87-year-old Indian American surgeon's memoir recollects his struggle for justice for international medical graduates in US – The Indian Express

Dr Navin Shah, who fought for the justice of international medical graduates has recently released the online version of his memoir ‘Karma and the Destiny of an Indian American Surgeon’.
The 87-year-old urologist who hails from Pune and currently lives in Maryland, USA, told The Indian Express that the book documents his journey of eight decades where he also became an activist of sorts `out of a desire to counter injustices to foreign medical graduates in the United States’ and to improve the condition of healthcare, medical education, and research in India.
He co-founded the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) and the International Association of American Physicians (IAAP).
As part of the book release, Dr Shah will visit Pune and other cities in India in the first week of December. He said that physicians who had graduated outside the United States were labelled as foreign medical graduates. They had to pass the exam in the United States, undertake the US residency, and pass the licensing and board examinations. Dr Shah in his book recalled the covert discrimination and treatment by the American Medical Association.
The alumnus of B J Medical College is not yet ready to call it quits. At present, the medical education director of the US-based Metropolitan Urologic Institute focuses on the early detection and treatment of prostate cancer.
Dr Shah has initiated multiple health projects with the help of Indian American physicians to improve the medical education and healthcare system in India.
“The victory of gaining equality for all 2.4 lakh international medical graduates of 80 different countries was due to our concerted actions in the US Congress,” he noted.
The book covers eight decades of the personal and professional life of the Maryland urologist who has been often acknowledged abroad as the `trailblazing physician.’
Born in 1935, in Kolhapur, India, then under British rule, Shah grew up in Pune, where he attended the B.J. Medical College. He emigrated to the United States in the early 1970s. While raising a family and doing urology practice in Washington DC, he organised and co-founded the American Association of Physicians of Indian origin (AAPI), which went on to represent more than 80,000 Indian American doctors.
‘Karma and the Destiny’ details the Maryland urologist’s role in the struggle for equality for hundreds of thousands of international medical graduates in the U.S., which eventually led to the Health Professions Reauthorization Act of 1992. Throughout his career, and in various leadership roles, Shah has also focused on taking the best of American medicine to India, and to maintain the highest standards of screening and treatment of prostate cancer in the US.
While in India Dr Shah said he would like to take the American expertise to improve health care in India especially for the poor patients. “There are several US doctors of Indian origin who are willing to augment medical education, health care and medical research and help improve health care in India. We all hail from different parts of the country and at least 10 per cent are willing to serve India,” he said.
Indian men’s hockey team for Australia tour announced

source