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Dr Navin Shah, erstwhile president of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, has set up an Indo-US Physicians Exchange Programme that envisages voluntary mutual exchanges between American and Indian physicians to help improve medical education and health care in India. The programme has been set up with the support of the United States Department of State, the World Health Organisation's Global Health Workforce Alliance, the American Medical Association, the AAPI and the government of India.
Under the aegis of the American Professional Exchange Association, which provides an organised approach for physician exchange, and will provide this service free for this initiative by Shah, American and Indian physicians would be matched for voluntary and mutually agreed reciprocal visits, where the hosts would provide free lodging, boarding and professional interactions to their visiting guests.
Shah, in describing the genesis of his initiative, told rediff.com, "About two years ago, I met with Christina Miner, managing director of the office of professional and cultural exchanges at the State Department and discussed this project."
"I told her that out of the 950,000 American physicians practicing here, 222,000 have emigrated from more than 100 different countries, and most of these physicians would be happy to contribute their skills and services to the country of their origin," he added.
Shah said Miner had embraced the initiative wholeheartedly and "after multiple meetings it was decided to start the programme with a phase one zeroing in on six countries -- India, Egypt, Nigeria, Philippines, South Africa and Turkey."
He said that subsequently, "I presented this project to AMA officials and they immediately agreed to support the program and so did AAPI. I also discussed the program with WHO's Executive Director of the Global Health Workforce Alliance Dr Mubashar Sheikh, and he too immediately and very enthusiastically came on board". and APXA has established a web-site for this purpose at www.apxamembers.com.
Shah said that in support of this initiative "I also visited India twice and got a favourable response after meeting with Health Minister (Ghulam Nabi) Azad and the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister (T K A) Nair and other health ministry and Indian Medical Council officials and they were all supportive of the project."
"I've also been meeting with (Indian)Ambassador (to the US) Meera Shankar and the science counselor at the embassy here in Washington Dr (D) Dutta and Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robert Blake and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for South Asia Michael Owen -- the former consul general in Mumbai, and they all provided encouragement and support."
He predicted that it was a no-brainer that this project would "uplift medical education and health care in the countries involved mainly by the service and expertise of the US physicians involvement. It will also have follow-up and continuity without much of a bureaucratic hassle because the State Department will help in working out this aspect of it. Since the APXA site provides a free matching service, physicians who are interested can log in and get all the information and application details."
"India has some 700,000 allopathic physicians with nearly 70,000 specialists and of the 950,000 American physicians, more than 45,000 are Indian American physicians," he said.
And, he said, "This is not going to be a wholly one-way street benefiting only India, because the American physicians who visit India will also be able to learn about, not only local and traditional medical practices, but also many tropical diseases which can be of great value as the programme expands to other countries."
Shah, a Maryland-based urologist, has been unrelenting in his quest to improve health-care and medical education in India. He has launched medical equipment donation schemes to hospitals and medical colleges in India, taken delegates and specialists to lecture, seminars and workshops on CME, in addition to contributing funds, largely of his own, to equip a medical library at this alma mater in Pune.
Four years ago, he was a catalyst in a US-India programme on bringing Ayurveda to America in a big way. Shah was also the driving force behind the setting up of emergency medical services and trauma centers based on the US template in Mumbai -- after pushing for it for more than four years
Today, this programme has been replicated in some of the major cities in India, including New Delhi, and for his sustained effort that bore fruit in April 2007, Shah was honoured by India Abroad with its 2007 India Abroad Community Achiever Award.
Among other things, this project envisaged one dedicated emergency number -- like the 911 number in the United States -- and a command centre for hospitals manned around the clock, backed by fully equipped ambulances.