Niti Agarwal

I believe my foundation in childhood, from a family that really put education at the forefront of everything, along with values and morals. My mother was a trailblazer. She was one of the few women in her field of science. She was a PhD in science, and watching her be a girl boss really helped me shape my destiny. I also had really good mentors along the way, who I watched balance both a life in medicine and a family life, because sometimes finding that balance can be tough. I think it's really who you surround yourself with, and who's kind of helped imbibe those values as you're growing older.

I have received a lot of good career advice from amazing mentors, so it's hard to say just one piece. One important piece is to take care of yourself and not get burned out, because we work in a profession where you see a very high rate of burnout, especially after COVID. A lot of physicians, over 20% of our workforce, has left the career of medicine. It's kind of the idea of putting your oxygen mask before putting your child's on. I think it's really important in the field of medicine to take time to do things outside of our field to de-stress, whether it's meditation, social interactions with friends, traveling, hiking, getting a dog, whatever it is. The other thing that we follow as doctors is the Hippocratic Oath, which is to do no harm. I think sometimes in medicine there's been a lot of mistrust in the field, and I think if you constantly have your moral compass on, and ethically you know what you're doing is the right thing, then you know you're gonna do well. But if money or profit or something else is in your mindset, then it's not the right field. I take both those pieces of advice very seriously.

I would say to be very mindful about why you're going into the field. The purpose is really important. The question of what medicine or science will provide for you, because the field is constantly evolving, and a lot of people are burned out, and a lot of people feel that it's difficult to maintain a life in science or doctoring along with having a family. But everything is possible if it's something they truly are passionate about and enjoy, and are picking the field for the right reason, whether it's a curiosity in science, whether it's trying to solve a problem in medicine that hasn't been solved before, whether it's a personal story. I know a lot of people who suffer from illness, and then they had a great experience with a doctor, and they want to provide that same care for someone else. Whatever that internal motivation is, it really needs to be driven not only by the mind, but the heart.

I think the biggest challenge is not just one issue, which is why this is not an easy problem to fix. One is insurance reimbursements. We really do have to fight with insurance companies sometimes to get what patients really need, and that takes time, and a lot of times it doesn't end to the patient's satisfaction or the doctor's satisfaction. Also, there's a lot more pressure to see more patients in a given day, and this is in every field. I think when you try to overburden or overload someone's schedule, you inevitably can miss things or have less time with the patient, and that causes difficulties in long-term care. And obviously artificial intelligence, you can't be in 2026 not talking about AI. I think it's important to use AI in a smart way in medicine, and not to be in lieu of seeing a physician and getting a physical exam. The biggest problem in medicine is that we're all paying a lot of money for insurance, and things cost a lot of money. Reimbursements have gone down for physicians, so hospitals are trying to figure out ways to cut costs. They still need to pay their CEO $8 million, so somewhere has to go. The people at the very top, the CEOs, the vice presidents, whether it's a hospital or an insurance company, are making millions of dollars in bonuses and pay structure, and yet they are cutting costs when it comes to patient care and simple things that could make a physician's life much easier. Medicine has turned into a very profit-demanding field. We pay so much money for healthcare, and yet we are so far below the list in the healthiest countries in the world. If people want doctors to not burn out, they should be putting that money towards making patient care better, whether it's doctors having a scribe so that they have somebody typing as they talk.