We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dr Munish Batra a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Dr Munish , looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?
work ethic is some thing that becomes inherent in first generation immigrants from India. We are taught discipline, delayed self gratification, and to excel educationally. These characteristics do lead to the ability to succeed academically, to pursue a career in medicine or engineering, (as most first generation Indian immigrants have been pushed to do by their parents), but it does not allow the ability to choose your own career or pursue your own academic interests. I think this was the plight of the first generation Indian immigrants that came to this country like I did in the 1970s. That hard work ethic was established by my father who worked 18 hours a day. Therefore, my ability to work 36 hour hour shifts with 12 hours off for five years during my surgical residency was not some thing that seemed out of line with how my father had raised me
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am at a cross roads in my life currently. I’ve been fortunate to have an amazing plastic surgery practice, possibly one of the busiest cosmetic practices in Southern California. But as per my buddhist outlook in life, there’s more than plastic surgery and generating income. I’ve gone back to one of my previous passions, namely, writing, and had a novel published, which was very well received on Amazon by reviewer’s. In fact, the novel is now being developed into a movie script. The name of the novel animal is about a vigilante that execs retribution on people that kill or torture animals by doing to the poachers, and the abusers what they have done to the animal. For example, if they’ve hunted and skinned a tiger, he skins the hunter alive.
But perhaps the most important thing in my existence is not my career or my passion for writing, but my three children who are my world.
they are the very thing that continue to drive me up to be the best person I can be
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Everyone’s journey is unique, and the characteristics, which allowed me to be at the pinnacle of my field, may not be the same ones for anyone else. If I had to label three things, though, they would be a hard work ethic,
to be entrepreneurial and a risk taker (at some level) , and to treat everyone around you with respect and dignity. They were many times in my life from growing up that I was treated harshly, and as a second grade citizen, being a foreigner, growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, but those episodes left a deep impact in my psyche and in my development so that I would never be that way to other people. The ability to respect and treat others with dignity has allowed me to bring the best, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, and other specialists under my umbrella in a multi specialty group.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
I think my pace professionally, along with balancing the duties of three young children and pursuing my outside interest in writing and developing movie scripts ,along with managing a large multi specialty medical group with 40 some doctors across California and hundreds of patients can leave me feeling overwhelmed at times..
Earlier there were times I became very temperamental with my staff and sometimes it would flow into my family life,
But over the past several years, )(possibly due to the fact that I’m almost 60 and have been looking at my journey from being a kid growing up in the third world without basic necessities, or even shoes on my feet, and a very impoverished environment,) I’ve come to see my life as being very fortunate. this level of acceptance and resignation, which coincides with adopting Buddhist principles, has tempered those negative attributes. When I feel overwhelmed, now, I will meditate, do some introspection, and gradually transcend my way out of an unhealthy emotional state.
Contact Info:
- Website: coastalplasticsurgeons.com
