Medicine as a Gateway to the World: A Spotlight on DCMS Member Dr. Neha Agrawal

Story by Lana Sumner-Borema, DCMS Intern

When most young adults think of a life of travel and exploring new cultures, they dream of flashy careers in business and photography. It’s rare they’d dream of Hepatology. However, Dr. Neha Agrawal, hepatologist at UF Health Jacksonville, has found her specialty to be a life-fulfilling career as well as a gateway to new cultural experiences.

Dr. Agrawal grew up in India within a family of doctors. Her father is an internal medicine specializing in infectious diseases and her mom is an OBGYN. In India, she explains, medicine is not something you choose, but rather something that chooses you.

“When I went to med school I was 18. We had just finished our schooling and then we had to do a premed test which is more of a merit-based system,” Agrawal recalls.

To be selected for medical school in India is quite an honor and means the tester scored within the 0.1%-0.2% of all students who take the entrance exam.

She finished her M.B.B.S. degree which is the Indian equivalent of M.D. and requires about five and a half years of schooling. Then, influenced by her sister and pop culture, she decided she wanted to come to America for residency.

“During medical school, my sister was preparing for entrance exams to the United States and that was one of the things that influenced me and also just the influence of the American culture from sitcoms, especially Friends. I guess I was exploring a different world and I had the opportunity to do that [in America] and get trained in a completely different environment with possibly better training.”

When deciding on a specialty, Dr. Agrawal had already spent enough time at her parents’ offices to know what she was not interested in.

“I accompanied my mom on some of her surgeries which are C-sections and those are extremely bloody. I got kind of weak in my knees and was close to passing out and my mom was basically like ‘well surgery is probably not for you.’”

Dr. Agrawal went on to do her residency at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County in Chicago, which she says “used to be the Cook County hospital that the ER show was based on and Fugitive was filmed in the original Cook County hospital.”

Agrawal confesses she did not get through these television series due to her demanding residencies, but she did watch when she could, always eating up any culture her experiences offered to her.

“I never watched Scrubs. I never watched Grey’s Anatomy. I felt like it was too fictionalized and glossed over with romantic relationships. I did watch Fugitive through my training, however, and some of the ER episodes.”

Agrawal admits that Cook County was an extremely demanding and intense residency; however, the hands-on experience she attained was unbeatable. She spent four years as a hospitalist at Cleveland Clinic, planning her next step. It was then she decided to pursue transplant hepatology and headed to Temple for a fellowship, later staying on an extra year to serve as faculty. After that additional year teaching at Temple, Agrawal made the move to Jacksonville.

“Warm weather was one of the things that was the deciding factor as I was done with the cold and never seeing the light of day. Now I feel it is a little too hot, but I’m used to it as after all I am from India.”

Though Dr. Agrawal has been introduced to a whole new world through her studies in medicine and new career, she never forgets her family and heritage.

“My parents usually visit quite frequently, once a year they normally come and stay for a month and a half, splitting time with my sister in New York.”

Despite the long distances of separation, Agrawal stays connected with her family, and their food as she explains with a smile:

“A home cooked meal is definitely my favorite. Indian food here is not the same, if you go by my standards, though I also think I’m a bit spoiled.”

However, her move during COVID-19 was for a little more difficult than expected. As anyone would agree, the pandemic did not allow her much opportunity to get acquainted to their surroundings and meet new people. She’s also missed her parents who usually try to visit the U.S. at least once a year and stay for good amount of time.

“I was able to sneak out for a bit in January to visit but it is difficult at this time because the situation is really bad in India and they cannot fly out right now. Probably for a long period of time it will be like this.”

Though COVID-19 resulted in a tough first year in Jacksonville, Dr. Agrawal is looking forward to the days post-pandemic when she can start meeting new people and exploring her new city along with her lengthy list of travel destinations. As an avid photographer and ping pong champion, she’s looking forward to practicing these hobbies with new friends in Jacksonville and introducing her parents to the First Coast.