Ep 52: Living the American Dream with Dr. Shehzad Batliwala

Physicians come from diverse backgrounds and have many passions.  This is a special 2-part interview series to celebrate the Fourth of July at the Dare to Dream Physician.   I interview an extraordinary guest who shares his poignant immigrant story and honestly reflects on the challenges and gains he has experienced from childhood to adolescence, and now in adulthood.  We dive into profound reflections on:

❤️ The importance of our family origin story and appreciation of our cultural upbringing.
❤️ The reality of mental illness and its effects on families and children.
❤️ The balance between honoring our responsibilities to our loved ones and our individual freedom.
❤️ The awareness of how childhood trauma can drive our life decisions as an adult, even after the sources of the trauma are gone.
❤️ The moment of recognizing a void in our life when we reach a long-awaited goal.

I love this phenomenal conversation with Dr. Shehzad Batliwala, who is an ophthalmologist and entrepreneur.  He is the man behind Visionary Doc, with multiple passions in medicine, politics, technology, and space.

Listen to part 1 of this inspiring conversation on this week's episode of the Dare to Dream Physician Podcast!

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Dr. Shehzad Batliwala and Visionary Doc:

Visionary Doc
https://visionarydoc.com/

@visionary_doc on Twitter
https://twitter.com/visionary_doc

@visionary.doc on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/visionary.doc/

Transcript

Dr. Gray, Host 0:00

Welcome back to another episode of the dare to dream physician podcast. I am so excited for this conversation today. I was telling you guys when I meet somebody or when I read a piece of work from somebody that really inspires me, you know, I asked them to be on the podcast. So this is exactly what happened with this guest. His name is Dr. Shahzad back to Walla and he is just such an amazing person. And sometimes, it's pretty cool. How much a person comes across in just, a page of writing that they have. and so when I read his story that he shared, I just, I knew I had to ask him to be on the podcast and I have to say, not to brag, but I've never regretted going on that instinct to, get to know somebody when I have that sort of light bulb reaction and. I'm super excited about the conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Dr. Shazad.

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 0:59

Yeah. I haven't given you, man. You're a really hyping me up. I love those comments and thank you So, much for taking the time. There's an awesome.

Dr. Gray, Host 1:09

Yeah. So, you've shared with me part of your story and, it's such a touching story and it's one that often doesn't get told so I would love for you to just start telling us a little bit about yourself. you're a physician, you're an ophthalmologist but that's the tip of the iceberg. tell us a little bit about, your family of origin and your story growing up.

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 1:33

Yeah, sure. um, I'm an ophthalmologist in private practice. I worked part-time and Tulsa. And, my family and I immigrated to the us when I was seven years old, back in 1997, from India, from Mumbai India. my dad came to the states basically to pay off a ton of debt that he had, passed on from his ancestors back home in India. And he came to the states to essentially provide myself and my sister with a shot at a really good education and a good life. Typical

Dr. Gray, Host 2:04

Um,

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 2:04

we want to live the American dream. And so he comes here, and he was working, really hard, multiple jobs, night shifts. And he worked as a pizza delivery guy and butcher and all sorts of things just to make ends meet and in doing so he, basically. Kind of neglected or forgotten to apply for the green card. And so our entire family became undocumented, very early on in my childhood. you can imagine it's very difficult to make ends meet and, to really provide a secure sense of living for your family without a green card, without a social security number, right. It becomes really challenging. And so that's essentially How my childhood and into adolescence that's how life was. I our conversations at the dinner table were all about, how pressed things were financially. and how, um, at any moment, basically our family could get disrupted because of the immigration, issues, and the risk of my father being deported, back to India. So that issue loomed over my head for a very long time. We're moving into now adolescents and, that's when the first iPhone launched and in me trying to figure out, well, what can I do? what can I do here to support my family financially with my dad's immigration issues. Now I'm the eldest of the family, the only son. And so I took it upon myself to, be the hero for the fat, right. That's what you do in the Indian culture.

Dr. Gray, Host 3:36

How old were you then?

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 3:39

um, my dad was picked up by immigration officials when I was about 13. Um, and so since that point forward, I was the main point of contact to handle the immigration issues. And then a few years later, the iPhone had launched. So the reason I bring that up is because I basically. Took it upon myself to figure out how it can support my family at least financially at that time. I would I would do weird things like I would make ringtones and I would sell ringtones at the mall and I would burn CDs and sell them at the mall. And then the iPhone launched. And I figured out how to repair a broken screen on an iPhone cause I broke mine. And one thing led to another and I grew up in a small town in Tyler, Texas. So nobody really was providing this type of service there. And so I became like the go-to guy on Craigslist to fix broken phones. Um, and

Dr. Gray, Host 4:30

how old were you then?

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 4:32

I started that when I was like 17, 18 years old, um, the I-phones and then? the, ringtones and stuff before that. So one thing led to another and I, my dad had a jewelry shop in the mall, at the time and I would call all my customers to the jewelry. off of Craigslist and I was probably making more money at some points, fixing phones out of my dad's jewelry shop and he was selling jewelry, you know, so at that point we were like, okay, there's something here. We should explore this further. So we essentially got together and opened up some retail stores. and now there are six retail stores under that franchise. It's called smartphone, ER, all in east, Texas. And that was really my first foray into entrepreneurship. in high school and into college, that changed my family's life completely. My dad shut down the jewelry stores and basically just started managing the cell phone repair stores. I was doing all the repairs initially and I trained our employees. And so it really grew into, something that, helped pay for my medical school. They paid for my parents' expenses. It was a life-changing thing that happened. but you know, I was always. motivated to go to medical school. my mom was diagnosed with a mental illness, schizophrenia and bipolar, actually right around the same time that my dad was picked up by immigration. So, those, those early teen years were super stressful, like 13, 14 years old. And so I was again, the quarterback, to, to figure out, you know, what was going on with my mom to get her the help and to have visits with psychiatrists and all of that, along with the immigration stuff and the phones. and so that early team, experience was very stressful, but through it, I realized that medicine is really cool, What happens in a person's mind that makes them show those schizophrenia type of symptoms? I mean, I was just really fascinated with mental health and the human mind. Um and my parents would always say, Urged me to pursue medicine, you know, that's typical Indian family, right. You're going to be a lawyer engineer or a doctor. And so I was always on the medical school track. It's probably why I named the business smartphone, ER, um, and so I, I, applied to medical school, got in, did really well throughout my dad was managing the cell phone stores. And then through residency, I decided to apply for ophthalmology residency. So I did ophthalmology residency. And a lot of other things happened in between that time period as well. But, I'll stop there and see if you have any other questions you wanna ask.

Dr. Gray, Host 7:05

Oh, I have so many questions. So you know I come from an immigrant family too, I came to this country actually when I was eight years old. and my dad, had actually immigrated to the U S first, right before I was born. he wasn't even there for my birth, then my mom and I came, eight years later, so I, you know, I think I had a lot easier than you. You know, by the time that I came to the U S my dad had done a lot of the hustling and hard work of an immigrant, you know, coming from no money. your dad came from debt right. Came to, to run away from debt. My family was, we just, we didn't have nobody had debt cause nobody would lend anybody money because nobody had money and communist, communist China. um, so, I would hear his stories about how, he didn't have a car or his car broke down. The bus stopped running. So he would just walk on the highway and it was the only person walking on the highway from his job to, the basement that he rented. And so I always grew up loving immigrant stories. yeah, I was an immigrant, the hardest job I had to do. Really learned English and, the, and then, of course got made fun of in school because I was different. And, In your case though, you went through a lot more ups and downs, a lot more instability. And what I am always so fascinated by is that, that resilience in immigrants. And I'm not saying like, all immigrants are resilient because mental illness is real it's not like everybody came here and they just suffered and they made it through. Cause you know, people do get hospitalized, they do have mental breakdowns. and that's a very real part of it. But the theme that I keep hearing as you're talking about your childhood and your adolescence, is that you had to make things work out of necessity. And I'm just so curious, especially when your dad had lost his documents and the whole family became undocumented and around the same time your mom also had her mental breakdown. How did that feel to you? you were a teenager, that's a very different experience than most, adolescents in the U S what was that like that time in your life?

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 9:07

Yeah, thank you for asking that. I've thought about that a lot. That was a very stressful time of my life. And I think what came from that is that I basically just grew up, Way earlier than maybe I was supposed to or shuttle. Right. I had to be the adult, in the household to help my family, I just felt this very strong sense of, I don't know, loyalty or love, or I dunno what the word is, but I just knew that I had to be there for my family because I love my parents. why wouldn't you? and so I think I probably took it upon myself to realize that, Hey, look, I can't screw around. a lot of my teenage friends, they were out partying and drinking and, you know, the typical things that teenagers do, right? mean, there's a phase in your life where you need to go through those things and get it out of your system. And the earlier the better. Right. And for me, I just skipped that phase because I couldn't afford to mess around and, get a DUI or something like that. I basically had to be the guy that could be dependable and reliable for my family, because if I did my sisters, six years younger than me, and so she's not going to do it. And my dad needs help with his immigration stuff. My mom is mentally sick. So out of a family of four, that leaves you right as the go-to guy. And so I just adopted that role embracing. And I think it came at the expense of a lot of my childhood and adolescent years. Um, and you know, that sounds like a soft story or whatever, but I think that I'm better for it because you said the word resilient, resilience and persistence and perseverance really are traits that define me. Because I remember a time I was studying for step one is instantly step one, which is arguably one of the most challenging tests that, us doctors have to go through. And, at the same time, I was writing a letter to a Congressman to help my dad. Get his, what we call stay of deportation to basically prevent him from getting deported, to prevent the ice office from executing his deportation order. I was writing a letter to the congressmen that helped with that. I was, I think, writing a letter to the psychiatrist to communicate with him how my mom is doing on her medicines. Cause we had a lot of challenges with that, but she was on lithium. She was on Abilify. nothing really worked. and finally Cyprexit olanzapine is really what helped her. And that period of my life sucked because I'm studying for step one, stressing above that, trying to help my dad and not getting important, trying to make sure my mom's okay. And then the, smart one, ER, I was doing some of the higher level decision making for the business as well to try to support my dad and the business. So that's a lot to take on, I was able to do that because I was used to that level of stress, um, my entire life. And so now, even now, I think I'm better for it because when stress comes at me now, it just, it takes a lot for me to break down or panic. I I still I'm human just like everybody else. what may be like extremely stressful to someone may not be as stressful to me because my threshold for stress has always been super high. So I think that's one good thing that, that came out of that, you know?

Dr. Gray, Host 12:31

yeah, that's really amazing. And really admirable. What, um, I'm so fascinated by is that, your story of, going through their struggles as an immigrant and then coming to the other side, I'm so fascinated by the resilience, the persistence, and you didn't say this, but I think part of it is, being able to compartmentalize. I found myself having those characteristics, not to the same intensity as yours, cause I didn't have to struggle as much as you did, but I did, use those characteristics to get myself through medical school and through residency. And what I'm so curious by is, you're grateful for having that experience and you've grown a lot as a human from that experience, but is there anything where you feel like, then there's a balance, right? and It's very interesting in a cultural context too, because Western culture is very much individualistic, right? what's our true dream. what is it that, we're really meant to do? It's all about me, me, me, right. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's just how the culture is tuned to. And whereas in other cultures, like the culture that you come from and I come from, it's very family oriented, it's very community oriented. And so I love to hear about, you know, because you've grew up in the U S have had so many responsibilities, where, you were loyal to your family and work so hard, for not just yourself, but your family. how you balance that are you continuing in, in just, working towards more financial security and, shouldering more responsibility, or are you also discovering this other side of yourself now that you have made it?

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 14:05

Yeah, that's a really good question. And, how do you know you've made it? right? That's the million dollar question in life? Yeah, no, I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean, what you're asking. And I think the one word that comes to mind, is boundaries, right? Having a boundary because, for all intents and purposes, really, I have lived my entire life. Until very recently for my family. You know, I, think it's fair that you can say that. Uh, and I, I'm in therapy. I talked to her therapist, I think everyone should have a therapist. I think there is a lot of stigma around the T word. But I think there are P is so absolutely essential and crucial to understand who you are like w what makes you tick? Where are you coming from? There's so much baggage that we all carry that we don't necessarily get time to reflect on and process in this busy world that we live in and therapy is a dedicated time for me to do myself to care. So I love my therapist and I love therapy. and in my therapy sessions, we're talking about boundaries. Because for all intents and purposes, I've lived my life for my family. Well, what do I mean by that? Well, I basically took it upon myself to care for my family financially, with the cell phone repair business, I took it upon myself to help with whatever I had to do to help my dad get his green card. I can write an entire book about just immigration process, right? There are so many details there. I will spare you the number of courts and judges and lawyers and stuff that we've had to interact with. I pretty much have a minor in immigration law. I can guarantee you that I can help you get a us citizenship. and. And then I took it upon myself to help with my mom's illness. And so, in doing that, you become enmeshed with your family. In our case, there was almost a period of time where there was a role reversal where I considered myself to be the parent,

Dr. Gray, Host 16:03

I,

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 16:05

which is not a normal scenario or an emotion. but again, I did what I had to do to help my family at the time. And that's probably arguably one of the reasons why I always just kept my head down and charged through college and med school and residency and everything else without really thinking if this is truly what I want to do, cause I didn't have time to think, I don't have time to think I was busy caring for my family

Dr. Gray, Host 16:34

Um,

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 16:34

and putting out fires constantly.

Dr. Gray, Host 16:37

and it was part of their hope for you too, right? I think you said that is, you know, being a physician is as part of their, you, their son being a physician as part of their pride,

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 16:47

It's part of their pride and that's the dream they had for me. So I was busy putting out fires and helping them in their lives and also living out their dream of me becoming a doctor. Right. But in all of this, you'll notice, I never once said, was this really what I wanted? I don't know that I still don't know the answer to that question. I was fascinated by the human mind because of my mom's mental illness. But does that mean that you go and become a doctor? I don't know, maybe I could have became a psychologist or something. And so what did I do? I went through medical school and I really enjoyed medical school. It was really fun. I'm a naturally curious person. I just love learning. And so I just loved the process of learning. I've always loved working with my hands. And so I'm like, okay, what can I do in medicine? That's technically challenging and super competitive. Cause that's important to me, my pride. Right. I want to do something that's. And now I've learned, like that's not necessarily the right way to think about life, right? Not everything in life needs to be like this gung-ho intense competition that you got to win at all costs. But that's how I played the game. so I picked I'm a DEO, um, and I was the first deal that was accepted to my MD ophthalmology program, my residency. And so that, that kind of tells you how driven and intense I was at the time. And so I chose ophthalmology and, I say it's because I love working with my hands and it's really cool to bring vision back to people and help people see better. All those things are true. But if I'm going to be really honest with you right now, I think a lot of it was driven by money trauma, right by this financial insecurity that I grew up with that, that, success is equated in my mind, in my family boards and in my culture to how much money you can. Plain and simple bottom line. So my decisions subconsciously at least were driven by money. we're going to, to the highest paying specialty in medicine, Going into the highest paying subspecialty within ophthalmology, which is refract conservative. all of those things I think were driven in part by this need to feel financially secure because I know what it feels like to not be financially secure as a child and the child in me just doesn't want to feel that ever again. Right. and so, in the middle of COVID, I was in my residency and my dad's immigration journey was coming to an end. We had done a lot of legwork for it, here, already. And he was just supposed to go to India and go to the U S con. and within two weeks to three weeks, he was just supposed to get his green card stamped and come back to the country. That was the goal, right? It's after 20 something years, 25 years or so. That's where the, agenda had brought us. He was just supposed to go to India, get his green card, come back. Well, he lands in February of 2020, and there are people wearing masks everywhere. And he's like, Hey, what's going on? when you called me on the phone and I'm like, I don't know, there's something about a virus. And he goes to the U S consulate. His interview, I believe was on February 27th or something like that. And they're like, okay, you'll hear from us in two weeks. Well, in two weeks, March 16th, I remember the date president Trump said that COVID is a national emergency and, all the consulates shut down.

Dr. Gray, Host 20:15

Um,

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 20:17

my dad couldn't get it stamped to come back to the country in the middle of my residency. And overnight I became in charge of smartphone, ER, the family business, and all of that trauma from the past kept kept running back, Came running back. You know, my mom's alone here in the country, our mental health may be compensated I'm in the middle of my residency, busy residency. my dad's in India got employees up, got to support now what the heck is going to happen. And so anyway, what I'll spare you the details, but basically what was supposed to take two, three weeks ended up taking about 18 months. So he came back August of 2021. Okay. And by this time I had graduated residency, on my residency graduation day. he was on his iPad, chiming in from India. And I took a picture. I remember the picture like my mom was standing next to me, my sister, and I'm holding the iPad with him on there. And he was like, he was crying cause he couldn't be here, from my residency graduation. So anyways, so he comes back two months after that, August of 20, 21 and a day before his birthday. So you can't make this stuff up. And so when he came with his green card and I can't explain to you how that felt. I just felt like this entire, this weight just lifted off my shoulder. Because this thing that we were after for 25 years, we finally got it. We finally had the green card.

Dr. Gray, Host 21:36

Wow.

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 21:37

And that left a void in me, of what do I do now?

Dr. Gray, Host 21:41

Um,

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 21:41

the stresses are over for all intents and purposes, you know? And so anyway, I say all that to say that after that point is when I really woke up and started living for myself.

Dr. Gray, Host 21:55

mm.

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 21:56

Because then I really didn't need to live for my family and mine. They got his, he got his green card. Um, he was back in the states, so you could handle the family business again. and I could finally, for the first time, really in my life that I remember I could finally breathe and just figure out what I wanted to do in life. And that's where the boundaries are important. Because I basically erased all boundaries my entire life. It was just, whatever needed to happen for my family. I was.

Dr. Gray, Host 22:24

Um,

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 22:25

But at some point it starts to take a toll on, you started to take a toll on my relationship with my parents. Right? Cause you know, resentment and those things, those are powerful emotions that start to set in a little bit.

Dr. Gray, Host 22:39

oh, I love that. You said that because for me, resentment is always a guide that I use to determine. How I want to have my relationships, right? Because if I find myself feeling resentful, then that's when I start questioning, the boundaries actually is a really good way of thinking about it. I start questioning if this is making me feel resentful, how do I, what do I do differently? So I don't feel resentful because I don't want to feel resentful to where my loved ones.

Dr. Shehzad Batliwala 23:03

A hundred percent. that is so much wiser than myself, because it took me a very long time to understand that, Because I, that was brewing for a long time and, I would lash out and be irritated and I just never knew what that meant. I really couldn't process my emotions. Um, and just, going through therapy and all of that, I'm starting to realize what it means to have some boundaries in place and, get away from resent for relationships and kind of start living for yourself for once. that's the long-winded answer. I think to your question is I'm just teaching myself boundaries and learning about that. and that brought me to this awareness that man I've been living my entire life chasing essentially security from money, I have intense money trauma, and I'm basically living my life, um running away from that problem, which is why I'm chasing refractive surgery and all these things.

Dr. Gray, Host 24:04

This is the perfect story for the celebration of independence day in America. I really didn't wanna end this episode because it's just so good, but we have to have a sequel for you to look forward to. So stay tune. This story gets even more phenomenal in part two. Um, in the meantime, you can find Dr. Shazad Batal at his website, visionary do.com and his Instagram and Twitter handles are also visionary doc. next time. You're not gonna wanna miss part two. I promise it's even better than this episode.