People you should know 2/4

Key responsibilities: Medical management of hospitalized patients.

How long have you lived in Cape Girardeau? Seven months.

Original hometown: Coimbatore, India.

Education: Medical degree, American Board of Internal Medicine.

Community involvement: Islamic Center of Cape Girardeau, American MENSA Missouri chapter.

Professional background: Completed medical school in India, residency in Chicago area and have practiced medicine in three countries and five cities. Cape and Southeast Hospital has been the best!!

Name a Cape Girardeau businessperson you admire and why: Jim Wente, administrator, Southeast Hospital -- for his honesty, straight-forwardness and down-to-earth personality. Jim, I mean it.

Last book read: "The Seat of the Soul" by Gary Zukav (still reading).

What you wanted to be when you were a child: An astronaut.

How you chose this career: I couldn't pass up the opportunity to become the only physician in my whole family. I liked the challenge of accomplishing that in a field in which I thought was not my talent.

Biggest obstacle you've overcome and how: To get in and out of medical school with some hard work and a lot of luck.

Your best advice to someone new in your field: Don't come in for the money. It's the least important. Satisfaction of practicing good medicine is worth more than I can describe.

Hobbies, interests: Travel to exotic non-tourist places, tennis, flying.

Accomplishments you're most proud of: A)Having best of friends from all across the world -- all races, all religions, all cultures; B)surviving a gruesome trip across remote parts of India, not knowing the language nor culture, with very little money and events involving life and death -- "Survivor" show on CBS in comparison would be a cake walk; C) and qualifying for High I.Q. societies, American MENSA (I.Q. requirement above 98th percentile) and INTERTEL (IQ requirement above 99th percentile).

Secret ambition: To travel around the world.

Top-secret ambition: To be an astronaut! Childhood dreams never die!!

NEXT WEEK: BRAD JOHNSON OF JOHNSON INSURANCE GROUP

WHO DO YOU KNOW?

If you know someone who should be featured in "People You Should Know," contact Scott Moyers at 335-6611, extension 137, or by e-mail at smoyers@semissourian.com.