and with the parents and all that stuff so how is the life in India after 14 years at any point did you feel like you miss living in UK or in Australia you know a decade

28:56 More Than A decade is a long time to experience the culture to experience you know some of the pros and cons of each place so just curious in terms of the life in India in the last 14 years and anything that you missed abroad from abroad so I'll start from your last question not even a single day I miss either UK or Australia that's for sure yes there are some difficulties in India and which we need to anticipate and overcome so

29:26 I'll take few minutes because this very important question what you asked when somebody planning to go to India we need to imagine the professional life and personal life and the personal life will be literally compromised in India because of the long working hours if you want to really stretch that long but there are people who kind of restrict their hours and then be comfortable as well so pros and cons and but atmosphere the biggest challenge I would come from challenges what you face when you come to India in my case at least I didn't have any family background we don't didn't have any in imate family we never had any doctors one of my maternal maternal side mother's cousin is a popular doctor somewhere in Kim nagar and very repeat doctor but apart from that there not much of medical support in my family nobody were doctors and I was away from country for 14 years almost 11 years in UK in

30:29 Australia preparing for exams and everything 13 14 years I was a from the country so when you come back to India the biggest challenge for me was how do I get patients nobody knows me here because I was away from the country for 14 years and nobody in the family to support and my father was an engineer so he doesn't have any medical background so how do you get patients and though you are well qualified and well trained but people need to know you right because unless people know you you can't get patience and I'm not kind of a person who kind of very aggressive with marketing and other things so I have my limitations also though the training and education would help up to certain extent but you need to be known in the circus so how do you tackle that so first thing when I was I mean my plan was to come to India so one thing I did in the last six years before I return to India was I was visiting India every year yeah when I was visiting I was visiting your hospital or colleagues or

31:29 Some friends get to spend half a day with them and then see what is the practice like so that my thought process would become in line with Indian practice Yeah that's one thing I did and when I come back to India I joined in a hospital then I was thinking how do I get to know in the in the circles myself so one of my biggest strength was academics and training and I was having passion for Education teaching as well so I thought I should use that my virtue to gain some name in the society so what I did was I created an education program for medical students and because first year of my time life in India I had a lot of time I created a program called medical module for medical students so where medical students can come and attend medical education sessions Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings which are delivered by different Specialists cardiologist gastro NE ology palmology infecti disase

32:30 All the Specialists I pulled up about 10 Specialists we all used to deliver lectures for the medical graduates so I run this program single-handedly for about six seven years so about 2,500 medical students this all for free this just nominal cost to meet the expens for the hall and about 2 2,500 people medical student took that program and with a fantastic feedback and then I was well respected from medical students and a lot of students got benefited from that so 20500 students is not a small number medical students because you look at Medical College intake every year medical colle each Medical College produces 150 students average and if you're talking about 2, 2500 students benefiting you're talking about so many years from Medical School itself so I'm I'm in a way feel proud to say that I could help so many medical students at the same time I got my Name

33:30 Across I got my teaching abilities come across to so many students and my name become very prominent in academic circles and then group of my friends one of my close friend and myself we started a Medical Academy stent going to UK called MRCP training programs and all and then soon we got a pool of UK doctors kind of pulled up and we all became MRCP examiners and then we started conducting exam and we also brought MRCP MRCP is a postgraduate qualification in UK so that UK has overseas exam centers in India there are about five exam centers so ours became the sixth MRCP International Exam Center in Hyderabad which is kind of we persuaded Royal College of Physicians to come to Hyderabad and set up the exam Center so again I played a very key role in setting it up and also in Gastrology

34:33 Circles also quality of care and education training programs which was conducting on regular basis through medical trainings and so what I mean to say is though I didn't have any medical background in the family with my Academy skills I could kind of make myself prominent in the in the field and luckily my God's grace now I become one of the very busy practitioners and for my work I'm known across the country for inflammatory boil disas and some of the endoscopy techniques also got it so Kos to you I mean again you know thanks for you know the service I think 2500 is not a small number and you know helping them out and especially creating that awareness and setting up Academy and so on so maybe on a social life in terms of the adjustment anything that you want to touch on that you know in the Life in India Bron from your perspective yeah I mean one thing is

35:33 For sure that the family life and personal life will be compromised once you come back to India up to a certain extent and if you want to work really long hours you will have to compromise your person and family life and luckily my wife was very very supportive in this aspect and she never ever complained that I work long and she takes care of home and children she stopped working once she came back to India so but of course she helps one of the cousins for company nowadays and but the software she kind of left for some time to C the family and so from that angle I had a lot of support and I could consolate wholly on my profession so when I was planning to come back to can f I would be everything the task except one thing which was surprise for me is the number of phone calls once receive one receives

36:34 In India is enormous I never expected that so that was very kind of bouncer for me the number of patients call on your phone if your phone number is available the number of phone calls you get from colleagues and other doctors is phenomenally high that one thing which I never expected though I was planning to come back to India for 10 years so I was have taken by surprise and well I mean you can hide your phone number from patient but at the same time that will give you a disadvantage in two aspects one if you have sick patient they don't know how to approach you and especially if they coming the patient is coming from outside City they can't access you that's one thing and also you in India whenever somebody is returning back to India you are expected to move from different hospital hospital to hospital based on your her growth and all you will be moving from hospital to hospital so unless patients knows your number they cannot follow you so you will be losing a lot of patients for these two

37:35 Aspects you need to give your number two patients you can keep two separate numbers but you have to give it and that's one thing which has be kind of taken care yeah oh thanks for sharing that in in countries like UK and Australia or even us you won't get any calls from patient yeah there is a system and a process which is different than what heing so no thanks a lot for all the information is to wrap it up like is there anything that we haven't covered that you want to bring up or any advice for the future aspirants from your perspective I think we covered most

38:14 Of it a and I would say if you look at the the statistics I would say people who working abroad UK us and Australia I would say by heart around 70% of our people want to come back to India in my experience and but among that 70% finally around 20 or 30% would end up coming back to India for the fear of failure for the fear of whatever the worry of our culture or whatever but I would say if your heart says to come back to India you can definitely plan you plan well you plan your journey at the time of your stay in UK us or Australia and then once you come back you plan your position whether you want to work in a corporate Hospital whether you want to work in teaching side whether you want to work in a corporate Hospital private setup so Clinic private Clinic all these aspects need to be planned if you plann and take a good advice talk to your

39:14 Colleagues and in fact we set up an organization called R and my friends Dr K with neologist Dr Mahindra pH and Dr SLE gastrologist and myself we all four set up an organization called R returning Indian doctors Association so now we have about 250 people in our group composed of people like us who done postgraduation training abroad and return back to India not only Hyderabad people across India and there are people in the organization who are exploring to come back those are also there so you can contact any of us we're happy to kind of guide and then suggest whatever we need so we don't have a kind of a formal website or but we just have WhatsApp group and it's very vibrant group you can contact one of us and then you can take it from there and anything else we haven't covered well I think we call most of the things

40:14 And but I say if your heart wants to come back to India I think you should provideed you plan well plan your journey I think about personal life family life and work life and financially plan well that you should be able to go yeah no thanks a lot Dr Kiran pedi for sharing your insights thoughts especially someone with a medical professional right I think from a doctor who has done the postgraduation specialization how the life for a doctor is in India you know the healthare differences you know your sons how where you when you change the culum like you know how much he flourish right and I think you know this is some of the very important topics for any families who are concerned to moving back to India so really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your journey with us thanks a lot thank you thanks for having me and any help I'll be happy to guide any of the people who are coming back to India that's great