Dr. Aseem Desai: Cardiologist & Author (Raise the Line)

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Hi, I'm Shivani. Thanks for checking out our raise the line interview series.
In which me and my cohost osmosis chief Medical Officer Dr Rishi Desai explore how to strengthen our healthcare system with some amazing leaders in medicine, technology, education and government and they have some great advice for people starting careers in healthcare as well.
I hope you'll watch these highlights and then go listen to the full podcast interview wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Doctor Rishi Desai and today on Ray the line, I'm happy to be joined by doctor as Desai.
My, my last name, namesake, Doctor Desai is a cardiac electrophysiologist, a physician who specialized in heart rhythm disorders and irregular heartbeat treatments.
You know, I'd love to just kind of start out by maybe you sharing a little bit of about your background, kind of what got you interested in the medical field.
Absolutely. So I grew up in Chicago and my dad was an oncologist.
So from an early age, you know, I saw him taking call, going to the hospital, going to the office and had that exposure.
And then when I was actually pretty young, he had a heart attack when he was 37. And so it was interesting because I saw this evolution of a physician also becoming a patient.
And that became an interest of mine along the way, the physician patient relationship being on both sides of the equation.
And then through junior high and high school, probably like many people in the medical field, I had an interest in science.
And then along the way, I really uh became interested in just general technology. At the time, it was more about computer technology.
And we used quite a bit of that in our field in electrophysiology today and in college. So I did a seven year med program at Northwestern.
So that then took me into residency. I did internal medicine and chief residency at Stanford and then just stayed on for my cardiology training.
And then kind of taking into the later years, I took a faculty job at University of Chicago and EP and then since about 2005, I've been out in Southern California in private practice.
You know, I'd like to end with this question, which is that, you know, we have a lot of students and early career health professionals in our audience and you obviously have a very um illustrious career.
I mean, well, you got to where you are obviously because of um because a lot of hard work, a lot of opportunities, what advice would you give folks that are coming along right now?
That might hear your story and say, hey, this sounds like someone I'd wanna emulate. One day.
II, am I'm interested in doing some of this kind of work? How do I get there?
Number one, learn how to ask for help, learn how to ask for help in the classroom, in the hospital with your family, with your friends.
It's critical, you know, we we that getting humble is a really hard thing to do. And for me, it took getting burnt out.
Like I realized I hit so hard that it opened up my eyes to what I needed, that I needed all these self care kinds of things.
So for your listeners, number one would definitely be, learn how to ask for help. You're doing such a noble thing.
I mean, this medicine is still one of the most noble professions there is and it always will be. And I'll, I'll admit I was gonna quit medicine multiple times in my career multiple times.
And there was just something in me that just said, you know, probably a little bit of OCD. But there was something in me that just said, keep going and my gosh, II would have been so I would have felt terrible.
Uh Now, I mean, I just love what I do but I would just encourage people, you know, when you do feel like giving up, that's where you need to reach out to your tribe.
You know, figure out who's in your tribe and there's gonna be a lot of people that'll say don't do this. Like people told me don't be a doctor.
My dad told me don't be a doctor. That's a classic Indian dad thing to do.
Uh And of course, you know, like any son I didn't listen. Thanks for watching this preview of Raised Line to hear the full interview.
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