- We are now joined by Dr. Vasantha Kondamudi, who is Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Holy Name Medical Center, to disclose one of the underwriters of our healthcare programming.

Doctor, it's great to have you with us.

- Thank you for inviting me, Steve.

- Our pleasure.

Listen, in reading about your background, your journey, you've been a physician for a few years.

- Yes, since 1985.

- I'm curious about this.

Your passion for medicine comes from where?

- I would say from my childhood.

As a child, I lost my brother at the age of six years, and that had a big impact on my decision to be a doctor because I was always curious and my parents encouraged, and they, you know, they actually helped me to go with my dreams.

And by God's grace, I was able to enroll in a top-notch medical school in India, which is a Christian medical college.

from your personal, not just your professional perspective, but from your personal perspective, describe, and I appreciate how people wanna move on from COVID and I get it, we're taping at the end of April.

"Let's move on.

We're past it."

Get it.

But I happen to know that your experiences were very profound and personal during COVID.

Please talk to us about it.

- Yes.

You know, it was facing almost very close to death, and as a human, the fears were real, the anxiety was real, especially having to deal with so many, not only patients, but also with the physicians who are going through the same emotions like you.

But I was able to actually relieve their anxieties by being with them.

Even though I was an executive, I could have stayed in my office, and giving orders, and making strategies, and plans, and treatments, et cetera.

I personally went from floor to floor, was with all the residents and physicians from 10 to ED the ICU to the floor, so that I could share their emotions, and calm them down, and motivate them to see another day while they're going through their hardship.

And it's a lot of emotions, I would say, but I think I had to manage my emotions first, and I had to be strong first, in order for me to share and stabilize their emotions.

So, it was very emotional for all of us.

- And as you move forward several years, when COVID began for us in March of 2020, the long-term impact of COVID, of this pandemic, not just on the hospital community, but on the future physician pipeline, if you will.

- Mm-hmm.

- Please, 'cause physician burnout is real.

The challenges from a human personal health perspective, mental and otherwise, is real.

The physician pipeline as it relates to COVID, please.

- Yes, it impacted on physicians, their emotions.

And it was almost similar to, I would say, post-traumatic distress...

Many physicians, the emotions ranged from anxiety to fear, to depression, to various others, burnout.

I would say that which actually resulted in many several physicians they have actually committed suicides, as you probably heard in the news, and also impacted our residency enrollment.

Actually this year we had- - Did it go down?

- Yes, it went down for the emergency physicians.

So that lot of emergency physicians in the match program were not matched because the physicians were reluctant to join emergency medicine 'cause of the way that they faced as the pandemic evolved, and it hit the emergency department first before it- - So, how do we move forward?

I'm sorry for interrupting, doctor, how do we move forward by encouraging, not just encouraging the best and the brightest to go into medicine, into the physician community, but also the training of those future physicians, please.

- So, this is a role modeling.

Many of us have survived.

In order for us to motivate those best and bright, first of all, they need role models.

They need to see that the physicians who went through pandemic and how we are different people right now, we are strong, we are courageous, and we are flexible.

There is a different types of traits or different types of attributes that we need, we have acquired going through this challenge, which is severe crisis.

So, by talking to the students and by engaging them from the time that they're medical students, that, you know, just encouraging them to see that there is hope and we are stronger ever after pandemic.

- I'm sorry for interrupting.

What about graduate medical education and all this?

- Yeah, it is the same thing.

It is, first of all, you need to go through medical student.

As a medical student, after completing medicine, you would join graduate medical education to join different types of residencies and specialties.

So, it could range from emergency medicine to internal medicine, OB-GYN.

There are several residencies and fellowships.

So, I think that's what is needed.

And sorry, when you mentioned encouraging the students to take up medicine, and I think that starts in the high schools.

So, I think it is important to reach out to the local high schools and allowing them to volunteer in the hospitals, those that wanna pursue.

And I think there is a lot more education is needed in terms of, you know, in the public sector.

And I'm sure that, you know, the one side we suffered, but they are on the other side.

I think everybody realized the importance of having enough workforce, and the importance of becoming doctors and physicians to be on the forefront to meet another challenge.

And actually I feel that there is so much of, so much will be learned through the pandemic.

- Dr. Kondamudi, not just to you and your colleagues at Holy Name, but to all the physicians at the hospitals across this state, this region, this nation, and the nurses, and other clinicians.

You know, we call them the heroes in the first year, and then somehow we forgot.

I'll be off my soapbox when I say this.

Thank you for everything that you did and that you'll continue to do as a physician leader.

Thank you, doctor.

- Thank you.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

See you next time.

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