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A Doctorpreneur Creates a World Class Hospital Chain
- Dr. B.S. Ajaikumar
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Welcome to Healing From Within with your host Sheryl Glick Reiki Master Energy Teacher Medium and author of the newest book in a trilogy A New Life Awaits Spirit Guided Insights To Support Global Awakening which shares stories messages from spirit that shows us our challenges are not merely economic political societal but a disconnect from our true being or soul wisdom and insight into healing on all levels mind body and soul. Sheryl is delighted today to welcome Dr. B.S. Ajaikumar author of Excellence Has No Borders: How a Doctorpreneur Created a World Class Cancer Hospital Chain.
When Dr. Ajaikumar is asked think back to his childhood and remember a person place or event that may have shown him or others the interests and lifestyle he might pursue as an adult for Sheryl feels the destiny and life plan of the soul begins at birth or even before conception in the Universal source of creative life.
Dr. Ajaikumar wrote, “Life, as we know it, is replete with conflicts. My journey as an entrepreneur is motivated by challenges—and indeed as a person of conscience, began with a conflict. It was a conflict that was to define my approach to life itself, which is to fight for the underdog. The incident occurred when I was in seventh grade. My classmate, who was not very bright, was walloped hard by a teacher till his hand became red and swollen. He had committed a small indiscretion. I still don’t know what came over me, but I was livid. My reaction was not so much to the corporal indignity of the act as it was to my sense of injustice and lack of fairness in the intensity of the punishment meted out. I took it upon myself to form a delegation of students and report the incident to the head of the institution. I was oblivious to the fact that this could lead to undesirable consequences for me. Yet, there I was, marching off a group of excitable youngsters into the lion’s den to complain about what I felt was a barbaric act. Providentially, and unbelievably, the said lion saw merit in my indignation. The teacher was dismissed from service. When I think about this now, for a twelve-year-old to audaciously take on a teacher at his school is not only inconceivable but also possibly tantamount to academic suicide. But it is this very same sense of justice that spawned in me the seed of what would later become a core element of my personality: the need to welcome challenges.
Another childhood remembrance written by B.S. was about his feelings at about five years and he writes, “ And my older brother Amar Kumar was exactly that. A student of Sacred Heart School in Bengaluru, Amar was every parent’s dream come true. He was supremely talented, a phenomenal debater, fluent in English and, of course, an academic achiever. They say that the birth order of siblings dictates everything from their personalities to parental affection to the world’s perception of the siblings in question. More specifically, first-borns hog the lion’s share of parental love, not to mention the shadow they cast on their younger siblings. It was no different in my case. So, while my brother continued to enjoy quality schooling at Sacred Heart, I was shifted to a ‘regular’ school called Bala Mandira. My father could not afford to put both his sons through elite schooling. My brother’s debating achievements were storied affairs at home, while the prizes I won at school were relegated to oblivion. The older brother’s shadow was also evident in my parents’ plan for my future. I remember one day I overheard my parents discussing our future. My father was commenting that while Amar’s was secure, ‘I don’t know what will become of Ajai’.
But, in spite of everything, I still loved my family. Why did I care so much for my father? While I knew he loved me, his way of showing that love and care was not conventional. He expressed his love and affection in unique ways. He showed his deep affection for me with his obsession for my academic performance. This was especially so during my pre-medical-college years. He went about with an anxious look day and night, worried about my performance. He could not let go until he was sure I would do well. Anything that his mind became obsessed with was a problem to be solved.”
Fast forward to the beginning of the book where you tell us of a disastrous time in Boston that almost stopped your fulfilling your obligations to the work and support for so many people you cared about.
Dr. Ajaikumar wrote, “Horror-struck, I realized that my dreams were shattered and I had let my people down. I felt miserable. I had just remodeled my house in Boston. We had been recently graced with the birth of twins, Aagnika and Asmitha. I had also opened a not-for-profit hospital in Mysuru, a private hospital in Bengaluru, and an NGO for women’s empowerment. The employees’ families were dependent on me and I had a definite moral obligation. With my investments wiped out, these started to look like millstones round my neck. It was then that the sleepless nights and burning sensations in my stomach started. Paranoia gripped me.
The reality finally hit me. There was no way back. I looked ahead at the North Atlantic as it mocked me. I stared right back. I’m coming! I started wading forward, unmindful of who or what I was leaving behind.
Now, I’m normally not someone who believes in mumbo jumbo about signs, but that push by a harmless wave somehow halted my train of self-destructive thoughts. A singularly assertive thought hit me like a freight train. I am a fighter. I love challenges. I looked down at myself. I was half drenched. Defeated. All at sea. But here I was, alive! I had lost money, tons of it. But I still had myself. I had my family. I looked up and stared at the ocean again. Today’s not your day.”
Dr. Ajaikumar tells us about his professional life in India and how he decided to practice across India and in the United States. Dr. Ajaikumar shows us how it was a complicated and evolving story, which took time and much gathering of resources and finding the right people to assist him .
Dr. Ajaikumar says: “I received a phone call from Raghavendra, my domestic help in Mysuru, telling me my son Adarsh had a seizure and three hours later, I was at the O’Hare International Airport, on board a Lufthansa non-stop flight to Bengaluru. My dear son Adarsh was bound to a wheelchair for twenty-seven years and born with a rare genetic muscle-wasting disorder called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), which left him weak, brittle and injury-prone and now he had fallen—a catastrophe with his condition.
A few days later, Adarsh had another near-death experience. That fateful night, around 1 a.m., I jerked up in bed. I had a queasy feeling in my gut. It was going like a trip hammer. At that point, I felt this was not going to end well. Adarsh was going into septic shock. His whole life flashed before me, like some cruel time-lapse video created by a demented force from the dark side. I rarely cry. That night, I cried. I just couldn’t imagine life without him. Hell, I couldn’t imagine even having dinner without him. But I also realized one thing. If I had to help him, I could not think like a father. There would be too much emotion attached. No, I had to be detached. I had to treat him like a patient. The doctor in me had to treat him, not the father.
These two incidents in my life sparked and nurtured in me two very essential philosophies that I still practice to this day. They give me a sense of direction whenever I am at a crossroads. They give me a sense of orientation when confronted with crises or situations that demand trade-offs between principles and practicality. The first incident was cathartic. Never had I felt so deeply introspective. I found great inner reservoirs of strength, which I’d never suspected in myself. I learnt to take the painful path and test the limits of my mental endurance. I learnt to rebuild. Importantly, once I had rebuilt my life from scratch, I realized something that I continue to believe to this day—anything is possible. This is a recurring theme in my life story.
The second incident was emotionally draining, but equally rich in revelation. It taught me the fine art of detachment during times of crises. The problems in life that emotionally affect us the most are the ones that are best solved by isolating emotion completely from the decision-making process. This incident touches upon the principle of ‘oncophilosophy’ in my life. At its simple best, it helped me ask a very fundamental question: What did I learn from this
Dr. Ajaikumar was able to treat Cancer at an affordable cost in India and received help from the US government. Both his brother and B.S. went to US as did many young Indian doctors to get a footing in a country that provided greater funding for medical projects. Dr. Ajaikumar wrote, “I decided to go and join Amar my brother. At the time, I also felt enormous pressure from my father. I had to discard my idealism and dreams of working in rural India. I was twenty-two years old at the time. I did not want to disobey my father, and he was clear that I had to leave for the US. My father was a calculative, intelligent man. He wanted me to be financially secure and not see the kind of financial turmoil he had had to face in his life. He also wanted to live a comfortable life, and two sons earning in dollars would mean more security for him and the rest of the family.” I was two months into my residency at the University of Virginia when I got my first pay cheque—in US dollars. All eight hundred and forty dollars of it. At the prevailing forex rates, that converted to easily around seven thousand in rupees. Wow, I told myself, that was ten times what Father was earning back in India despite his experience and position.
Dr. Ajaikumar tells us about his beginning experiences in the United States: Dr. Ajakumar was two months into his residency at the University of Virginia when he got my first pay cheque—in US dollars. All eight hundred and forty dollars of it. At the prevailing forex rates, that converted to easily around seven thousand in rupees. Wow, I told myself, that was ten times what Father was earning back in India despite his experience and position.
It was July 1976 when I joined the MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas—a full year after I had taken up my residency at the University of Virginia. MD Anderson was considered the Mecca of radiation oncology. Its founder was, surprisingly, not a physician but a banker from Jackson, Tennessee. Born in 1873, Monroe Dunaway Anderson established the MD Anderson Foundation in 1936, which helped establish a cancer research and treatment hospital under the aegis of the University of Texas. This hospital went on to become the MD Anderson Cancer Center and began its operations during the Second World War in the 1940s. At the center, Dr Fletcher was an iconic figure, and was considered the father of radiation. On entering the center, one of the things I immediately noticed was how no one talked of palliative care. No one labelled cancer patients as ‘victims’
Dr. Ajaikumar tells us how the political upheavals in both India and America affected his progress or decisions.
Dr. Ajaikumar tells us that it was the summer of 1975. The world was in upheaval. In India, political unrest had seized the country for the past two years. After the splitting up of the Congress, Indira Gandhi had emerged as the undisputed leader of her faction, Congress (O). With radically left-leaning moves like the nationalization of banks and the abolition of the privy purse, she had established herself firmly as a socialist leader, much to the annoyance of her opponents. Under her reign, there was a constant tug of war between the judiciary and the executive, with brazen attempts by Mrs. Gandhi to control the judiciary. During this period, the country was rife with student agitations, labor union unrest and farmers’ agitations. Law and order across the country was spiraling out of control. Mrs. Gandhi’s staunch rival and Gandhian socialist J.P. Narayan called for a countrywide non-violent revolution to protest against the state of affairs. Despite this, Mrs Gandhi ruled with an iron hand, ruthlessly quashing the nationwide railway strike and arresting hordes of its employees. There were also allegations of election fraud and misuse of government machinery against her. The Emergency was well and truly on. The country I wanted to emigrate to was also in turmoil. The twenty-year Vietnam War was coming to an end, with the US pulling out its forces from Vietnam. Over 58,000 US soldiers had been killed there, with many missing in action. In the US, the anti-war movement had been gaining steam, fueled by excesses committed by the US Army. Desertion rates were shooting though the roof. US morale, overall, was down; resentment was growing. Martin Luther King Jr, an icon of the American civil rights movement in the Fifties and Sixties, had been assassinated a few years earlier. America was just beginning to emerge from the throes of violence that had erupted after King’s assassination. There were still signs that equality was an afterthought in many pockets of the country. Many signboards still proclaimed ‘Whites Only’ and ‘For Negroes’ To comply with court rulings on equality, black children were being bussed to higher-quality schools in more affluent white neighborhoods. This led to discontent amongst the white population. From the boiling cauldron into the frying pan India and the US. Two societies in chaos. I was jumping from a boiling cauldron into a frying pan. There was also the psychology of the US society that needed to be considered. Despite being a global superpower, they had been given a bloody nose by Vietnam, an Asian minnow. Perhaps undercurrents of racism emerged in pockets of the US society at that time as a result. Years later, I would experience this very same racism and resentment to a degree that would prove to be decisive in my life. In the summer of 1975 after my ECFMG exam, I applied to New York State for immigration, and got it. At that time, one didn’t need to get a job at a hospital in the US for immigration status. So, while I was waiting for my immigration papers, I began to have second thoughts about uprooting myself from my home and moving to a distant land. Life was good in India. I had become popular at St Martha’s, and I was very attached to my parents and sisters. I also kept thinking about my vision to be of service here. I had also heard many stories of people who had gone abroad but hadn’t come back for good. So, moving to the US didn’t really make sense. The day I finally got my immigration papers, I was in tears. With so many things preying on my mind, I had another of those conversations with my father.
Dr. Ajaikumar tells how he came to love the “team treatment plan” and writes, “On my second day at the Centre, a curious ritual played itself out. We were all required to report to the auditorium. Dr Fletcher was there at the front of the auditorium, seated in his mobile examination chair. Next to him was a case documenter. A new patient was brought in on a wheelchair, accompanied by the examining physician. The physician came to the podium and presented his preliminary findings and symptoms. Dr Fletcher examined the case briefly. He then turned to the other professors and asked how the case should be treated. They gave their opinions from the perspective of their specialties. Dr Fletcher asked the patient to go and then he announced the decision, calling it a team decision. I was amazed. I later learnt that what I had just seen was called the ‘planning clinic’, which happened without fail every day at 7 a.m. Everyone from all departments had to be there. And all of them had to give their opinion if the case or the symptoms were relevant to their specialty. The best part about the planning clinic was that the final decision was a team one.
Instead, Dr Fletcher made sure all doctors at the center weighed in on different cases. Thereby they also got wider exposure to the eccentricities of the disease called cancer and how best to treat it. The patient also benefited from the expertise of an entire auditorium of doctors! It was a brilliant approach. This later influenced me to a large extent to think of cancer as a whole-body disease, not just a localized one. I wanted to make sure I learnt about every aspect of cancer, not just one or two. When I later built HCG, a multidisciplinary clinic in India, I replicated this approach.
Dr. Ajaikumar found that there were alternative healing methods that helped his son, who was diagnosed with DMD, a disease that had no treatment and was not expected to live past 15 years of age and that’s why he looked into alternative healing methods and wrote, “Desperate times can turn your belief system on its head. As there was no allopathic treatment for Adarsh’s disease, some people around us suggested Ayurvedic therapy. We were clutching at straws at this point. I wanted to conquer this disease somehow and so was willing to give anything a shot. It’s funny how you sometimes end up investing hope in something you never believed in. In the summer of 1995, we found this town called Kottakkal in Kerala, which was famous for its Ayurvedic institute called Arya Vaidya Sala. So Adarsh and Bhagya went to Kottakkal and spent a few months there. Every day, Adarsh underwent massage therapy, with us hoping against hope for a miracle. Apart from the therapy experience, Adarsh met some interesting people: one child who had a stroke, another with a severe back-pain problem, another child with DMD. It was a unique experience for him. As much as the Kottakkal experience gave us hope, paradoxically it also brought us face to face with the bleak prospects of those who suffered from DMD a genetic muscular disorder.
Dr. Ajaikumar describes the hardships faced on the road to realizing the vision for his treatment centers:
“Making money in Indi
a as a physician was impossible, and that’s why my brother and I eventually went to America and was able to send back money to help our family pay back their debt. It seems to be that way in many countries and it is sad that people have to leave their country which could surely use their expertise and talents.”
Dr. Ajaikumar wrote, “After completing my bachelor’s degree in medicine at St John’s, I joined St Martha’s Hospital in Bengaluru as a senior house officer (SHO). Meanwhile, Amar was getting tired of our mounting debts and a life of obligations. He saw going abroad and sending money back home as the only way of helping the family out of this mess. Back then, the rupee-todollar exchange rate was around seven rupees per US dollar. So, Amar emigrated to Chicago to do his residency at Cook County Hospital. There, he worked very hard so he could send money back to India to help our father pay off his debt. He used to moonlight while working as a resident surgeon in Illinois. He would go to different hospitals on weekends to earn extra money. Gradually, with the money sent by Amar, we cleared all the loans and even went on to build one floor above our house. That helped us considerably.” But Dr. Ajaikumar was interested in having clinics in both India and the U.S.
Now he wanted to see the real India, the teeming masses, the everyday lives of common people, the daily struggles and challenges, and how the medical community was dealing with cancer. So, this would be no ordinary visit to India. He wanted to stay in India!
It was around November 1985, after returning from our Himalayan trip, that I decided to travel across India to check out the cancer situation in the country. I asked around, and some doctors I knew suggested places and hospitals to visit. One of the places I visited was the government hospital in Bhopal. At that time, there was no direct flight to Bhopal. I’d have to embark on a circuitous journey of first flying to Mumbai and then taking a train to Bhopal. But I was not deterred. I’m a crazy guy that way: Once I’ve decided on something, I’ll do it at any cost. In a way, my journeys to trek to far-off places in the world were led by this trait as well as reinforced by it. The exploration of cancer in India was one such journey. Just like the treks, this journey of exploration would be fraught with hardships and unforeseen challenges—all of which I loved—but also came with new insights. More importantly, just like trekking, this exploration would teach me more about myself.for six months, starting with a trek in the Himalayas. This would mean travelling to both India and Nepal. Dr. Ajaikumar had to learn all about the many different regions of India in order to do what he wanted -bring modern care for oncology patients.
On one of his trips he took a round of the oncology department. There, he saw an old, broken-down Cobalt unit being used to treat patients. Outside the treatment room, he saw a woman sitting on the ground, fanning her three-year-old baby. When we enquired, he was shocked to know she had been waiting the whole day for her baby to be treated. He was touched by the whole incident. Dr. Ajaikumar had seen the highest levels of treatment and technology at MD Anderson. And here people were waiting in line for over twelve hours just to get some basic treatment, that, too, with dilapidated equipment. The birth of the Bangalore Institute of Oncology In a year, Bharath Hospital was up and running.
My attention had indeed turned to Bengaluru as he wanted to see what could achieve as an entrepreneur. This was not a philanthropic project but a venture, an attempt to start a company of his own. He had been thinking along those lines even before the establishment of the Mysuru hospital. In 1988, in a conference in Los Angeles, he had happened to meet Dr Kilara, who is also an oncologist and was then a junior in college. We sat up till very late and deliberated on plans for starting something in India. We discussed the model to be adopted for a cancer center. Dr. Ajaikumar was keen on two models: one would be a non-for-profit hospital in Mysuru; the other would be a for-profit hospital in Bengaluru, partnering with a group of doctors. The company started in 1989 with the name Bangalore Institute of Oncology (BIO).
Dr. Ajaikumar describes his passion for his life work and writes, “For long, I had set my heart on cardiology, because it had been my favorite subject in medical school. I had been very good at it. I was dead certain I would be specializing in cardiology in the US. At the university hospital, I saw something that changed my mind. Here, I observed cancer patients in wards. They looked like they had no hope. Patients were called ‘victims’, or spoken of as ‘terminal’ cases. Treatments discussed were palliative—which treated only the symptoms and the pain— and never definitive—which treated the root cause of the disease. No one talked of conquering the disease. This reminded me of a similar mindset that used to prevail at St Martha’s Hospital in India, where I had done my senior houseman ship in 1973–74. There, too, cancer had become a terror of mythical proportions. I was struck by how people were treating cancer patients I asked myself: Why not? Why can’t we do anything about cancer? The more I thought about it, the more these questions started haunting me. Cancer is an internal problem, so why can’t it be solved? Why does it cause so much pain? What is this enigma? So, I decided to go deep into it. It was a challenge. A tough challenge. And I was not about to back down. For me, it was settled: I would study oncology and not cardiology.
He was on his way to do his life’s work find treatment and open centers to help people in India and America fight cancer and hopefully one day conquer it.
A story Dr. Ajaikumar tells gives young doctors and indeed all young people the need to develop ones’ sense of integrity and righteousness which is ultimately the sign of a developed soul and healer.
Dr. Ajaikumar tells us what he would like readers of Excellence Has No Borders to take away with them after reading his personal journey to success as a doctor and more importantly a person with heart, soul and integrity.
We want to thank Dr. B.S. Ajaijumar author of Excellence Has Now Borders for sharing a very colorful story of life in India and America sharing the dramatic changing political scene and of course all the changes in your treatment of cancer, as new and hopeful treatments continue to emerge and improve care for the many who contract this illness.
In summarizing today’s episode of Healing From Within Dr. B.S. Ajaikumar has given us a view and perspective of the many life experiences on his journey to becoming a dedicated caring oncologist and pursuing an interest through the many challenges presented by the medical institution in both India and the United States of the social and political obstacles to be overcome to provide cancer care in clinics and how the difficulties that affect the health system and his patients,
Throughout the detailed story of life medicine family curing and living with illness in the family it is clear that we meet many people have many experiences some perceived as good or bad which are actually not either simply experiences that remind us of our inner personal strength to live life fully and courageously and Dr. Ajaikumar shares an eternal truth and writes, “The idea to get PE funding was a game changer for us. We pivoted into a new orbit after this episode. When I think of the contributions of Vasudevan and several other people to HCG and to my life, I recall an important lesson: ‘Never forget what others have done for you, but forget what you have done for others.’ I believe this helps tremendously to simplify things and make human relationships easier to navigate. When you do something for others and they don’t do something in return, you feel miserable. Whereas when you don’t expect anything in return, you’re fine. If people come and ask you to give them one lakh rupees, and you give them the money, you’ll be worried about when they will pay you back. Instead, give them 20 per cent of that with no expectation of return, and automatically the worry goes away. In simple words, do what you can for others, then forget about it. This is the way forward for me, and today this is part of HCG culture and all my personal and financial adventures.
Sheryl Glick, host of “Healing From Within,” Reiki Master Energy Teacher and author of the newest book in a trilogy A New Life Awaits: Spirit Guided Insights to Support Global Awakening and invite you to visit my website www.sherylglick.com to read about and listen to leaders in the metaphysical field, scientific, spiritual, religious, educational and arts and music share heart opening perspectives to understand our multi-dimensional physical and spiritual realties. Shows may also be heard on www.webtalkradio.net and www.dreamviisons7radio.com
