A hospitalist who shapes future docs

Growing up, Dr. Devang Gujarathi was the boy who always had a book in his hands. And while a student at UNC Chapel Hill, he explored eight majors before settling on two--economics and biology.

With his degree in hand, he went to work with a small consulting company, and for two years, traveled to different cities to help customers manage their supply chains. But he didn’t like sitting in back rooms with computers. “I missed the sciences, and I missed people,” he says. “I knew I would go back to school one day.”

And he did--to medical school.

After graduation, he did a variety of clinical rotations before choosing an internal medicine residency at a Chicago hospital. He liked the urgency of treating sick patients, the challenge of getting them well as quickly as possible, and the creative problem-solving required when standard treatments don’t work.    

Today, Gujarathi is part of the hospitalist group managing round-the-clock care for patients at the Smithfield and Clayton hospitals. He’s also the director of student medical education at Johnston, helping shape third- and fourth-year students from the Campbell University School of Osteopathic Medicine.

In fact, students say the Johnston site is their preferred clinical rotation site, out of the 12 available to them.

Gujarathi attributes the program’s popularity to the friendly and engaged physician preceptors and to Renee Lett, medical education specialist, who takes the students under her wing. Both share a wholistic approach to the students’ education by integrating life skills, personal finances, fiscal responsibility, and even work/life balance.

For his part, Gujarathi teaches students how to negotiate salaries and to look for tuition reimbursements to help with education expenses. A survey by the Association of American Medical Colleges said 68 percent of medical school grads last year had student loan debt for medical school, and the median amount owed was $200,000.

At the bedside, Gujarathi educates his young adult patients, too. With changes in diet, habits and lifestyle, there’s still time to halt the progression of their disease, he says. And he feels rewarded when they leave the hospital determined to follow a healthy regimen.

“You get a good feeling when you can change lives,” he says.

Pictured: Dr. Devang Gujarathi and Brittney Langdon, RN, share a light moment with one of their patients.