Masud Habibullah was born in Columbia, MO, and grew up in Superior, WI. When his brother was diagnosed with autism, his family moved to Boston, MA to find a center for his brother. Habibullahs parents then started several programs in Massachusetts for people with autism.
In 2007,Habibullah received his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from NortheasternUniversity, and then he moved to Virginia to attend Eastern Virginia MedicalSchool. In 2012, he moved to New York to do his three-year residency atNewYorkPresbyterian Queens (formerly New York Hospital Queens).
During his schooling, Dr. Habibullahvolunteered from 2006 to 2009 at the Boston Special Olympics, from 2008 to 2009for the Project Smile at EVMS, from 2008 to 2010 for the Norfolk EmergencyShelter Team at EVMS and in 2010 for the MyHOPE Clinic at EVMS.
Dr. Masud Habibullah currently works as aHospitalist at Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah, GA.
1. Whatdo you love most about the industry you are in?
In terms of what I like about it, medically,its ever-changing. Its a double-edged sword, which is why I like teaching. Myfavorite part about medicine is teaching, mostly because it keeps me up to datewith whats going on from a medical standpoint, but also because it lets metouch base with students who are going through the same thing I went throughjust a couple of years ago. I can guide them in terms of mistakes that arecommonly made in terms of paperwork and their training course. I would say mybiggest accomplishment thus far was the two years I was the director of ateaching program and the success that my students had.
2. Whatdoes a typical day consist of for you?
I work as a physician, and my job primarily issomething called a hospitalist. Its a job thats been around for about 40 years.A hospitalist is kind of like your primary care doctor within the hospital.Lets say a patient came in with a broken leg.They will likely have other medical problems on top of having a brokenleg. This is when they would be admittedto my service. I would call theorthopedic surgeon to come and fix the patients leg while I manage any otherproblems or conditions before releasing them. Much like a primary care doctorwould do on the outside, where they would refer you to an orthopedic surgeon ifyou had a knee problem. So anything that brings a person into the hospital, Iwould see them for it. Sometimes cover the ICU but I generally cover thestep-down unit, which is right outside the ICU, and the general medical floor.
3. Whatkeeps you motivated?
As I mentioned before, my favourite part of thejob is teaching. If I wasnt good at what Im doing, I dont think my studentswould have faith in me. It keeps me from getting too complacent.
4. Howdo you motivate others?
The best thing that I can say is to try not tobecome complacent. Its a grind, what we do. In medicine, unfortunately, itsnot just about the illness. Its usually about the patient, their family, theirsocial-economic situation. Particularly here in the United States, where the burdenof health care can become a lot bigger than just whats going on with you interms of your health. Its also whether or not you can pay to take care of yourhealth. One of the biggest things I think I had to realize, going from aresident or a student to a doctor, is that medicine is the easy part. Its thetreatment, and whether the patient can afford to treat the social stuff thatmakes it so much more difficult.
There are times where your employer or thehospital, depending on whom you work for, are telling you a patient needs to bedischarged, but they have no place to go. Then theyre telling you, theprovider, the person whos there to help these people, Well, then, dischargethem to a homeless shelter, or something like that. These sorts of thingsreally put you in a place where you start juggling with your ethics andintegrity, what you can do and what you should do, what you should be able todo, and why you went into medicine.
Going back to how to motivate others, be sure todraw a line for yourself for what youre willing to do, who youre willing towork for, and go from there. Try to make sure that youre doing whats best forthe patient. Even though everyone says that Im not sure that everyone does it.
5. Wheredo you get your inspiration from?
In addition to my students successes, Ive hada few really good professors down my training path. They put a focus on how youcant control everything, but the things you can control, you should do yourbest. For example, make sure when yousee a patient whom you think is chronically there or someone whos getting onyour nerves, just to remember the roles. No one raised their hand when theyrelittle and said, I want to have a chronic disease. No one raised their handand said, Okay, I want to be in a situation where I cant pull myself out of ahole. It helps you recenter and do whats best for the people in front of youdespite it being some type of mental hurdle for yourself.
6. Who has been a role model to you, and why?
One wasa professor of mine in medical school who is South African. He had to gothrough a lot to become a doctor, and he was one of the best doctors in ourhospital. He was also a hospitalist. Whenever he approached a problem, he wouldapproach it in the exact same way, no matter how many times he saw it or whothe person was, or if the person was rude to him. We used to call him the House(like the TV show) of our hospital.
7. Howdo you maintain a solid work-life balance?
That is a decent question for most doctors. Theanswer is you cant; you have to pick one. If youre going to be really good atwork, really into your job, your personal life will suffer. So at one point,you have to make executive decisions for yourself. Here is a lecture that Igive my residents all the time about trying to do this. An example of what Idid is I worked very hard and paid off my student loans within two years. ThenI continued to do that because no matter what you do when you see that kind ofmoney coming in when youve been pretty much poor your whole life, its a bigdeal. Until I realized that like all I was doing was watching numbers increasein the bank account, and I wasnt doing anything with it. So I made somedecisions over the past ten years of not working extra and figuring out exactlyhow much money I needed to live comfortably in life. Then I took that extratime to go on trips and to do things that make me happy.
I dont think this is a problem only fordoctors. Pretty much most jobs now, you can have too much of one or the other,particularly the work part if youre a work-minded individual, and you canbecome obsessed with it pretty quickly. Whether its because you want toadvance your career or you want more money, its a pretty common thing thesedays.
So the only advice I give to my students and myresidents is to figure out what you need in what period of time and then setboundaries, so you dont overdo it. Then you can continue to work a job foryour whole career without becoming jaded.
8. Whattraits do you possess that make a successful leader?
My strength most likely my interpersonal skills.I can communicate well. Also, knowing my own limits, knowing what I do know,knowing what I dont know, and knowing how to find the answers to the thingsthat I dont know.
9. Explain the proudest day of your professionallife.
When mymedical students are becoming interns, I usually tell them this story. I tellpeople in medicine, no matter what you do, you will never forget the firstpersons life you save, and youll never forget a person whose life you weretrying to save, that you will fail at, and youll be part of their death.
I tellthem the story of my first month as a doctor at my first job. It was rightafter I got a promotion for the position of director of the academic clerkshipat Orangeburg Medical Center. It was a 300 bed hospital, and I was in charge ofthe step-down unit and ICU. The teaching team ran the ICU. So there was aformer ICU nurse who had stopped being a nurse about six months prior to heradmission. She was brought in, and they said she had end-stage emphysema. Sinceshe had been a nurse and had seen so many people die during her career, forherself she chose to do not resuscitate (DNR). Basically, she didnt want to beon a breathing machine, or CPR if her heart stopped.
When shecame in, her blood work revealed that she had a high amount of carbon dioxidein her body. This is suggestive of people with chronic obstructive pulmonarydisease (COPD) or emphysema, or some other medical issue, but 90% of the timein the hospital, when we see it first, its usually COPD or some sort of sleepapnea issue. Due to the high levels of carbon dioxide in her body, her mentalstatus was quite depressed, and her family and her friends around wanting torespect her wishes of DNR and let her pass quietly.
I tookover her care that morning after she was admitted the night before. I waslooking through her record, and I saw one of the pulmonary function tests. Itwas a test that tells you whether or not you have lung disease, and the reasonwhy they were saying that she had emphysema it wasnt actually diagnosed. Itwas presumed because she used to be a smoker about 20 years prior. Her familytold me she had quit her job as a nurse because she hadnt been able to make itthrough an entire shift.
So I waslooking at this pulmonary function test, and I started analyzing it for myself.I realized that it didnt make sense for the disease that they were sayingshes going to die from. It didnt look like emphysema; it looked likesomething completely different. I was listening to their story. I was wonderingwhether or not she was misdiagnosed and whether or not there was a way to testit. The problem was that in order to do it, I would have to put her on lifesupport, which is the exact opposite of what she wanted in terms of her DNR. Ispoke with the family, and I told them, these are my thoughts and to be honest,someone her age and you shouldnt pass away from something that you didntknow, particularly if its something that can be done temporarily.
So thefamily said that they would just trust my judgment on it, and I went ahead andput her on life support and brought her to ICU. This caused quite a bit of aproblem because I was a new doctor, and the hospital is like generationallyemployed. Everyone knew each other, knew their family, and I basically gotagainst the wishes of someone they considered family. So the nursing staff wentto the CTO, complained to him and wanted to get me fired.
Thenurse woke up right after I put her on life support because I removed the carbondioxide from her system. I then sent her to a higher level facility and toldthem I thought she had a neuromuscular disease called____________________. I couldnt test for it at the hospital I was at.
Abouttwo months later, the patient came walking into the ICU. She had beenmisdiagnosed, and I had been correct in what I thought it was. They treated herthere, and now that she knew she had the disease, she could manage it. Luckilyafter that, it was sort of like I earned my stripes. There was a complete 180in the staff, and they went from hating me to loving me.
So thepoint of this story wasnt to toot my own horn; it was an example of how youregoing to be put in positions quite often where you have to rely on yourtraining, and you have to be sure. That is the hardest part about being adoctor, you have to be sure when no one else is sure.
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A Conversation with Dr. Masud Habibullah On Gaining Inspiration From Today's Younger Generations - Thrive Global
