Life Changing Moments: Preparing for Serendipity, with Dr. Babak Mokari

Transcript

[0:00] We have sort of created this golden handcuff situation for ourselves where we are, you know, we’re in a lot of debt and we have, you know, we have a lifestyle that we have sort of, gotten, you know, comfortable with. And then, so if we’re ever faced with some, major decision from an employer, we can’t really do a whole lot about it because it’s going to affect our life, livelihood, our comfort, you know, and so many things are sort of at stake that then we feel like we’re sort of forced into just then just trying to adapt to whatever is sort of you know put on our laps. There are times in our lives that change the way we see the world. Navigating these challenges can take insight, trusted confidants, or even a coach. Let’s explore those moments. In.

[0:47] This companion podcast to Rx for Success, we will discover ways to learn and write our own success stories together. I’m Dr. Dale Waxman, a physician coach with MD coaches and this is life-changing moments My guest today is Dr. Babak Mukherjee. Babak is an integrative medicine physician in solo practice in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr. Mukherjee trained in osteopathic medicine, completed a family medicine residency, and has added several skills including acupuncture and wilderness medicine to the many therapies he offers patients. He’s also held leadership positions in the local medical society.
His path into medicine story is chronicled in Rx for Success podcast number 155 and you can find that on any podcast search engine.
In that podcast, Babak discussed the many twists and turns in his professional career, which included exploring or working in optometry, ophthalmology, orthopedics, radiology, and.

[1:57] Even investment banking.
I invited Babak back to discuss the qualities he possesses that enabled him to make these shifts seemingly with ease.
Full disclosure, Dr. Mukari and I have known each other since he was a family medicine resident in the same program where I served as a faculty member.
Further, we have maintained a friendship since then, and I’ve also been a grateful patient of his.
So, Babak, welcome to Life-Changing Moments. Thanks, Dale. It’s a pleasure.

[2:29] Thank you. So, first of all, for those who did not tune in to that first podcast, the Rx for Success, can you tell us just a little bit about your practice situation, you know.

[2:40] What you do and where you are?
Sure, thanks. I’m actually in the ninth year now of being in private practice. So, back in 2014 is when I took the big leap after a couple of years of researching and looking at practice models of integrative medicine practices around the country and interviewing with some of the the medical directors and practice managers of these different practices around the country and deciding which direction I wanted to take for the practice. You mentioned from the previous podcast, I talk about this integrative medicine practice that I had joined after residency with Russ Greenfield and that was an excellent platform and model for me to gain a lot of experience about what I thought worked really well in that particular setting and what were some of its its limitations and so, that experience itself and then interviewing some of these other practices around the country gave me at least a good starting point and as I think any entrepreneur would attest, there’s things that you have ideas about and then once the rubber hits the road, you learn a lot of lessons and sometimes hard lessons and expensive lessons along the way.
And so, there were some bumps along the way at first but nothing that I would say were or regrets, they’re all important steps in the journey in getting me to where I am today.

[4:05] And thankfully I can say that the practice is thriving and I’m able to offer my services to a wide variety of patients in the Charlotte area.
You know, I know that you, in the earlier podcast, you’re not really doing primary care, but can you just give us a list of some of the things that you do in practice that you bring to patients?
Yeah, sure. So, as an osteopathic physician, osteopathic manipulation therapy is probably the largest aspect of the services that I offer in my practice.

[4:37] And with that, most of my patients that I treat present with musculoskeletal conditions.
So, be it low back pain, I would say that’s probably the top diagnosis including others like neck pain, headaches.
You know, it’s interesting, we don’t always think about musculoskeletal medicine when it relates to certain things like TMJ and even some, you know, atypical chest pain and rib dysfunctions and you know, and so, there’s a lot of overlap between osteopathic manipulation medicine and sports medicine and some of the ailments that are treated.
And then, the remainder of my practice is kind of a smattering of a lot of different things that allow me to incorporate my training in acupuncture, in mindfulness medicine, in hypnotherapy.

[5:31] And so, you know, and as you mentioned, I’m family medicine trained.
And so really, that broad background in family medicine enables me to sort of work in a way You treat anything that walks in the door, whether it’s with an integrative approach or just drawing upon the family medicine training.
Yeah, great. Well, you know, and I know both personally as a patient of yours just how skillful you are and how much benefit that I’ve gotten.
But also I remember when I was in practice and I sent patients to you how grateful they were for how effective you were, and especially when a lot of other things that I was trying to do weren’t working.
I was really so I’ve just a lot of gratitude for for both of those arenas, you know, you’ve been in this situation for about nine years and there’s this lovely story of your pathway to where you are now.

[6:23] And what I wanted to kind of turn our attention to for this podcast is that you had talked about many different careers that you investigated or invested time and I’ve already alluded to some of those in the introduction.
What struck me in your story is that in all of those pivots, and even some we haven’t even heard yet, because I know there’s been some other pivots for you, you are not coming from a place of superficial indecisiveness.
I think sometimes, and I’m really clear on that, both in your story and just also knowing you, but rather there was a sense that you were willing to keep searching until you landed where you belonged.

[7:05] Does that seem right to you? Does that resonate? Yes. Yes.
I would say that’s pretty accurate. I think there’s things that I would say I’ve done very intentionally and there are things that have happened because of just a general approach and a general attitude about life and the circumstances that we’re presented with and how we can choose to react to them.
And so, I think it’s been kind of a mixture of both.
So, can you say some more about that attitude that you’re bringing?
So, one of the things that made a big impression on me years ago, it was one day my father comes home with this large framed poster and it had a quote on it and it was, it said, chance favors the prepared mind.

[7:59] And I believe it was a quote by Thomas Jefferson. And I remember seeing that and it made a, you know, lasting impression on me that, you know, things can happen in life that are circumstantial, but those who sort of are positioned in a way to be able to recognize opportunities, recognize red flags and, you know, and be able to, you know, react accordingly and take advantage will do better than those who are not in that position.
And so, I feel like one of the things that my parents really tried to instill in all all of my brothers and I.
Was this idea that if we have a solid foundation of knowledge perspective and just overall sort of attitude that that we would, Do well, no matter sort of what path we choose and I think that’s served as has served all of us really well Oh, that’s great. I love that. I love that quote, too. That’s um, I don’t know that I was always, So it’s prepared, you know, but it leads to some of the themes.

[9:05] That I noted and when I, after I listened to the Rx for Success podcast, I said, there were three themes that emerged for me that describe you. One is adaptability. Another is serendipity.
You know, there’s that chance piece. And then the willingness to continue to ask yourself, you know, what else is possible here? You know, what else is possible? So I’m curious, in addition to what you just said about the foundation from your parents, what do you draw from to be adaptable? Well, I think there’s a couple of different experiences that have given me that ability to be adaptable. As was mentioned in the previous podcast, there were a lot of different ups and downs in my life and career and being an immigrant from Iran. And so, I think realizing that life can take certain twists and it’s ultimately our responsibility or opportunity, however you want to look at it, to react to a particular situation.
And so, for me, over time I have sort of developed this kind of litmus test for whatever sort of life has placed me in.

[10:26] And so, you know, I’ll make a decision about a path that I want to pursue, I start to go down that path and I’m at different sort of times along the way reassessing the situation, my satisfaction, so to speak, I’m trying to think of a better word, but my happiness or my, you know, just overall wellness and balance in life and just a lot of different metrics in terms of, you know, whether it’s a work-life balance or satisfaction from what, you know, you’re doing day-to-day versus the work environment and corporate, you know, culture of where you’re at, whether it’s a corporate sort of environment or a small practice, whatever it may be, just kind kind of looking at all the different things and how from a day-to-day to month-to-month and year-to-year sort of things are progressing and allowing myself the grace, so to speak, to recognize if I’m unhappy, if there’s things that and if that’s the case in whatever situation that might be, are there things that I can be doing differently to modify the situation that I’m in and sometimes realizing that there’s a limit to that and there’s sometimes, you know, if I’m in a setting that does not allow for me to make certain adaptations and changes to the environment to improve it, whether it’s for my own personal sort of well-being versus the quality of care that I maybe feel like I want to deliver to my patients, as.

[11:55] An example, whatever it may be, even down to sort of do I feel like I’m appreciated where I am? Do I feel like everyone is appreciated where I am? What’s how is it that if someone presents with with a an issue or some adverse event? How does the administration or the whoever’s in charge, handle that, you know, things like that. And so for me, I would look at situations like that.
And I would say.

[12:22] Over, you know, from my medical career at least from, you know, when I completed residency onward, there were moments where I would look at different things that had happened around me or felt like there was a direction in which the practice was going and I would ask myself whether that’s something that I can either manipulate in some way to improve or is it something that I can live with or is it something that I cannot and it’s something that I need to make a change.
And that’s, at least from my own personal experience, I’ve allowed myself to make those kind of points where I can kind of stop, hit the pause button and say, is this where I want to be? Where do I think this ship is going?
Is this ship sinking? Is this ship just deviating?
Sometimes as you know with large healthcare systems that there can be administrative changes that suddenly change the direction of how it impacts your individual practice.
And so, I think each of us sort of has to make that decision when certain events like that happen, whether there’s budget cuts or whatever there might be.

[13:30] Am I okay with this? Is this something I can adapt to? Let me weigh the pros and cons of the situation and do I want to make any changes?
And so for me, I’ve allowed that to happen at kind of regular increments.
Hi, I’m Rhonda Crowe, founder and CEO for MD Coaches.
Here on Rx for Success, we interview a lot of great medical professionals on how they grew their careers, how they overcame challenges, and how they handle day-to-day work.

[14:02] I really hope you’re getting a lot of great information.
But if you’re looking for an answer to a specific problem, management or administration challenge, or if you’re feeling just a bit burnt out, like maybe you chose the wrong career, well, then there’s a faster way to get the help you need. No, it’s not counseling. It’s coaching.
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[15:59] So that’s my follow-up question. Do you, so it sounds like, are you intentional about.

[16:04] That self-assessment about how things are going? And you know, you said regular increments. Do you do a, you know, do you do like an annual review or every few months kind of thing? How do you do that?
In some ways, I do it probably all the time to some very low level being in private practice because everything is my responsibility and I can very quickly pivot and make changes.
But at the same time, some of the bigger sort of worries that were present in the first few years of practice are really no longer on priority and they’re very much lower sort of on the list of things that will occupy my thoughts.
But when I was in, you know, in other employed positions, I would say it would usually be an annual sort of process, unless there were things that happened unexpectedly during that time.
You know, I think the term that sort of comes to mind is threshold for things, whether you want to call things discomfort or change or whatever that might be.
I think we all have different thresholds sort of, you know, and I can speak to us as physicians.
I think we have different thresholds in each of us as individuals sort of as what we are.

[17:14] Willing to take on, to adapt, to tolerate, depending on the needs of our employers and of our patients, of the healthcare system, either locally or nationally.
There’s so many different factors that influence how we can practice medicine and feel satisfied doing it.

[17:35] So, I think all of us have different levels of tolerance for some of these changes that have occurred.
So, I think for me, maybe in some ways I have a lower tolerance for some of the things that I feel like are changes that are against the grain for me in terms of what I feel like I want to be able to do in a medical practice than maybe some other colleagues.
Now you said something about the give yourself the grace to notice when you’re unhappy and I love that, and I want to amplify that because.

[18:09] So many in our profession really bury their unhappiness. I mean, I know you know this, They really sort of aren’t even in touch with that. They’re unhappy. They’re just, grinding through and there’s a lot of reasons for that and we and on this show before we’ve had guests where we discussed that that we are, you know, in our training, we’re told to sort of put all that stuff aside and delay gratification.
And then, you know, when you get out and practice, you could continue to behave in that way where he’s like, oh, I’m unhappy. That’s just the way it is.
You know, that’s just the way it is. So I love that, that giving yourself that opportunity to recognize, is this fulfilling or am I, you know, am I unhappy?
I think that’s great. Thank you. And I think for me, certainly if everybody had a low threshold for discomfort, then there would be no physicians working in a lot of different settings. And so, I’m not saying that that’s the way to go for everyone. I think we all just need to honor sort of our own priorities and big picture. One of the articles that I wrote when I was president of Mecklenburg County Medical society was about sort of our own, say, what reasons we give ourselves for tolerating a lot of the things that we do in medicine.
And so, whether it’s because we have sort of created this golden handcuff situation for ourselves, where we are, you know, we’re in a lot of debt and we have, you know, we.

[19:36] We have a lifestyle that we have sort of.
Gotten, you know, comfortable with. And then, so if we’re ever faced with some major decision from an employer, we can’t really do a whole lot about it because it’s going to affect our life, livelihood, our comfort, you know. And so many things are sort of at stake that then we feel like we’re sort of forced into just then just trying to adapt to whatever is sort of, you know, put on our laps. And, you know, as you know, over the last several decades, it seems like there’s always something in medicine that is sort of put forth for us and it’s just expected that we’re going to deal with it, whether it’s an adjustment on our income or the metrics in which we are paid or the hours that we work or the number of patients that we see per hour or per day, how we code, so many different.
And EMR, there’s always so many different things that have constantly, and some of it have been changes for the better, but sometimes there’s been changes that, you know, we can all sort of agree that we’re not necessarily better for either the patients or for the.

[20:40] Practitioners that have occurred over time.
And so, I think it’s just some of those things that in some ways kind of hamstring us, you know, and because we are a profession that generally has been sort of dissociative, you know, in the sense that we don’t have unions, we don’t really, it’s hard to have a collective voice. And so, we really rely on medical societies, whether they’re at the local, state, federal, you know, international levels to hopefully represent us to government and to policymakers.
And it hasn’t always worked out in our best interest or our patients’ best interest. And I think those are things that, again, I hope that there will be some changes that will occur. I I don’t know how they can occur, per se.
There’s a lot of moving pieces. But I think, obviously, our own attitudes towards each other, towards our profession and our communities, I think, can hopefully change in a way that will allow us to be more cohesive and have a much stronger voice.

[21:45] So that we can represent ourselves and our patients better. So, it’s interesting, you know, we started with sort of some of the attributes that you have, you know, this sense of adaptability and this sense of, you know, what else is possible and tolerance and, you know, noticing, giving yourself the grace of, you know, being unhappy.
And then, you know, one thing that I didn’t remember when I was listening to the podcast was your orientation to really elevating the community, you know, elevating the community of professionals as well. And that some of the things that you bring, some of these attributes that you bring, you’re modeling that for some of your colleagues as well. And then forming a sense of community so that we can all move forward together with what’s the right thing to do for our patients and for the community. So, I just wanted to honor that in you as well.
Thank you. I appreciate that. And, you know, it’s, I mean, in some ways, you know, as you can see me being in private practice and not taking insurance in my practice, I essentially stepped away from the mainstream, you know, establishment medical practices. But I feel like, I don’t feel like.

[22:59] And I don’t want to, and I won’t abandon sort of my medical community in that way, you know.
So, I can maybe practice in a setting that honors my perspective and what I want to be able to offer my patients and practice in a way that also honors my own sort of priorities for work-life balance and different things and my approach to healing and what I think from an integrative standpoint is the way to do that. But I still feel like my involvement with the the medical society is one of the ways to try to basically…
I still show that I support my fellow physicians and understand that not everybody is going to walk the path that I’ve walked and we all have different reasons for that and whether it’s our specialties or our own perspectives, whatever it might be.
But if we’re going to move our community, our country in a better way, then we hopefully we’ll decide to collaborate more and to, you know, and ideally someday we’ll be able to achieve that.

[23:59] Yeah, neat. Well, I want to bring us back to you and some of the qualities of you and I especially want to, you know, go back to something you said about, you know, chance favors the prepared mind.
In this concept that I picked up on, this concept of serendipity and I was thinking especially about, you know, when I’ve met you because you were doing investment banking analysis and then there’s this guy that’s showing up for our noon conferences and the family medicine residency. And then all of a sudden we had this opening for a second year resident. You’d already done one year as an internship before doing investment banking. And one might look at that and say, wow, what a great chance happening that we had this opening, you were there, you were awesome, you know, we brought you into the program. And so, there’s some serendipity, and there’s several other moments in your life that I picked up on that sounded like that too.
But serendipity seems kind of passive, and I don’t…

[25:00] Get that from you. It’s not really passive. There’s some intentionality there as well.
Does that resonate with you also? And if so, what are your thoughts about that?
I think when we think of just a definition of the word serendipity, there’s some limitations to that in the sense of at least applying to what we’re talking about.
All of the different inflection points in my career, there was some initiation, there was and some action on my part first and then whether you want to call it, you know, good fortune or whether it’s some higher power, whatever you want to sort of attach to it, that was sort of what we’re calling serendipity.
So for me, you know, when I realized that investment banking was not fulfilling for me in that setting at least and I wanted to come back to medicine and finish residency, Then I made the move to reach out to the program director at the residency program in Charlotte because I liked living in Charlotte and just wanted to stay in the city.
And it just then happened that this position came available.
And some years later after residency and working at the integrative medicine practice, then as you well remember, there was this sort of hints and sort of things that started to happen where it was obvious that the practice was most likely going to be closed.

[26:28] And so, before they ever announced that the practice was going to close, I had already found another opportunity because months before that I thought, gosh, there is no way that the way that they’re sort of posturing and you know, things that they’re going to keep this practice open.
And so, I need to start thinking about what I can do. And it first started with me actually approaching some of the, because at the time, if you recall, I was doing urgent care as well on the side. And so, I was doing that.
So, I remember contacting them and basically saying, if this practice were to close and And so, I was doing urgent care as well on the side.

[27:05] I want to continue to do osteopathic manipulation, what are my options?
Am I going to be able to work within the healthcare system or can I go into private practice?
And at the time, the hospital system said, well, as long as you have a contract with us with Urgent Care, it’s a conflict for you to go to practice outside of the system.
And so, that’s when I realized, gosh, okay, if it’s going to be this type of restrictions on what I can and cannot do and I really know that I want to be able to practice osteopathic manipulation, I think I need to start looking at what my options are.
And that’s when I started to just kind of look around the country and see what other job opportunities there could be and just happened to see in an osteopathic medical journal that there was a faculty position available in California.
And even though I didn’t have any teaching experience and it said clearly in the ad that they wanted teaching experience, I thought well, you know, how can I ever get teaching experience if I don’t ever actually teach at some point?
And so, I thought I’m just going to apply anyway because you know, who knows, right?
And next thing I know, I’m getting a phone call and an interview and a job offer.
And then it was an amazing experience to be able to go teach and be a part of an academic setting.
So, that’s what I mean by there’s some initiating sort of factor and then there’s some serendipitous or fortunate event sort of that follows.

[28:32] There’s also this quality of not necessarily seeing what is it in written form as potentially a limitation as a limitation.
So it’s that quality of view that’s the, so what else is possible and I’m going to go ahead and explore it anyway and they can decide whether I don’t have enough teaching experience or whatever. Exactly.
And the same thing with the residency. I had been out of residency at that point a year almost being in investment banking and so I had no idea if they had a position open, if they had any interest in taking somebody like me on, but it was worth a try.
Yeah. I love this conversation about some of the qualities and then how you express those both but also very intentionally and how you approach things intentionally. I think some of our listeners who are put.

[29:21] You know, also at some of their own inflection points can really take on some of these skills that you have and, you know, as a mentor, if you will, for helping them move through their branch points in their lives as well.
So along those lines, you know, just as a way of wrapping this up, I’m guessing that you may be mentoring people you don’t even know that you’re mentoring, but you may have some formal mentees as well.
What advice do you give to people who are either formal or informal mentees or people who aren’t even mentees yet for you that are listening to this podcast about, you know, how to approach your career based on your own experience?
Well, I think depending on where someone is in their path, in their career, I think there may be a little bit of nuances to the advice.
But for the most part, I think the message that I would give most folks is that give.

[30:20] Yourself credit for what you’ve achieved at whatever point you are in your path and by that I mean don’t sell yourself short.
Honor what you’ve done, have that confidence hopefully that you’ve accomplished the things that you’ve done and it’s not by accident and you deserve to get the things that you want to achieve.
And so, that’s one part of it. And the other thing is don’t be afraid to fail and don’t be afraid to pivot.
Committing to something doesn’t mean that you can’t change your mind later.
An interview is not always the best way to assess whether, you know, your employer is or your employment setting is what you thought it was going to be.

[31:06] And so, perhaps you start and you realize that this really isn’t what they promised me.
And that’s okay. Maybe there’s things you can do to make that environment better, but if for some reason you can’t, it’s again, if you have the sort of confidence and feel like you deserve better and you deserve the things that you have worked towards, then honor that and pivot and look at other things.
Yeah, if I had to summarize what you’re saying right now and also the rest of this podcast is really this sense of honoring the self, honoring the path and honoring how you’re experiencing things professionally, just to really honor the self and be okay with returning to what’s important to you. And so I really appreciate your willingness to share that and share it yourself with our listeners. And so, Babak, thank you so much for your willingness to be on on life-changing moments with me today.
It’s been a pleasure. Thanks, Dale. Here are my takeaways from this conversation.

[32:15] I’d like to restate the three themes that reflect how Dr. Mokari approaches his professional life.
Number one, serendipity. While serendipity seems to be passive, what we learned in this conversation is that those who are intentional about what they want in their lives find those elements when they emerge. Dr. Mokari shared an adage he was introduced to at a young age, Chance favors the prepared mind.
Our paraphrase was that those who recognize both opportunities as well as red flags and respond to each of those accordingly will live closer to their unique path than those who do not.
Number two, adaptability. Reassess from time to time, perhaps annually.
Allow yourself the grace to realize that you may be unhappy and make changes accordingly.
A word of caution here. Your threshold for discomfort could be very high, so do be honest in these reassessments.

[33:19] Number three, ask yourself what else is possible. In honoring your priorities, it may make sense to ask yourself what else you can be doing to be professionally or personally fulfilled.
Finally, if after you have self-assessed, have given yourself the grace to realize that you may be unhappy and are looking for what else is possible.
Coaching can offer a space for you to explore that and provide yourself a pathway back to professional fulfillment.
We at MD Coaches have all been there and we’re here to help.
For more information, please contact us at mymdcoaches.com. Thank you for listening and be well.

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