Indian-American doctors seek younger generation’s involvement

Washington, July 13 One of the largest ethnic professional organisations representing some 100,000 Indian American physicians is trying to involve the younger generation even as it looks at new ways of giving back to the motherland.

Dr. Seema Jain, who would take over as president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) next June, would like to continue the current India projects even as it works with the Indian health ministry to come up with something new that would continue over the long term.

“We have the Sevak project, a pilot project for access to care for the villages in India, some economic projects and 17 charity clinics all over India,” Jain, a board certified psychiatrist, who came to the US from India when she was 19, told IANS.

One of the projects that will be taken up this year in India will be dealing with trauma, mainly brain damage, in road accidents, she said.

Jain would also like the organisation to spread its wings and go mainstream along with Americans, getting into academics and involving young physicians, students and residents in its activities.

“We want more of a digital AAPI – newsletters, Twitter, Facebook. With AAPI getting more into social networking, academics also want to get involved with it,” she said.

“It should not be a regional ethnic type of organisation. It should be coming up towards the mainstream. That’s my goal,” she said.

Her second goal is to make sure that academicians come. “We want to have medical scientific seminars and lifetime achievements to be recognised to attract academicians.”

As the new Secretary, Gautam Samadder, president & CEO of Columbus Sleep Consultants, also considers going mainstream and involving the younger generation of Indian-American doctors as the key challenges.

“When AAPI was first formed (in 1982) it was based on immigrant physicians trained in India facing a lot of challenges of discrimination in hospitals. As we have evolved with our kids in medical colleges, we have infiltrated the American system of medicine.”

“Our goal and mission are slowly changing from discrimination to becoming part of mainstream organised medicine so that it’s not only better for our kids, but for Indians and for the community as a whole,” Samadder said.

But the biggest challenge before AAPI is to involve the younger generation of Indian-American physicians,” he said. “The reason is they didn’t find the mission of AAPI to reflect them.”

“They always thought it was an uncle, auntie organisation and they either resented it or didn’t think they should be part of it,” Samadder said. “So we are trying to change the dynamics.”

“We are trying to be more inclusive, trying to read their minds to see what they want from AAPI so that we seniors can do reforms so that they can take AAPI to the next level because they are the future.”

Even as Indian-American doctors give back to the society where they practice by providing quality care, they are “also giving back to our motherland.”

“When we go back, we donate money. We have chapters, alumni as also exchange programmes going on through the Indo-US summit both in research and clinical medicine.” Samadder said.

“So that’s the payback to our motherland, our colleges and our alumni.”

Looking back, one of the founding members of AAPI, Bhimsen Rao believes the Indian-American doctors have come a long way.

“We have a political clout in Washington and at the state level and the local American Medical Association considers us as a partner.”