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Doctors rise to prominence

October 28, 2007 • By Mark Taylor Post-Tribune correspondent

India has long had a business model of private, physician-owned hospitals.
Now, say many Indian-American physicians, it's time to apply that model to Northwest Indiana.
It's one of several dramatic changes in the region's health care system attributable to Indian doctors.

Their rise in prominence has been relatively quick -- from the new docs on the block in the '60s and '70s to the power elite by the mid-'90s. At an annual Indian Medical Association event in 1998, now-retired cardiologist and former Indiana Medical Licensing Board member Dr. Keshiv Aggarwal was joined at his table by a county political party chairman, mayors of the region's largest cities, a U.S. attorney and other top elected officials.

Cardiologist Dr. Vijay Dave said many Indian doctors gravitated to Northwest Indiana from Chicago, where they trained and performed residencies or fellowships.

Dave, who came to Northwest Indiana in 1977 and is a past president of the Lake County Medical Society, said established Indian physicians brought friends, relatives and colleagues from India in the time-honored immigrant way.
He said that Indians, who can boast a rich cultural tradition in commerce and business, have gone mainstream in the United States, owning and operating motels, gas stations, restaurant franchises and convenience stores.
"They became successful doctors because they worked longer hours and weekends," said Dave, an investor/owner of Pinnacle Healthcare, a new, physician-owned hospital in Merrillville whose board is led by Indian-American orthopedic surgeon Kirnjot Singh, its president.
"Indian doctors usually don't take time off to play golf. And they spend more time with their patients," he said.
That's led to prominence in their field. Two Northwest Indiana physicians of Indian origin, Dr. Navin Barot, a co-owner of Hind General Hospital in Hobart, and Dr. Bharat Barai, serve on the Indiana Medical Licensing Board.
And Michigan City physician Vidya Kora is president of the Indiana State Medical Association.
Patrick Bankston, assistant dean director of the Indiana University School of Medicine-Northwest in Gary, said the Indian doctors who serve on the medical school faculty are very good, well-educated and trained physicians.
"They have been aggressive leaders and on the forefront of new medical procedures and business opportunities available," Bankston said. "While this region has been very friendly to physicians from many countries, Indian doctors have been especially successful here."
'We intend to serve every patient'
On a recent afternoon, Dr. Vijay Patel rushed from surgery at Advocate Trinity Hospital in South Chicago to see his last remaining patients for the day, still dressed in surgical scrubs.
A compact man with a neat mustache and wire-rimmed glasses, the doctor exudes an aura of confidence about his proposed Hammond Community Hospital located on the North Hammond-Whiting border.
Patel, an India native, is a vascular surgeon and the managing partner in the hospital, which is not his first time as a hospital owner. Patel was an investor and leader of the former Heartland Memorial Hospital in Munster, now owned by the Sisters of St. Francis Health Services.
He said many Indian physicians coming to America were exposed to the for-profit hospital model in India and feel comfortable adopting it themselves.
Patel said he also understands the challenges of operating an acute care hospital.

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Midwest Interventional Spine Specialists one of three centers to take part in a national clinical trial.

Midwest Interventional Spine Specialists will participate in a clinical study on how Electronically Generated Lead Scan technology (EGL Scan) can estimate and track the relative position of implanted Spinal Cord Stimulator (SCS) Leads without the use of X-Ray of Fluoroscopy.

Munster, In., September 21, 2007.
Midwest Interventional Spine Specialists (MISS) has been selected by Boston Scientific Neuromodulation to evaluate a new technology called Electronically Generated Lead Scan (EGL Scan) which is the first and only lead scanning technology for spinal cord stimulation. This device displays the relative position of implanted leads, within seconds and without using fluoroscopy or x-ray, both of which expose patients to low dose radiation while EGL Scan does not. The information from the EGL Scan can be used to increase programming accuracy that may lead to improvements in patient outcomes.

The use of electrical stimulation to relieve pain began in ancient times with the placement of torpedo fish directly onto painful body parts. Since then, the application of electrical stimulation has become much better and more sophisticated. In 1989 a Spinal Cord Stimulator (SCS) was approved by the FDA as a treatment for chronic pain, the most predominant types being back pain.

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• Treatment is most effective when an interventional pain specialist sees the patient in the early stages. Still, our specialists offer treatments to reduce and even eliminate discomfort for sufferers of chronic pain due to prolonged injury or surgery.

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