An interview with the one and only, Tej.
Ken: Tell me 3 things about you.
Tej: 3 interesting things or just 3 things?
K: Could be anything.
T: Born and raised in Charleston.
An interesting thing is I didn't cut my hair until I was 20 yrs old I'm Sikh just like Balvir, that was probably my biggest life decision to this point.
Third, I have a general thirst for knowledge itself for certain things, which is I guess what I'm passionate about.
K: So tell me more about those things - you said you were born and raised here, what made you want to come back?
T: It was a big decision for me. Going to Emory was the biggest thing that's happened to me in my life. Growing up in South Carolina, and going to my high school I was very privileged, but it was very homogenous. Which is not a bad thing, I was very fortunate, but then I went to Emory and I understood that diversity was not just white, black, rich, poor it was so many other factors. My favorite people to talk to were Philosophy majors. You could ask them some weird question - like what would you do in this situation, and they've already thought about it. They've searched inside, and to me one of the most important things I learned growing up in Charleston is self-reflection. The beauty of Charleston, and driving 30 minutes to school, I had a lot of alone time to reflect and it made me try and understand my actions.
K: And what did you learn from the hair experience?
T: What I learned from it was how differently people can treat you based on something so superficial. You can kind of understand the connotations the hair has but it's also hard to see how closed off society can be to people like that. The good thing about the turban is that you not only represent yourself but every other person that wears one. You had to be morally conscious as possible, which was good for a boisterous kid like myself growing up. My parents were like thank god you would've been off the walls.
K: What made you decide to cut it?
T: The most important one, I wanted it not to be for social reasons, so I didn't tell anyone about it. It's funny how something like that just defines you, afterwards, people straight up didn't recognize me. No one really knew me for who I was, they just looked at my head. Can't blame them, I guess. It was also a spiritual thing, having a turban didn't make me any more religious, and to me I shouldn't have to broadcast my religion. Sikhism is a very open religion too. And my parents were very supportive. My dad cut his hair back in the 60's. From what i understand, it was one less thing that made him different as an immigrant in Iowa in the late 60's. Some things you just do to assimilate, which is understandeable. He made lots of sacrifices which I am very thankful for.
K: the 3rd thing you mentioned is that you have a thirst for knowledge for things you're pasisonate about - what is that?
T: I love medicine, but my real passion is to alter healthcare in a way either through policy or business to just better the system and to better the quality of life. We always talk about controversial things like terminal health, and I've always, it sounds awful, but when you look at the numbers - what if you could quantify life? Say the age cut off was 70 or something, and you could legally pull the plug. It's hard to make the policies, but it's an interesting. idea that might be necessary soon. The problem with health is that it's the only business tied to moral human beings. It's hard.
And this is another small idea I'm interested in - healthcare inventory managemenet. Bed pans, syringes, how do we decide where we get it from? is there a certain metric we can use to decide how efficiently we're spending our money? I'm really interested in start ups. I associate them with young kids so they're obviously appealing to me.
K: Are you thinking about politics? There's a lot of MD's in Congress.
T: Yeah that's true. I think about it a little bit, but something I've been thinking about more this year - my ideal job would be the president of a university as an end part of my career. A ton of them are MD's or PhD's. It'd be cool to be invovled in education, but also athletics, some politics, a little bit of everything.
K: So what are you going to do after MUSC?
T: I love peds cards. I used to love peds cards surgery, but the training is so long, I don't know if it's worth it considering my end goals.
K: Do you plan to stick around in Charleston, or the southeast?
T: For the longest time I said I would die here. I had an exemplary upbringing here, and extremely caring parents. I went to the same school for 12 yrs, it was a family. I want to come back here eventually, but first I definitely want to go somewhere that's a little more diverse - more minds. I want to be around creative minds, so I want a larger city.
K: So if you're interested in policy, what would be one change you would want to make to med school policy?
T: I had a friend's dad that really influenced me, and he taught me that I never cared about grades, I just studied to understand the information. And I've been trying to apply that since college. There are some people who get better grades than me because they know how to game the questions, but that's not truly learning. At the end of the day I want to understand the whole system. Everyone talks about who this teacher only asks quesitons like this or that, but are you learning? We're trying to learn to give people life.
K: One of the things i've found interesting about you is that you read a lot, what've you read that's been influential?
T: Well, it's funny. I never read for recreation until I left college but I've always been intersted in biographies, and US politics. I love seeing how someone was raised, and seeing their defining moments in life. I've read Steve Jobs, Thomas Jefferson, some others. Those were great. And what I've been getting from these stories is two things: that you have to have a general sense of motivation, and the other is that you have to have self-control. Self-control is such an easy thing to say but it's so hard. It's hard to give up everything for a mission. The reason I started to read- I feel like I've been taught to think certain ways. Like religion. It's all environement. It's what their parents or friends said, but going to Emory I got to meet so many people who thought for themselves. After college I had 3 free months before med school to discover myself, and how I did that was learning how other people did it through reading biographies.
K: Ok, and any last things you want to say to our class?
T: Understand more than the superficial about each other. The most important thing you can do is understand how people think. We have superficial conversations all the time - hey how's it going, whatever - but you don't really know them. So do your best to get to know as many people as possible.
K: preach.
see you on the other side,
from ken
who should I interview next?
