Face to Face | Face to Face: Dr. Amit Chakrabarty & Dr. Hetal Gor on AAPI Convention 2026

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Speaker 1: 00:00

Good evening and welcome to ITV Golden. Today we are having a very very special conversation as we look ahead of APA twenty twenty six in Tampa and I have with me you know a lot of guests and of course we have here Doctor. Padma Shri Recipe and Doctor. Sudhir Parekh who is right here to welcome the guests. I would want you know Doctor.

Speaker 1: 00:22

Parekh to welcome our both guests. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2: 00:26

Hello, this is Doctor. Sudhir Parekh. I'm also a part of the AAPI since inception of the AAPI since last forty five years plus. I would like to welcome current current APRI president, very close friend of mine, very dear friend of mine, and a very eminent, very distinguished urologist as well as is a great leader. And currently, he's a president of the AAPI, and he is very visionary leader, and he has made AAPI or brought the AAPI into different level.

Speaker 2: 01:04

So I would like to welcome doctor Amit Chakrabarty, president of the API to ITV Gold Studio. Welcome, Amit, in our studio. And always, can tell you that our media, media and ITV Gold, you can always count on us for any promotion of any good initiatives and all the activities of the AAPI. AAPI is AAPI is our our kind of in the blood, your blood and my blood, and Hetal Hetal go doctor Gore Gore's blood because we are the one who grew up with the AAPI, and we enjoyed AAPI and all the friendship. So welcome, doctor Amit Chakrabarty, as well as the press chairman of the board of trustee, Hetal Gore, who doctor Hetal Gore, who is a board certified OBGYN, as well as a very strong visionary leader women leader in the tri state area of New York, New Jersey, as well as great community leader and always helping community and communities concerned in the New York, New Jersey area.

Speaker 2: 02:22

So welcome doctor Hetal Gore. She's a great friend of mine, and I'm very, privileged and honored to welcome two good close friend of mine to our studio. So welcome. And, yeah, let's, start the interview.

Speaker 1: 02:38

Absolutely. You know, before I welcome both of them, I wanna say, you know, you guys definitely you guys have made us proud by doing what you are doing today especially you know Hetal I think you really are a role model for so many women out there. But right now let me begin with Doctor. Amit Chakrabarty. You know, Doctor.

Speaker 1: 02:59

Chakrabarty, the question that's coming to my mind is like, how will you position Aapi as a leading voice in U. S. Healthcare policy?

Speaker 3: 03:11

Well, thank you. Thank you for the question and thank you for the kind introduction, Doctor. Parikh First, and ITV and Parikh Network. As Doctor. Parikh told you, I've known him for about thirty plus years.

Speaker 3: 03:25

In fact, I was there I always say this every time I meet him because I was one of the very few people right now present in AAPI who can say this, that I was there in Delhi when he was receiving his his Bhagavashi award in the front row cheering him on. So yes, Doctor. Padig and I go a long way, and we are very, very proud of him. Been Aapi, great leader, great visionary. Having said that, let me answer your question.

Speaker 3: 03:51

Aapi, as you you might know, is the largest ethnic medical organization in The United States, and the second largest medical organization in The United States after AMA. And that makes us a huge, huge We represent about 120,000 physicians and medical students of Indian origin in this country. So that makes us a huge force in shaping health care policies. So we do, there are various things which we promote. Want, we actually, one of the things which we are trying to do is to get a seat at any decision making by World Health Organization and any kind of health care issues in the government.

Speaker 3: 04:39

As you know, we have had Indian physicians as Surgeon General in the past. We also are very proud this year to have in the first time the history of American Medical Association, which is the largest medical organization in the state in this country, as you know. We have the president of AMA is an Indian whose father was a past president of AAPI. So as you know, that is huge. It all it's almost like stars lining up with me being the president and Bobby Mukamala, who's the president of AMA.

Speaker 3: 05:15

He's the president there, and both of us now can can get together and work on issues related to health care, related to the vis visa issues, etcetera, etcetera. So we have got a lot of those things going on. In addition to that, I want to tell you three very important projects we have taken up this year. One of the foremost projects is RP stem cell care drive. When let me introduce this to the speakers.

Speaker 3: 05:46

When you have leukemia, you have your bone marrow is irradiated, you need we used to call it bone marrow transplant. We call it stem cells these days because we don't take it from the bone marrow. We take the peripheral blood, spit it, take the cells which are required, and inject, and give the blood back to the person. What has happened is that when these peoples who need this stem cells, they go to a registry. And that registry, there are very few Indians in this worldwide registry.

Speaker 3: 06:17

So doctor Satish Gathula, past president, who's an oncologist, he started this in USA with the help of a very energetic person called Sashikupala, and we started a stem cell drive to have Indians to put in a donor base. And this donation is nothing. It's not like kidney or any other donation. Just a painful blood, which will be given back to you. And we just take a cheek swab.

Speaker 3: 06:45

And if you're in the donor pool, doesn't have to be that you have to donate. It's just to be on the pool. The reason is that it's very important to know that they you are the lifeline of somebody. One of our own acting members had leukemia. He lives in Wisconsin, and he couldn't find a match.

Speaker 3: 07:04

And his doctor said that the only thing is that next time you have an infection, you'll die. He found luckily his brother in India who had the same, HLA, match, and he could survive. So that's how important it is. What we did it, because we could get only a few people here, obviously, there's an age limit of who can be donors. So we used to go to schools, temples, and get some people to sign up.

Speaker 3: 07:28

But this time we did the Global Health Summit. We do that every year in India, where we take doctors from here and interact with people in physicians in India. There, we launched Stem Cell Dive India, and we got a huge success with association work of an organization called Global Indian American sorry, Global Association of Indian Medical Students. So that's huge. So that's one of the biggest health care things we have done.

Speaker 3: 07:58

In addition to that, we have have RPHPV drive, which is Hemopapillovirus, which causes cervical cancer. There's a vaccine available to prevent that. And then thirdly is we have got childcare initiative. There are various other health care projects we we are doing this year, and I'm glad that it's going good. Thank you.

Speaker 1: 08:20

Thank you so much, doctor Chakrabarty. Let me go to doctor, Hetal Gore. Doctor Gore, since you are in the board, I wanna know, like, how does the board, like, ensure, like, events align with AAPI's long term mission?

Speaker 4: 08:34

Firstly, I want to thank doctor Sudhir Parekh, a dear friend of mine. And I'm actually one of the ITV, you know, media person because I used to have a medical doctor. So ITV is very close to my heart. And doctor Parikh is a really, really true gem of, you know, physician fraternity as well as media and community. We sit on a lot of boards together on Sharon Care and a lot of different organizations.

Speaker 4: 09:00

So our mission and our vision is always aligned. So thank you, doctor Parik, for a warm welcome. And I've never, we've met so many times, but I've never interacted him at the studio. So this is really very special for the chairman and CEO to interview us and and welcome us. So that's that just shows how committed he is to physicians and as well as the community.

Speaker 4: 09:23

So thank you, doctor Parikh. Pia, same here. Thank you for having me. You are a amazing host and and a social person and community person. You're always there for the you know?

Speaker 4: 09:33

So a big shout out to both of you and my ITV family there. Going to your question, Pia, yes. So a lot of people know about the president and and the, you know, the executive committee as such, but lot of people don't know about board of trustees and what it is. So there are two branches of any organization. If you see, there's a executive branch, and there is a board of trustees branch.

Speaker 4: 09:56

So board of trustees have the fiduciary duties. We are supposed to maintain the books of. We are supposed to oversee the long term project, the financial health. If there is any internal dispute, I'm supposed to oversee that. So there are lots of hats we wear.

Speaker 4: 10:14

And so this time, it's a very challenging job because we had some, issues in the past that our finances were not as good. So my duty this year has been very, very, kind of difficult in a way, but also always I like some challenges, and to overcome the challenge kind of makes me, you know, more interested in it. So when I joined as a board of trustees, our board of trustee accounts were frozen, so I got them unfrozen. And that was one of the big things because now we can support our young physicians, our medical student residents with their activities, so we have done that. We also, give out awards to the require like, younger physicians who are doing projects in United States.

Speaker 4: 10:59

So we have the scholarship funds that we support the, you know, the young physicians. And, so now we have had, as Amit mentioned, we are very active also in our PNB, we've added what's called pre medical group. Right? So these are the post grad or or high school students. We are interested in joining medical school.

Speaker 4: 11:19

So we have a big, you know, section now of the pre med students, and those pre med students are the ones we are helping out with scholarship with them about any research. So that's kind of like my big pave that to younger generation to get them involved with the research activity, with scholarly activity. Also, as, Amit mentioned, we have helped them with their h one v visa. You know, there was this whole shortage of doctors, now with the 100 k that they need to get the visa. So we are helping those, you know, residents.

Speaker 4: 11:54

And along with Bobby Mukamla, who is the president of AMA, we go to this congress. We have gone to senators, and we have appealed to them why Indian doctors are not only essential, they are irreplaceable. You know? It's not a luxury anymore because all the small hospital, all different different smaller areas where physician shortage is, like, huge. And this shortage physicians from other countries, especially Indian physician, we have a amazing reputation.

Speaker 4: 12:26

We're helping those young students, with their residency here, with their visa here. So this is kind of, you know, we oversee all that and all the projects. When we went to India for Global Health Summit, we met up with the chief minister of Gujarat, and we introduced, you know, what we gave him, the memorandum of understanding because emergency care in India is not as good. There is not like a ER doctor's there. And, we have amazing leader, doctor Lokech Adhara, who has been very persistent about starting those specialties there, and we have helping, you know, Indian Medical Association along with, you know, the government local governments to introduce such programs and introduce to them why it is important to have emergency doctors and stuff.

Speaker 4: 13:16

So there is various amount of stuff along with the president we do. But as a board, my duty is fiduciary duty. So, also we have to we are raising funds. We are making sure our investments are growing, and we can keep our financing strong so that way we can survive for years to come. And we live up in a great financial, you know, stability for our next generation.

Speaker 4: 13:42

So thank you for that question, Pia.

Speaker 1: 13:43

You know, thank you so much, Hetal. You know, appreciate that insight. But I wanna ask doctor Chakrabarty, you know, since you were talking about challenges, the question that's coming to my mind is like, tell me what are the biggest challenges for like young Indian American physicians? And what's AAPI doing about it? And how is AAPI helping?

Speaker 3: 14:05

Wow, this is a question which is near and dear to my heart. And you've asked the right So let me tell you what we do. There are two or three different things. One is, international medical students who are coming over here for residency programs, and also medical students here who also are trying to get into residency programs. So what we have done is there is we there are different people trying to help in different we we had about 10 different people trying to help, and everyone was doing sort of the same thing.

Speaker 3: 14:44

What I did was we put everybody together under one platform. And the the project actually is being done. AAPI and AAPI QLI, which is Queens And Long Island. They're they have they have things going. Devendra, Shivastar, Parat, Shah, and Himanshipandiya, they've been doing this for a long time.

Speaker 3: 15:08

So what that is is that we have got a database of mentors who actually are willing to take on students or pre med students who come over and observe with give them some certificates or give them some letters so that they can match into residency programs. But previously what was happening, it was only word-of-mouth and it was very difficult for a person, a student from India or a student here try to get a good mentor who can who can take them on. This we have we have done announced together. So this website gets the students matched with the mentor. Are using AI to do the first part to get the match together and then go take it to the next step.

Speaker 3: 15:56

In addition to that, in the same website, we brought research part into it together. So people who want to do research write papers on peer reviewed articles, peer review journals, they can actually contact this particular tool, the same website, they can do that. And thirdly is webinars. Monthly webinars where we get experts who advise them on the art of interview. We get program directors from different programs who actually select residency residents.

Speaker 3: 16:28

We have them come and tell them that, hey. This is what we are looking for. This makes you stand out from the rest. We even are planning to conduct some mock interviews for people to understand that. So that process.

Speaker 3: 16:42

Then we have another series of thing. How to get interviews? What are the things which you get interviews? How do you get through the visa process? What makes you make sure that your visa is not canceled?

Speaker 3: 16:57

So these are the things which we are trying to do right now. But I will be amiss if I do not mention a feather on our cap, our piece cap when I started first day when we took over a thing, our our on July, you remember j one, there was a j one blockade. J one visas are what most of these students come over here with who they come for residency. Well, there was a blockade of j one visas. And before I got to the presidency in June, AMA in the with the help of Bobby McCormack had started doing the process, and they got the j a one embargo lifted.

Speaker 3: 17:39

But Indian students were not getting the visa slots, So they reached out to us desperately, and thanks to a lot of people, including doctor Bharat Braai and a few other people, we got in touch with Indian US embassy in India and secretary of state wrote multiple letters. And, you know, what was interesting is that Pakistan, China, everyone got their visas interview slots for India's and their program directors were saying that if you do not come within this month, we're gonna give your spot away. But I'm proud to say all the one sixty four people got the visa interview slots, and and that was a Convention. Feather on the cap. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 18:22

And, also, we we also are helping on the h one b visa. There's a bipartisan bill on the floor where we have sent messages out to our members to write to the senators and ask them to vote in favor of lifting this h one b visa embargo of $100,000 per applicant or per person coming in. So all these two other things going on in that, like Hetal had mentioned, but I wanted to just give you some details so that the viewers may know what's going on.

Speaker 1: 18:56

Thank you so much. So my next question, you know, guys, let's now talk about the event, the Tampa Convention, the twenty twenty six Tampa Convention. And my question is for, doctor, Hetal. So tell me why is Tampa Convention a must attend for everybody?

Speaker 4: 19:13

So firstly, people who know me and Amit, they all know that we love good entertainment, be any kind of entertainment. So we are both very party people, but the Tampa is amazing place, firstly. The city of Tampa has welcomed us with open arms. You know, of in 2021 when I had done women's, convention there, city of Tampa really, really was so impressed with physician fraternity and Indians, and they had hosted IFAI in the past. So they wanted us to bring a convention there.

Speaker 4: 19:46

So this is an amazing city with with waterfront, with all sorts of activities. So it's Chelo, Tampa. So that's that's one of the location. It's over the fourth of July weekend. So, you know, most of us are free, so you can come with your family, your kids.

Speaker 4: 20:01

And so there is entertainment for all kinds. But apart from the entertainment, we have world class CME. We have amazing speakers. So what I tell people, what what is there to lose here? Right?

Speaker 4: 20:13

You're getting education. You're coming with your family. You're meeting amazing friends. You are reconnecting to your old alumni friends. You are making new friends, and you are having a world class cuisine.

Speaker 4: 20:26

And in the evening, we have entertainment of different kinds for different people. So it's like all in one. We do meditation, yoga in the morning, then we go for product theater where you learn about different products. Then we go for educational meetings. Then in the afternoon, we have amazing luncheon.

Speaker 4: 20:43

During luncheon, we have CEOs come. We have, you know, spiritual leaders have come. And then in the afternoon, again, we have some teaching and some meetings, and the evening is relaxation, amazing gala. And so there's nothing to lose. So I will shout out to all physician and, you know, anybody who has health care related stuff.

Speaker 4: 21:04

It's just not only for physician. In the past, when I was, you know, co chair at Marriott Markey and in Atlantic City, a lot of my friends who are pharmacists, who are physical therapists, dentists. So it's welcome because it's a network of physician under one roof. So please come. Enjoy the hospitality, and we love everybody, all our viewers to be and, also, if you have any businesses, right, if you have jewelry, you are doing clothing, please, we have booths there.

Speaker 4: 21:35

You know, I'll you'll be surprised how many of my friends who had booth at APY have made this lifelong customers and you know, because physicians are coming to an age where their kids are getting married. And all their shopping, sometimes they do because some of the physician come from small towns, and they don't have access like us in Tri State. So they love to buy Indian jewelry, Indian clothing. So if you have any business, please just reach out to us. It's apusa.org or a p convention website that Amit is gonna talk about, and you can just figure out what way you can come in what category, in what membership, what level, and if you want both, all the inform

Speaker 1: 22:17

Yes. We have here, doctor Parikh. So, doctor Parikh, I know you wanna say few words, before we say goodbye. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2: 22:23

Sure. It's very nice and really I'm very pleased to hear our young leaders, Doctor. Chakrabarty and Doctor. Hetal Gore, are preparing a great convention in the month of July in Tampa. And really, we are very and personally, I'm really proud of Amit and Hetal because they are very close friend of mine, and their service to AAPI is is excellent and very exemplary.

Speaker 2: 22:57

Amit and Hetal, as a president of the global physician of Indian origin worldwide, myself and as a senior leader, I would like to say that you can always count on me personally and our particular media and ITV Gold for any promotion, any publicity, any PR or any things, good thing initiative to propagate, we are there at your service. So we'll see you again in Tampa in July, and I I urge all the physician community in the North North America, please come to AAPI Convention and tell your friends to come with the family to AAPI Convention and enjoy the AAPI AAPI AAPI celebrate convention and all their festivity.

Speaker 3: 23:52

Thank thank you, doctor Parikh. I mean, I I I couldn't have said it better. Thank you so much. You've been a long term stalwart of AAPI. AAPI is the only organization which represents all of us from each corner of the country of India, and this is your convention.

Speaker 3: 24:08

And you have to make it great. And I would really thank Doctor. Parekh offering to make this known to people to please come over here and let's all get together and live as, you know, together. We are Indians. We are all Indians here.

Speaker 3: 24:27

We we may speak different languages, wear different clothes when we are in India, but here we are all American. We are all Americans of Indian origin. That's all.

Speaker 1: 24:38

Hetal, would you wanna add something to it, please?

Speaker 4: 24:41

Absolutely. Thank you so much, doctor Parikh, for your open arms and welcoming us and helping us guide through. We need senior leaders like you to take us to the next level. And I know you've always been with whatever projects I've done. You've always been so supportive.

Speaker 4: 24:56

So I'm grateful to have a senior person like you that I can call our friend. And, and thank you for supporting Api at this time of crisis that, you know, we need people like you to come and and bring unity together and be there for us and guide us through. So thank you, doctor Parikh, and thank you, Pia, for amazing interview and giving us this opportunity to talk about AAPI because a lot of community person don't know what we do as physicians in in AAPI. So I hope we've shed some light about the projects we do, how we help young physician, how we help community. We didn't get chance about how much we have done during COVID time and how we help the communities.

Speaker 4: 25:37

And the parents of our our our, you know, American Indians who were stuck here, how we help. So Api goes above and beyond. We do the, you know, the blanket drive, the, you know, stem cells, the HPV, the child. We do a lot of initiative as well. So we just don't party and have fun, but we do education.

Speaker 4: 25:57

We do governance. We work with the legislator. So we need media to help us spread the word. So thank you for being a media partner and helping us. Thank you.