Episode 4: Dr. Vijai Bhola - All of my help.
Welcome back everyone. Welcome back. This is episode why am I blanking? Number four, Bryan. Four?
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. That that's why I need you. I need you to help me with my accounting. Alright? Bryan Dewsbury, knowledge unbound, founder, my producer once again, the excellent, the perpetual, the undergraduate class of 2025.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mister Segev, I'm a say.
Segev:Segev, what's up? Well, doing pretty good. Ready to see what this week is about to offer besides our fourth episode. So tell me about your guest for this week.
Bryan Dewsbury:So this week, and and just as a reminder, knowledge and bond is brought to you by the RIOS Institute for Racially Just Inclusive Open STEM Education. We are generously funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. This week, we welcome to studio doctor Vijay Bola. It it was a special interview because and and, you know, we unpack a lot of it during the interview itself, but Vijay and I go back since we were 16 years old from The Republic Of Trinidad And Tobago. And so you, you know, you're interviewing him.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? But it's it's you're you're you're still looking at somebody who, you know, you knew as children. And I'm sure, Segev, you you have that feeling. I know you know people from Haiti that you went to school with. Right.
Bryan Dewsbury:As you you're kinda watching each other grow up. Right?
Segev:Yeah. No. For sure. For sure. And I was about to say, you know, you've known you've known each other for so long and, you know, lived in the same country and all.
Segev:So it's definitely a very interesting perspective.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. And and part of it was, you know, we remembered conversations that we've had as teenagers. Right? Thinking about the things we wanted to do and maybe being in a place where we're able to do at least some of it. So for you my listeners, we talked to Vijay about his his world travels, his volunteer work doing medicine.
Bryan Dewsbury:He's a medical doctor, a critical care specialist, but has done a lot of work internationally for after hurricanes, through wars. So we get into all of the details of that, but also a sense of why as to why those choices are made. I hope you enjoy it. Welcome.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Hey. Good morning, Bryan. It's pretty good to be sitting on here doing something professional.
Bryan Dewsbury:This is new for you. Then that's the last time I'm gonna call you doctor Bola in this whole interview. I hope you know that. Right?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:No. No. I'll I'll cease to respond. Address me correctly.
Bryan Dewsbury:So We'll see about that. Alright. Here's the backstory. Vijay and I went to the same secondary school in Trinidad and Tobago presentation college. I just wanna give a big shout out.
Bryan Dewsbury:And, well, we've been very, very close friends ever since. I I've had the immense pleasure just watching his life, his journey, the way he kinda thinks about his values and and what he wants to do in the world, how he wants to impact people's lives. And this, for me, is an opportunity for him to share that that journey with you. And just for my American audience, secondary school is like high school, but, you know, British system.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So Which we finished in '98.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. You don't have to tell him the year, Vijay. Anyway, I I instead of kind of reading off your way too long CV, I wanted you to get a chance to to tell that journey. I want him to hear it in your own words. So walk us through in as, you know, clearly as you can, but don't take the whole hour to do it, from University of the West Indies, Mount Hope Medical Complex, right, to Emory University School of Medicine.
Bryan Dewsbury:Tell us about that journey.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Yeah. That that's a very interesting very interesting summary of many
Bryan Dewsbury:years to summarize anything. You wanna start to
Dr. Vijai Bhola:that I am supposed to do. But, you know, I I guess I could summarize it in way by just breaking up the blocks of trade. And I'm essentially as a doc, you do, you know, your medical school, depends on where you do it. In Trinidad, you go straight to medical school as I did, then you worked for a while as what you call a house officer. And it took took a little there's a period of time between which I did work as a house officer in Trinidad into starting residency here in The United States.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:After finishing residency for lots of rees for lots of reasons, you know, I took some time before getting back into formal training.
Bryan Dewsbury:What did you do the residency in?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I did my residency in internal medicine.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So I did that in Virginia in Virginia Tech, currently in clinic, and then, you know, I had some time in my hands where I went back to Trinidad for a while and came back to The US and worked in Richmond for a while. During that period, though, I was able to start doing some courses like in tropical medicine, do some disaster work like in project with Hurricane Maria. So, you know, there was it was some time I was able to kinda refine some of the goals I would like to I would like to to achieve. And that led me to end up doing infectious diseases, which I did at University of Massachusetts.
Bryan Dewsbury:Let me let me interrupt there quickly because I feel like you're kind of bringing these things up. I I mean, I get it just because I know you. Right? But you're saying, like, you you did some courses that helped you refine the goals you wanted to achieve. But was there something that led you to choose those particular courses?
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? I mean, it's doing the courses helps you refine your goals. Yes. Right? But that was this something that said, these are the things I need to do to help me go through that refinement process?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. So it's essentially wanting to practice medicine in a way that really just benefits society in a way that was unique.
Bryan Dewsbury:And
Dr. Vijai Bhola:know the specialties I chose, the courses I did was one that would allow me to sort of maximize my ability to help you know individuals in lower income settings. That was a pretty important aspect of what I wanted to do.
Bryan Dewsbury:Why was it an important aspect?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I I think that just being able to contribute in a real way is a very powerful thing. And I think also as a physician, we do have a nice ability to to effect it and change like just looking at what some physicians, some models of mine have been able to do. It's pretty impressive the change that they can make in people's lives and people's health care.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm. But let me play devil's advocate a little bit only because some of the listeners to this podcast will be students. Right? And and many of the listeners of this podcast will be professors who, like myself, teach biology students. And as you know, in The US context, most biology majors are premeds.
Bryan Dewsbury:We we are we are well we are well endowed in terms of the amount of students who really wanna go into med school. And one of the things we have when I am in conversation with them is this notion of they want to help people. Right? And and I get it. That 17 and a half, when they say that, they mean it in a very, very vague sense.
Bryan Dewsbury:And to some extent, I do view my role as as a as a professor is is helping them really think about what does help look like and how does that would help kind of address your personal sense of why. Right? So, you know, you talked about wanting to help low income people and and, you know, being impressed by the ways in which this field of medicine can be helpful. But, you know, you could practice you know, I I would argue any kind of medicine you practice, you are, in fact, helping. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:But you're being you you said specifically low income people, and I just I'm trying to get at that part of the why.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Well, I guess I'll answer that question in a a a more of a bigger aspect in terms, you know, more global aspect that, you know, if you want to to make a difference or as we say, help people, it really depends on you and your your motivation. So and you could do that in any way that you feel that you feel best in your situation. So it could be anywhere such as like a primary care practitioner, which is in such need in The US, for example Mhmm. That if you're a good primary care practitioner, I mean, you really help people. Like, no two ways about it.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I guess my perspective was, you know, I I've come from a a a an international background, so to speak. Mhmm. I I really like traveling. So I really have that appeal to it really appeals to me to like be able to go to these different health care settings especially where the income levels are a lot lower. The, you know, the robustness of the health care system is a lot lower than we would see in The US or even in in Trinidad And Tobago where I'm from.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Mhmm. So I feel as if and this is my personal take based on my personality and my background. So when I say help, I kind of think of these backgrounds and these settings. So that's unique to my and the other thing that I've always you know, someone while I was in medical school, someone told me about doctor of borders, for example, and the idea of taking you know, helping people not just in a regular clinic, but in a time of most need, like, when there's a disaster, when there's, you know, wars, when there's genocide, when there's displacement, I wanna think of creating a sort of job environment for myself and a sort of job description where you can be there for people at that time of need. And so that kind of drives me to to create this sort of career so to speak or the kind of job opportunities that I can do just that.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Right. But really, it's a it's up to each individual what really what really there's no there's no formula for this.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so, however somebody wants to take it whether whether they do medicine or not, I mean, like, you know, being a really good teacher, being a really good community organizer, I mean, all the same. You know, it's really about the volition you put into it, how you approach your particular career or your calling Mhmm. That really determines, you know, the impact.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. So I I interrupted you. You were you were talking about doing the courses that sort of help refine your life choices, and I think you're about to talk about the infectious disease fellowship.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Right. So I did I I think there were two courses that were particularly motivating. A a smaller tropical medicine course that I did in
Bryan Dewsbury:I do in London.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:In Thailand. Oh, Thailand. Okay. Well, the the Thai course was first. What was interesting in that course is that there were some other also emergency medicine doctors and one of them, for example, was talking about how you how incredible he thinks point of care ultrasound is to make a difference from that from that point of view of an an emergency medicine doctor's point of view.
Bryan Dewsbury:Can you briefly describe what point of care ultrasound is?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Okay. So, when we think of ultrasound, we think of being referred to a radiology department and having an ultrasonographer do an ultrasound of the particular organ in question. Let's say the kidneys, for example, and then then they send that to the radiologist who reads that and gives you a formal report. That's kinda what we think of an ultrasound. Point of care ultrasound is when the doctor who's taking care of you actually has a a small unit whether it's a roll into the office kinda unit or handheld unit.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so that's where POCOS comes from. It's point of care ultrasound. That's the abbreviation. And that is pretty amazing because you can make decisions, sometimes life and that decisions, triage decisions right there on the spot. Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And what's really incredible about that stuff is that after the capital outlay of getting that unit and and, of course, training the practitioners, it's actually a very useful thing in low income or what we call austere settings.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:You know, like, far out in the field. For example, paramedics can use this or in low income settings in clinics in places that they don't have a a radiology department, don't have a CT scanner, you can do some stuff with that machine that's quite quite powerful.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so that is one of those things that kind of that kind of inspired me. But the tropical medicine is to step back a bit what tropical medicine is really refers to diseases that you find in low income settings for the most part because what we call the Global South, you know, when you start thinking of malaria, TB Mhmm. Neglected tropical diseases, trypanosomiasis. These are things that are classically found in warm, low income settings.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so tropical medicine and infectious diseases especially tended to be a pathway if you want to get into health care in lower income settings. You know, we all know about the HIV epidemic that came pretty close to completely devastating Sub Saharan Africa, for example. Tuberculosis is still a very one of the top 10 killers in low income settings, high child mortality from diseases such as tuberculosis. And these are these are considered to a large extent diseases of the poor just because of places and how they spread, you know, lower more high density living, less basic health care infrastructure, etcetera. And so infectious diseases tended to be the pathway to really deal with, you know, population health public health on on a lower income setting.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. So so you were in Thailand. You had somebody who kinda introduced you to POPUS. Right. Or at least brought it up.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? It it sounded as though you would you're saying, like so that experience then led you to think about infectious diseases as a pathway to helping population more broadly. Is that a correct interpretation?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:It it reinforced the idea of doing infectious diseases and that pathway because I was always a bit of it. Mhmm. But it also added the the idea that, you know, point of care ultrasound.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Was something that could be really, really helpful also. I would say in that case, I infectious diseases or ID as we say for short is, you know, was all was on the cards.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:But it really added the concept of using point of care ultrasound in those settings. So after Thailand? Yeah. So after Thailand, I did this I I did this other course in in London, the London diploma of tropical medicine course, and I just remembered sitting there and being like, okay. Yeah.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Definitely, I'm gonna in the first week, it just reinforced to me, like, the third or fourth day, and they were talking about, like, tuberculosis. I'm like, yeah. I'm definitely gonna do an infectious diseases fellowship. It's just like up to then, I was kinda undecided. Do I need to do more training or just kind of work in TropMed type settings without, you know, more formal training.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:But at that point, I was like, yeah, I definitely wanna do infectious diseases formally.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So that that that seasoned that that firmed up that decision for me.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. And then there was, University of Massachusetts.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Yeah. So that's that's, I did that at the University of Massachusetts. And the next step was actually a global health fellowship. But that and for that, I went to Boston. I was a Beth Israel in Boston, but that's when COVID happened.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So it became a little bit more difficult to travel internationally, and I end up just hanging out there for a couple years doing some more research, and then I've been a fellowship in disaster medicine while I was there, which is not something record for the most fellowship garnered. Record for the strangest fellowship. The MD is actually in
Bryan Dewsbury:the fellowships. The amount of fellowships,
Dr. Vijai Bhola:not the material itself. Disaster medicine is like, you know, it's such a new feel. A lot of people in in in medicine are like, what is disaster medicine? To some extent, it's a bit diffuse because as my mentor would say, you're a physician first and you're a disaster medicine practitioner second because you have a day job, right? You don't go to a clinic and deal with disaster medicine.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:When disasters happen, you deploy it to them. So you basically have, you know, a day job, and then you also do disaster secondarily. So that is pretty unique. But, you know, that really dovetail nicely into the idea of preventative public health and how do you prepare yourself to deal with with disasters when they do occur. And more importantly, how do you prevent how do you set in place protections for when disasters occur?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Mhmm. Because it's the it's the setting in place protections and adaptations before they occur that really determine the outcome to a disaster. Right. Right? You know, it's like, you know, you don't, you know, don't really it's not as much as focusing how to pull people out to the water, but ensuring that they are life jackets on board in the first place.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:That's the sort of mindset. Yeah. Okay. So with disaster medicine, that's the sort of thinking, and it's broad because it depends on, like, you think about climate change. How do we mitigate the effects of impending climate change, increasing floods, etcetera?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:How do we make populations more resistant, more prepared for for for these occurrences and also what we call complex humanitarian emergencies. So when there's a war, for example, or conflict and then populations are displaced, how do you help manage that particular situation? Mhmm. Because that becomes very complex. How do you help people in those situations?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Disaster medicine is a nice combination of that. Yeah. Those types of
Bryan Dewsbury:things. Well, so tell me a little bit what it was to wade in those waters because I think a lot of people, definitely myself included, wouldn't naturally think of medical doctors being involved in the front line of climate change efforts. And I guess as you explain it now with disaster medicine, it makes sense because a lot of the disasters we're dealing with now has to do with with climate change. But, you know, how how does one kinda think about as, you know, identity wise as a physician being also I don't know if climate change worries us too strong of a term here, but and I don't well, even for you. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:Like, just doing this fellowship. I don't know if before you did the fellowship, you thought of medicine and its role in climate change. What was it like kind of getting into that space? And then how do you see yourself now in terms of what we need to do as a as humanity for climate change?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Yeah. So it's it's a really good question. And one, physicians tend not to be involved in that field which is called we we typically call disaster management, right? And we tend to not think of this field as much which is a real sad thing because they, you know, all these things, every single disaster affects people's health. Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so we should be involved. And we should be at the table making the decisions, helping to influence how these situations are managed before the the disaster occurs so to speak. It's in that that preparation phase that you get most bang for your buck. But should we talk about these situations such as climate change? It's so multifactorial And at least there's one group that I'm also a part of Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, and they really advocate for things that you may not think is a is a physician's role.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So climate change and nuclear war, they do a lot of advocacy in those in those situations, which they state are the two existential threats to human health and humankind and human existence. Mhmm. We'll take climate change first because that's the one you mentioned. Right? But there's so many different aspects of climate change.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So if it's warmer, if the air is dirtier, you become very susceptible to certain diseases. So let's say asthma and COPD exacerbations are much worse when there's a COPD? COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Bryan Dewsbury:I just wanna make sure people know you. You're a doctor speak. We'll try
Dr. Vijai Bhola:to spell them out just to be on the safe side.
Bryan Dewsbury:Uh-huh.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Right. So if you have an underlying lung issue, and that could be asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, sort of you're really at the the women fancy of the environment to some extent because if the air quality is bad it just irritates your lungs more. That's just that's just the way it works so if you live in certain areas where there is a lot of particulate matter, parts per million they talk about, you will have more frequent exacerbations. You will go to the emergency room more often, and so that has a lot of impact on the individual patient. And it also has a lot of impact on the health care system.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:These health care system has to pay for these things. Mhmm. What we've also seen is during heat waves, for example, heat waves are the most prominent disaster we have in The United States. So when we had this I
Bryan Dewsbury:did not know that.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Yeah. But and and this is the thing. It's really interesting. Like, the when we had the the Pacific Pacific Heat Dome. Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:The numbers of patients that went to the hospital for heat related conditions really just went up exponentially, of course. Right? And at first, you really think of things just like, you know, heat exhaustion and dehydration. Of course, you have those things coming in. Right?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:People who are just out walking, they didn't realize it was that hot. They get really dehydrated. They pass out. They come in. But what we've also noticed is that people who have chronic diseases, heart attacks, strokes, etcetera.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:When the body's under stress, you increase your chance of getting disease getting things such as heart attack or stroke. And heat does that. Inevitably. Just simply being, you know, warmer than you should be
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Increases your risk of all those other Mhmm. Health conditions occurring. So and we've seen that. We've seen that when you have a heat wave, you have increased admissions for all these different diseases. And so, yes, I think as doctors, we should be at the forefront of advocating for these things because we know that if we have climate change, if we have heat wave heat events, we're gonna have more patients in the hospital.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So it's really important that we advocate for that type
Bryan Dewsbury:of thing. Let me ask you one more question before I pivot to some of the some of the international war zone work. Well, not just war zone, but other stuff. It it seems to me that once you kinda crack the door of medical professionals should be part of the conversation, should be at the table in discussing some of these preventative measures that you mentioned. It also means that those professionals have to, at least on some level, understand the degree to which things like climate change have the disproportionate effects that you described on certain communities over others because of pre existing factors.
Bryan Dewsbury:And so my question, I guess, you know, no one's asking any one person to be an expert in all things, right? But to my my question is, what extent have you seen there's something infused in the education process of future doctors on that social component of these effects, whether it's disaster, whether it's any kind of, you know, health outcome. To what extent do you think there needs to be greater or more deeper education around that if you are going to be at the table?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Right. So, the I'm not sure what exactly is meant when you say the social component but I would say from the health and public health component, medical schools are beginning to include climate change as part of the health curriculum, which I think is really, really important because for all the reasons we just discussed, if you're a physician and you don't understand these things, then you sort of see it as a one off, Oh, yes. It's warm outside, so we have a lot more people come to the hospital. And you don't connect the dots. You don't connect the dots and you'll say, we need to have preventative care for this kind of thing.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And they they waste that preventative care, ensure that, you know, their public cooling centers, for example, which is a lot cheaper than having to have people become sick and then come to the ER. But then even even more than that it's once you start having that awareness then you start realizing or you become more convinced that, here, we have to take steps to prevent this from happening. And then we come back to this whole climate change discussion. What can we do to decrease the risks of climate change? And, you know, even healthcare, healthcare emissions, because of how large healthcare is as a sector in The United States, managing healthcare emissions in your own hospital is a new field that some hospitals are starting to take seriously.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:How do we ensure we recycle more? How do we ensure that we use our hospital resources in the most efficient manner? So there's a lot of room for improvement just within the healthcare system, the actual healthcare system itself, as well as to have healthcare professionals advocate on a broader view for preventative measures, both in the sense of when we do have a heat related disaster, as well as preventing climate change in general.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm. Mhmm. Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And hopefully with this increase hopefully there continues to be much more education of healthcare practitioners. And I think even more than that, because education is one thing, but the education is something on paper that doesn't do the job itself. The idea that as practitioners, we have to be more vocal. We have to be advocates. We have to be in a sense, a sense of community organization almost.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Mhmm. Mhmm. Because, you know, mobilizing people is how we really get things done.
Bryan Dewsbury:But even but even with that, that is something that can be learned too. Right? So, I mean, I get what you're saying that you want this spirit to be there. You want you want people to kinda have that internal motivation to be activists. But the the act of community organizing is a thing that many other grassroots organizations have been doing for decades.
Bryan Dewsbury:And and so if you're gonna get into that space, it's is it good to sort of look towards existing groups who are already doing high level advocacy to kind of learn what that looks like?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It's important. And even when you say advocacy, I think with any medical field, we're we're so focused on the nuts and bolts of the science of things. Even as doctors, we don't really get together to talk about these things.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Some professors.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:We really, you know, we really love to talk about the latest drug for hypertension and the best management for heart attack.
Bryan Dewsbury:As well as you should! I want you to do that too, right? But
Dr. Vijai Bhola:the idea of even us educating ourselves and becoming, know, saying, okay, yes, as physicians, we establish that this other concept is important. We're kind of slow to really to really mobilize ourselves even. Yeah. Okay. To develop a sense of community around a topic.
Bryan Dewsbury:Alright. So let's do some traveling.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Ah. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:You you found some you found some time in between all of this stuff Yeah. To to to go to Puerto Rico, I believe, Bolivia, I believe, Ukraine, I believe. I think a couple were one one I know definitely was in response to hurricanes. Tell us a little bit about those experiences, and I want you to start with hurricane Maria first just because there's so much to unpack with the last one. You know, I guess I'd we I know what drew you there, but tell me a little bit what the experience was like on the ground from both a physician and a personal perspective.
Bryan Dewsbury:What you learned from it? What you took from that to other experiences?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Right. I like the word experience because it's one thing to read about a concept in a book, but it's another thing to go there and say, you know, when you have the word displaced population, that you have a face and a story. There's a person that you know that has become this place, whose lives have been affected, who had to leave the island because the sector that they were working is closed, was completely shut down Mhmm. Because of the hurricane. And so, first of all you know we talk about thinking outside the box I think that's too short sighted I like the idea of living outside the box understanding that we all live in boxes we live in our own boxes that's just how life is right but when you step out of your box and traveling is kind of a really good way to do that, then you enter other people's, you know, little cubicles and
Bryan Dewsbury:their boxes. Right.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And I I think it doesn't really matter how much you read about something as a concept, but when you put faces to that concept
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:That to me really is invigorates you to and and makes you wake up to the idea, okay. This is something I would really like to have an impact, and this is something I really like to work on because you don't do things because of abstract concepts. You we are motivated by people, by human beings, and how they're affected. And so the the hurricane, for example, yes, it was there, you know, one day for hurricane relief, but, you know, in a medical sense. So the help with clinics, you know, clinics that would have been short staffed and stuff when we saw some patients and stuff there.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:But I would like to actually take a step back and say the act of being there was what was more impactful, I think, in the long term because now I really understand what a hurricane does to our country. When you see some of the destruction and you're like, how on earth did that house come down? Or how on earth did these massive metal poles just get warped like you know, it it really sets in your mind, like, this this thing called a hurricane is really destructive, and you can't and you you just can't get that idea unless you see some of that stuff. You see some of the roads that were just ramp back. You speak to people who said, you know, they couldn't get out of their area for weeks because the roads were all down and they won't support services and food was hard to find.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And then it adds it adds when you hear that, okay, there might not have been that many deaths there, but within next month, there was an increased number of deaths within the population, just because of, the fact that healthcare system was affected.
Bryan Dewsbury:So,
Dr. Vijai Bhola:you know, you go there to help. Yes. But when you go, your ears and eyes are open and you meet people and you see their faces, you really appreciate just how devastating something like this is. And it really motivates you. For example, you know, in this case, it was a hurricane.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:It really motivates you that climate change is going to become much worse because these type of hurricanes are going to become much more frequent and much worse. And so you feel more compelled to work in those fields, to advocate for those fields because you can see the human cost of these terrible disasters.
Bryan Dewsbury:What kind of help were you able to provide?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So when I went there was a couple was a was not in the acute setting.
Bryan Dewsbury:So
Dr. Vijai Bhola:what I mainly did was work in some of the some of the clinics that have been under staff. So I did some outreach clinics. And you'd find, you know, you tend to go to these things thinking that, you know, you're going to treat like these trauma conditions, etc. And you realize that chronic medical conditions and the lack of support for chronic medical conditions is what leads to most of after disasters. It's just the lack of a functional healthcare system.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. It's what it needs to access. It's less like a door falling on somebody and more somebody couldn't get their heart medication.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Pretty much. Pretty much. Like, if you think about that hospital that saved, you know, your loved one's life when they had a heart attack, just think if that hospital was closed for a month when they had, you know, what about what would have happened to them and all the other people have to get care?
Bryan Dewsbury:Right
Dr. Vijai Bhola:you know what if you just removed that system no one can get dialysis for a month what happens you know and that's that's something that we're realizing more and more that has a tremendous impact on mortality. Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. I mean, I feel like you're you're cracking open a couple of doors here because it's it's at least the way you just phrased or how you just defined a hospital. Maybe even shifting a paradigm in my own head in that, you know, yes, I think of it basically as a place I'll go if I got really, really sick. But for people who are in a medical situation where it's about management, right, it becomes as as critical as, you know, you know, the it's gonna be fourth pillar, like going to church, going to school, going to the hospital, you know? So how have you access that?
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? It it it you're now tethered to that forever with serious implications if that tether is broken.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Right. And these are the things I say. You have to go there to really experience and understand these things. So like, while we were there, we realized that it really struck home and one of the things that I'm sure we still don't mainstream doesn't understand there were a lot of pharmaceutical companies manufacturing plants based in Puerto Rico.
Bryan Dewsbury:So
Dr. Vijai Bhola:when the hurricane devastated a lot of those manufacturing plants, there were lots of shortages that affected Mainland USA. And so you may think this hurricane affected Puerto Rico, for those of us that were still working in hospitals in The United States, we're like, Why is it so difficult to get normal saline? For example, like, Oh, well, manufacturer was a manufacturing plant there. And I use normal saline. I'm pretty sure that was one of the things I'm thinking about.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:But it there were definitely medications, etcetera, that you are accustomed having.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And then it took a while to realize, well, we're not getting these particular medications on normal saline, but we're not getting these medication supplies because they were a lot of The US supply was dependent upon Puerto Rico. Right. And it really shows that interconnectedness and how health isn't affected in ways that you just cannot think about. Right. It's like with the COVID pandemic.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Things were affected in ways that you could not have imagined. I could not. Until it happens.
Bryan Dewsbury:Or predicted. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Well, I mean, speaking about highly impacted systems. I don't have the exact date in front of me but about, you know, a year and a half plus ago, a a war breaks out in Ukraine. And eventually, you, join a nonprofit that is providing some health care. I'll let you define that. In in Ukraine.
Bryan Dewsbury:Just walk us through a little bit about how you even got connected to this group, your desire to go, what it was like going, what you did when you were there, I'll let you take that Alright.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Wherever you you come. Yeah. So for some reason, I think since someone first told me about Docs About Us and the work that they do, I have this sort of almost morbid fascination even with working in conflict zones. Just the idea that, you know, humans actually do this to each other, and this is how bad things get in places like
Bryan Dewsbury:Maybe morbid is not the best way to ever consider. Would get to However,
Dr. Vijai Bhola:it it it's it's it is
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And situations are what they are.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so when that when that conflict happened in the the Ukrainian Russian conflict happened, you know, of course, I wanted to go in some capacity. Mhmm. And there was an NGO. I was in a disaster medicine fellowship at the time, and one of the other my co fellows then was going to deploy. We deployed to Poland, not to Ukraine itself.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:This was in February of let me get this straight. Twenty twenty two.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right. Yes. Right.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:February 22, shortly after the shortly after the conflict started. And so at that at that time we were thinking of it needs based assessment to decide on setting up a field hospital.
Bryan Dewsbury:Uh-huh. And
Dr. Vijai Bhola:it was just such a fluid situation was sort of difficult to come up with a real answer towards where to best place health care services. And so this is what is interesting. You think you go there and you're going to just treat wounds and stuff like that. Then you get there and you realize the people who were coming across the border were the people who were able to escape. If you were trapped and you were injured Yeah.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Somewhere on the other side, the east of the country, you had a harder time crossing the border. Also, by the time we had gotten there, they were no longer allowing Ukraine wasn't allowing men to leave the country. Oh. So it was just these women and children crossing the border. Damn.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Like, women and children crossing the border. And you would just see the numbers and you would see the border crossings every day. Just buses and buses of people crossing.
Bryan Dewsbury:And so which which town was this in Poland were you seeing the cross?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So we went to a couple of different ones. We ended up settling, it's a pronunciation of these Polish words is kind of tricky, but there was a place it's a place called Shamsher, which is where the the the largest crossing is. Mhmm. So if you see pictures and images that typically came from there. Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:But we ended up settling in a place a little bit little further north called Helm, which was about an hour from the actual border itself. Mhmm. But either way, the situation was the same. It was every day you would have these huge reception centers, and that's where we kind of based ourselves, providing some health care within the refugee reception centers. So they would cross the border, and the buses would bring them straight to these refugee reception centers where ideally they would spend twenty four hours but some centers were different and sometimes people spend a lot a lot more time where you would just have these, you know, imagine a hollowed out mall just round packed with beds and people Just circulating in and out, you know.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:If it worked well, people came in and within twenty four hours, they were on buses leaving. If they had destinations
Bryan Dewsbury:to where? Or if they had destinations?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:If they had destinations. On, it was almost kinda scary. Earlier on, you would just have people coming across the border and people just coming and offering them rides. And if you think about it, you have a bunch of women of childbearing age, have a bunch of a bunch of children and some unknown person just picking them up. I mean, this is this is how this is like a haven for traffickers, right, for human traffickers.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So and I still don't know if we have all the information as how many refugees were trafficked or ended up in very compromising situations. It'd be hard to ever get that kind of information, I think. But yeah, these are the type of things people face just crossing the border trying to trying to escape the violence. Terms of what we did, we typically help provide care or advisory care within those refugee reception centers. So the medical point, so to speak, would be staffed by local Polish medics and you know we'd sort of be there saying okay I think this person needs to go to hospital I think this is a problem this could be appendicitis or this this is probably not appendicitis just watch just a little bit but
Bryan Dewsbury:it but it sounds like based on who was actually crossing the border the cases probably went as serious
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I'll put it this way: there wasn't as much medical care as we thought would be required. What you did see especially among the elderly population you would find a lot of cases of just really uncontrolled hypertension. Okay. It may not sound bad but if you have uncontrolled hypertension, it really increases your your chance of getting a heart attack or a stroke. And so, you know, a lot of the elderly would not have had their medications because they're left in a hurry.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so just being able to, like, sort out, well, we can use these medications instead because you don't have your regular prescriptions, etcetera. Those are some of the things we were able to help do. In addition, there was an outbreak, a GI outbreak, you know, of vomiting and diarrhea in this setting at one day. I think we were able to really go through the kitchen and figure out like the refrigeration process of the food that was being provided and stuff just to just to help ensure that people don't get diarrhea while they're traveling on buses for eighteen hours, that sort thing. And I think those are the way I think those things were able to have a pretty good impact.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. Okay. So you returned a couple months ago. In what capacity? How was this trip different?
Bryan Dewsbury:Tell us more.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Returning was it the first this was my first I guess humanitarian trip after completing my critical care fellowship. Okay. I just finished that a couple of months ago. One of the aspects that I really liked about the critical care fellowship is that we do a lot of training in point of care ultrasound.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. And
Dr. Vijai Bhola:so in the capacity with which I went with this other NGO called MedGlobal.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay. So this is different to the first group you went with?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Yes. It's a different group.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So the first time we went to Poland, and that was with Godox.
Bryan Dewsbury:Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And this trip was in Ukraine itself, was in Kyiv. Mhmm. And this was with a different group called MedGlobal. Mhmm. And MedGlobal has a a fairly long standing relationship with Ukraine since this conflict happened and provides a lot of different aspects of care.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:When the Novokovka Dam was blown, for example, they provided a lot of equipment. They've been doing a lot of these kind of equipment and training. One aspect of the training they help provide is ultrasound training. And I took part as a group of physicians to do some trainings for physicians there. So
Bryan Dewsbury:I remember when you when you were there, and you you sent me a couple of videos of being in a hotel and, you know, a kinda three sixty view of what was around your hotel and the protocols that you had to have if the if the bomb siren went off. And, you know, I mean, I try to be a reflective human being, and I think of you just as a friend, first of all, and you being in a, you know, war zone. Right? And it's a little surreal. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:It's a little surreal to to sit in the life I was I am living and, you know, be be witness, right, to your presence in a place that that was under international attack. I'm just wondering if you could kinda walk us through your mindset from everything, in terms of did you fear for your safety? Did you think about, you know, the rest of the country and what they've experienced? Like, what it meant to be there, you know, spiritually, emotionally, physically tell us what you're able to do to help. Like, what it's like to be a a physician, but just also a human and a a international person in that situation.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Yeah, that's a you go through a lot when a situation like that. I would preface by saying that I did not feel unsafe. And it could be you know I just wanted to feel that way or it could be because
Bryan Dewsbury:and you're in Kyiv to be fair but still right
Dr. Vijai Bhola:we have the sense that the air defenses in Kyiv are pretty good so I kind of felt that we, you know, just kind of felt well protected. Had we gone like to the east where there's a couple more attacks is there's a little closer to the conflict would be that would be a different situation but at least for a sense of security or not, I felt fairly safe. Mhmm. What was interesting is that Kyiv had about a three month period in which they weren't attacked, and the night we arrived, they had the largest barrage in, you know, like, three months. And so we arrived there, and we had to decide when we when we landed there.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I think it was, like, 10:30 at night, and the curfew was gonna be, like, an hour and a half, and we had to decide. Do we stay there and wait out the wait out the air tax? Or do we and shelter in that place close to the train stations? Or do we try to get to a hotel as quickly as we can? And we already had to make that decision because if we didn't leave soon enough, then the curfew came into effect, and we'd have to spend the entire entire first night, you know, just kind of huddling around the train station.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Mhmm. So that we very quickly realized, okay, we were in a different situation than where we left in Poland. And then the next morning, was it was this was this was really interesting, just sort of heard a noise that you didn't think about very seriously. And then we saw these air trails, and there's a particular pattern and a particular noise that our our Kiev Host said that particular sound is the sound of Patriot missiles. We know what those Patriot missiles sound like.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So, like, we were there having breakfast.
Bryan Dewsbury:But is there is there something just really quickly audience should know about Patriot missiles? Like, anything specific about the the way they attack or the, you know, versus other kinds of missiles.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Okay. Oh, so the the the the context is Patriot missiles are the air defense, classically the air defense missile that that Kyiv has received from The US.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so what the Patriot missiles do is just they're supposed to be really, really good at shooting down, know enemy missiles whether okay so you whichever form
Bryan Dewsbury:of pattern was you viewing a missile that was meant to shoot down an enemy missile
Dr. Vijai Bhola:right
Bryan Dewsbury:okay
Dr. Vijai Bhola:and so the pattern we saw was primarily that but there were other air trails that would have been
Bryan Dewsbury:okay the actual missile. Yeah. You know?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And it's just it really is surreal when you're having breakfast and you realize, okay, that's that's what's going on. Yeah. And then the thing about the air raid sirens, sometimes you would hear or see something, and then the air raid sirens would go in. So the air raid sirens have mixed utility, and that if they if the sirens are after the event, then they aren't much help. But they're certainly with times that we had to go to the nearest bomb shelter, which was located pretty close to the host to the to the hotel and just, you know, wait it out there until Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:We got the signs on the apps that the air raid sirens are off.
Bryan Dewsbury:So was your group able to provide care in that time?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So what we did at this this role was not to provide care but to provide training.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And I think that feels especially powerful because these are to physicians who would be going to the front lines.
Bryan Dewsbury:A lot
Dr. Vijai Bhola:of these folks would be dealing with patients on the front lines. So some of these would be doctors who have been taking care of patients in their hospitals for, you know, for years, like, since this conflict started. Like, this
Bryan Dewsbury:is
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I've been working very, very hard. We talk about medical being out here, but in a conflict zone is a whole new
Bryan Dewsbury:A whole other
Dr. Vijai Bhola:level. Is a whole new level. Yeah. It's it's a whole new level.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. So I'm gonna tell me a little bit about Vipassana. I just wanna bring this up and and, you know, kinda know about it, obviously, through you and well, others actually. You know? I remember Yval Harari talks about it in one of his books and, you know, how practicing Vipassana is kind of well, he says many things, but I'll just quickly summarize in that focus to write and kind of keep a clear head and knowing how dedicated you are to this reflective practice of meditation.
Bryan Dewsbury:Any element of that really came in handy or was helpful in a time when you're feeling so many things. Oh, yeah. Maybe maybe to since my introduction probably wasn't great, you could tell the audience what Vipassana is in your in your telling.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Okay. Yeah. So for is your sort of meditative practice that's about 2,500 years old at least. And essentially, it's about observing the body sensations and just maintaining a clear mind about it. It's not like breath control or mind control or anything, but it's more about just observing and seeing things for what they are without trying to control anything, without wishing that they were different or wishing that something is there that's not there or wishing that something that's there is not there.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:You're just saying this is how it is. You accept it. You see it for what it is. You just see it for what it And what that does is kind of it just helps you to get to a space where whatever the situation is, you're like, okay, this is the situation. I'm not gonna try to fuss.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I'm not gonna fight. This is right now what the situation is. And you just accept that particular reality at a particular time. So it really helps you to, you know, a lot of questions come up like, why do, you know, why do people have to suffer? Why do, you know, why do bad things happen, etcetera?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:You know, there's a lot of these kind of existential that you always tend to ask when it helps to say, okay, first of all, this is what it is. It just is. I can't explain everything. This is what it is. And then within that space of quiet and sense of calm, what you're able to then do is sort of create that resolve to contribute to things in a positive manner.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So I would like to put it like this, like if there's a stressful situation and you become stressed out, then you contribute to the stress that's existing. There's a stressful situation. And instead of being stressed out, you're able to get to this place where it's like, you know, you see it for being a stressful situation.
Segev:And
Dr. Vijai Bhola:then you then you're in a better place to start plotting and escape from that particular stressful and happy situation. And so it helped you you helped to be in a more constructive place at the time that something not good is happening. And and I think just being able to be in that space helps a lot because, you know, first aid providers or even caregivers, there's a lot of burnout because, know, you can in medicine, you can see a lot of things that are on the planet, a lot of suffering, etc. Sorry, do you call it? Disaster response.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Workers, you know, PTSD is a thing. If you witness PTSD, it's almost it's not I won't say it's as bad as but just simply witnessing traumatic situations can lead to you having PTSD. And so if you want to have longevity of practice and you want to have a career where you can continuously be useful rather than being like a spent shell, it's important to always be able to refresh yourself, not feel guilty for something that you couldn't help or not so that you you try to remain in a center of, okay, this is something that's happening. I see it for what it is. It's not pleasant.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:But instead of becoming tied up in that moment, you help keep yourself in a phase of, okay. I'm gonna be productive and Mhmm. Act in a way that helps the situation in the future.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Well, you know, this reminds me sorry. This reminds me of I was listening to a psychologist one time, I I think he's actually Trinidadian. Where he said something that I I I thought was I hadn't thought about it in this way. He was I can't remember what the topic of the lecture was or the conversation was, but he was saying that the term dehumanization is often used in this kind of derogatory negative way.
Bryan Dewsbury:And and he's like he said, that's sort of the wrong way to think about it. The dehumanization is not whether it's good or bad. He's like, when is it appropriate? Because if a doctor or, you know, if I'm somebody who is dealing with kind of daily trauma or dealing with people, like, I can't remain I can't be emotionally connected to every individual. There's no way I could do my job well.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right? There's no way I could go home and be destroyed with every death that happens in the hospital. And so it is appropriate in that circumstance, and it sounds like this is a little bit of what you're saying. It is a little appropriate to some acceptance is not that you become a a stone cold human, but but some acceptance that, you know, it is what it is, and you need to be able to carry on with what you're able to help with without being, like, just fully attached to every, you know, every trauma that's happening in front of you. Is that a fair characterization?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Oh, 100%. Like, you really have to be able to not accumulate, you know, not carry around too much weight because if you're carrying a lot of weight, it's hard for you to be nimble and continue doing your work.
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I'll give you this example. Like, when I left, you know, we had a when I left, even though I was just there for, like, a week on this particular trip, right,
Bryan Dewsbury:when
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I was actually crossing that border from Ukraine back into Poland, I just felt very, very emotional. And in a sense, almost and this is really strange when it when I realized this was happening to me, almost a sense of guilt because there's a lot of people that I'd got we've gotten very close to a lot of people. There's a lot of people we spent, you know nine ten hours a day with right when you spend nine to ten hours a day with people for like five six days seven days straight you become attached to them you you form friendships and as you leave the country and you go back and you step you physically step across the border into safe territory, then you feel as if, you know, you've abandoned your friends. Yeah. You've just walked out to them.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:You're like, hey. Look. I'm here to help. They're like, okay. Peace out.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I'm gone. I'm go back to my life where things are safe and, you know, halfway across, you know, the world, you know, across the Atlantic Ocean to a very protected place in The United States. And you feel like you're abandoned. You're friends. I had a meeting, you know, we had a debrief meeting with the team, you know, like weeks later and I said just by the way anybody else felt like that and like everybody said they do.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:What I do like right now, I'm pulling up my phone. See, like I'm showing Brian here my Kyiv Air Loops. I kept my there's an app that we use for Kyiv Air Loops when there's attack. I kept this on because to me, it makes me feel connected to the reality Yeah. That my friends in Kyiv are living under.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And funny enough, I was not the only one to do that
Bryan Dewsbury:on the team. Everybody did this independent of each other knowing Yeah.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And not not everybody of at least not everybody confessed. But, you know, there are things we each went through individually Mhmm. That we didn't even realize that we will necessarily we were going through this at a time and things we did. Right. But we did have the benefit of having such a good team that we spoke about these things afterwards and then realized oh damn this this stuff is real so there are people who spend like months in much more intense situations where they themselves are at risk.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Mean, are health care workers that literally get killed in a field. And, you know, there's like rape, murder, kidnapping, etc. So our experience by was was fairly mild compared to what some health care workers do in certain situations. But but it's real. Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And I think it's important for us, even this team, to to understand what happens to us when we go into these situations and really work it through. Mhmm. Because if you don't, then you accumulate these things and you become a a spent shell, you know, somewhere you becomes Yeah. Demotivated as time goes by. You just don't have the energy left to
Bryan Dewsbury:Right.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And and if you do that, then you you don't help anybody anymore. You don't help yourself. You don't help Right. You know, the cause, so to speak.
Bryan Dewsbury:And it it also sounds based on your the description you just gave of it that there's a little bit where you have to be okay with being open to an experience you can't yet explain. Right? So you talked about kind of coming back and, like, you've gone through things that you know you have gone through things, but you didn't quite know who do what of what he would go through emotionally and psychologically until the post processing state. And I just wonder if if and maybe I'm just speaking to people who, perhaps future students who kind of imagine themselves in a similar situation. Right?
Bryan Dewsbury:I'm kind of speaking to them thinking, like, well, that's kind of part of it, being open to a process that you don't know where it will take you.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:You know, that's 100% the reality. You know, you step into these places because you know that there's a different situation in there that you can't understand in any other way besides going there. Yeah, you know, it's one thing to say, you know, 10,000 people were displaced. And it's easy for us to just say 10,000. But when you've literally seen women and children by the busloads, they just moving busily across the border, then that is what really wakes you up to, like, man, these are human beings being affected.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:When you talk about attacks on Kyiv and, you know, affecting people's daily lives, so, like, you know, you know, I know we now have colleagues there like, you know, medical students or young doctors that can't leave the country. They they wanna train. They wanna subspecialize. You know, I had the benefit of being able to leave my country in order to to subspecialize and get higher education. Like, I have a friend there who can't.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Mhmm. Because he's of, you know, he's of military age. He is a a male within the age group that his country is not allowed to leave because they're in the middle of a war. Right? Like that's a very, very serious thing.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And if you the only way to really understand that from my point of view is if you went there. Having gone there, it really energizes me to continue working in these fields. But you have to be aware yeah that while you indulge in these experiences so to speak you ensure that you don't become weighed down or disaffected by the process. But don't get me wrong, even while we talk about this, I mean, it's an incredibly enriching experience to have that experience, to make those friendships, to work under those conditions. And so they're both things, you know, it's an incredibly enriching experience, but there's also things that you have to think about how these are affecting you.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:They all happen at the same time. And I think some of the contributions we're able to make, like, you know, people, one, people are just happy. There's a sense that, okay, we're not alone. Even apart from the medical, part that we the fact that we turned up, effect that we turned up meant a lot to a lot of people there. And those are the things that are hard to count.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:But that really helps people feel that they're not alone, that they have people who care, that help can still be coming. But any medical training, I mean, anybody who really took back from that training, they'll be provided medical care. They could be provided life saving care based on something that we were able to teach in a relatively short space of time. And that that really makes you feel empowered about your ability to impart Yeah. Very, very useful information Yeah.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And make real change.
Bryan Dewsbury:I mean, I know I know I was half joking earlier about your plethora of fellowships.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:You know, the only person that jokes about it.
Bryan Dewsbury:But but I I actually think on the back end of it, like, seriously, it it I don't wanna center myself here, but I think there's some similarities in the sense that what it feels has always guided you and your choices is your internal sense of why and in pursuit of that why. Right? The ability and opportunities to help people in their most at their most vulnerable. And sometimes, if you stick to the very traditional pathway of anything, right, whether it's going to into academia as a college professor or being a medical doctor, you know, med school, residency, fellowship, practice. If you really if you're more concerned about your why versus just consider about getting the title, then what it means is you have to step outside of that pathway and find the things that lead you to your why.
Bryan Dewsbury:So it might appear to the naked eye as sort of kind of all over the place and doing this and doing that, but in the end, it's leading you just ever more closely to to that place where you feel fulfilled, where you feel like you've really given back. Do you feel that now?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Oh, I mean, absolutely. 100%. And, I I just wanna reemphasize, you know, one of the points that you're trying to make about why do we do things. And I think it's important to always try to be a bit altruistic about what you're doing, because one, it helps increase the quality of what you're doing, but two, for yourself as human beings, there's this mechanism. Like, if we think we're doing something that's really good, it benefits us first and foremost.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Before it even benefits Yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:We know
Dr. Vijai Bhola:we are. Before it even gets to the point of manifesting an action that you take
Bryan Dewsbury:Helping you makes me feel good.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Yeah. And it's it may seem strange, but it's part of how we work like if you think about doing something good to help someone you already get that little bit of a warm fuzzy feeling side and that that can that counts right? So and then when you can see something that you put in motion kind of take off a little bit and you know it's doing more good and that kind of feeds back to you too. And I think it's really good for us to emphasize that that's what we should be focusing on like you know in whatever field that you do. It should not be about the like accolades or you know I mean compensation is really important but it shouldn't be all about compensation right and then in all our lives I'm sure we've had people you know coaches teachers etc who just did it because they wanted to see us become really good like we all had people right who you know like high school teachers for example who they complain about their pay at the same time but they're in the job they're on time
Bryan Dewsbury:yeah
Dr. Vijai Bhola:giving 110% right because they really wanted to see us do good. So those are the type of people I think that I find really inspiring people who do stuff because they're just motivated by what they can do and I think trying to be that person is is is a is a good is a good pattern to Yeah. To live your life.
Bryan Dewsbury:Emulate. Yeah. Just to to wrap up here a little bit, tell us how all of this, all of this vast, diverse experiences have culminated into your current position. Like, how are you bringing elements of everything we've just discussed? Both your volunteer work, your professional work, your training, your why.
Bryan Dewsbury:How is it being reflected in your current position?
Dr. Vijai Bhola:One, the fact that I have this current position
Bryan Dewsbury:hey, I got a job.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:It's like, wow, because I found it a bit, you know, when you have an atypical pathway, and I want to say this to sort of encourage people to follow a position, one, it was actually kind of hard to find a job. When I said, here, this is what I wanted in my training, and people are like, okay, nice, it's cute, cute, but we're not sure what to do with it. But, you know, my current job, they were actually starting to look at getting, you know, like a cadre of critical care infectious disease doctors. Mhmm. Because they don't have, you know, the the idea of being a critical care doctor who did who followed the infectious disease pathway to becoming a critical care doctor it's a very it's a fairly rare pathway in The U.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:S. Most people do like pulmonary critical care.
Bryan Dewsbury:Okay.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So when you say infectious disease critical care does raise an eyebrows like what we didn't know you could do that trust you, that kind of thing. We don't want you. So I definitely had some of that, but it really reinforced to me when I got this job, which was they basically expressed interest in all the things that I'm expressing interest in, right, giving me that, you know, that freedom to do the kind of things I want to do. It really was, you know, really was comforting to me that, you know, you could do the things that you're motivated by. And in a sense, follow your unique pathway.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And you will get to a good place. Yeah. Just yeah. Will just get to good just
Bryan Dewsbury:process basically.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:And so my current role, part of what I'm going to be working on is the, you know, the global health department teaching students procedures. I just did a some training in in Zambia with an infectious disease fellowship that I've had some relationship with for a while. Mhmm. I did some point of care ultrasound training. And, know, every now and then, you know, like, about two weeks ago, I got a picture with them using the ultrasound machine.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:I'm like, damn, I feel good about it. Yeah, know, so they're really happy to get that training. I'm really excited that they're using it, you know, it's a win win situation. And this current job is really one that's also they would like to see global health would be part of what I do. And there are also institutions that has a lot of, you know, a large footprint in infectious disease world and do our footprint in the disaster world.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:So I just expect to continue doing all these things in a more professional way, I'm really excited about it. Okay. To have an employer that is interested in what you're interested in is rare, but it's worth it's worth usage.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. I I understand, man. Doctor Vijay Bhulla, presentation college class of 1998.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Not enough. Call it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I should've levered that. I should've levered that.
Bryan Dewsbury:Amen. Thanks for being here.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Alright. Thanks a lot, Brian. Appreciate it.
Bryan Dewsbury:Knowledge unbound is brought to you by the RIOS Institute for racially just inclusive homestead medication. You can catch all of our episodes on Spotify, iHeartRadio or on our website knowledgeunboundtransistor.fm. I want to thank my guest Doctor. Vijay Bola for sharing his thoughts, insights, his journey. I want to remind you not to forget to subscribe And I wanna thank especially my always loyal, my perpetual, my great producer, Segeva Masai.
Bryan Dewsbury:Segeva, think they should hear your voice at the end. I feel they should hear you acknowledge my thank you. No?
Segev:Yeah. I just wanna say it's always a pleasure to be here, to be producing this podcast, and definitely be exposed to, you know, things I have never, like, really heard before in terms of, like, education. Because, you know, coming from a computer engineering student to biology education, and then having done engineering education research at some point in my undergrad career, there's definitely a lot of similarities. But at the same time you do see how differently things are done. You know?
Segev:Well, that's part yeah.
Bryan Dewsbury:Yeah. Sorry to interrupt you, but that that's kind of part of why I enjoy well, a, having you here, but a, doing the beep, doing the podcast because the themes that are being drawn out, it doesn't it doesn't have to do with necessarily just biology or engineering or medicine or, you know, in this case, medicine. It's education. It's education. It's transformative.
Bryan Dewsbury:Education makes you think. Education makes you be challenged. Education wants to make you change the world and for the better. And and I think, you know, I think Vijay really can share that with us today. So so thanks again.
Bryan Dewsbury:I wanna remind you, my audience, we we are here every Sunday. We have a 10 episode series. This is episode four. As you go into the week, I wish you nothing but the very best. And please be excellent to each other.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:First of all, you know, we talk about thinking outside the box. Mhmm. I think that's too shortsighted. I like the idea of living outside the box. Mhmm.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:Understanding that we all live in boxes. We live in our own boxes. Mhmm. That's just how life is. Right.
Dr. Vijai Bhola:But when you step out of your box and traveling is kind of a really good way to do that, then you enter other people's, you know, their cubicles and their boxes. Right. I think it doesn't really matter how much you read about something as a concept, but when you put faces to that concept, that to me really is invigorates you to and makes you wake up to the idea, okay, this is something I would really like to have an impact. And this is something I really like to work on.