Mentor Assessment #2

Hrushikesh Abdas

February 17th, 2020

Dr. Shafiq has consistently been a source that has allowed me to gain access to different

real world experiences. One way or another, each of the mentor visits has been very interesting

for me and has allowed me to access information that I have not learned of before. Through his

past experiences, him adapting to the situations he has been put in has only allowed for him to

grow, and pass on this information to students such as myself. Because of his vast experiences,

it is easy for him to provide me with feedback for what I need to work on, improve, or continue

doing in order to succeed as a professional entering the field of Cardiology.

During my last visit with Dr. Shafiq, a series of events that had eventually led to my

discussion with his brother was what stuck out to me. While visiting Dr. Shafiq in his home after

his work hours, we were able to talk about what life is like as a professional Cardiologist. While

discussing the different aspects of the job, we got to the financial side of being a Cardiologist.

Dr. Shafiq talked about how being a Cardiologist today does not mean high levels of pay

compared to being a Cardiologist in the past. He said that in order to make the most of your job,

you have to be financially smart in terms of how you invest your money in your business, if you

run your own practice. Doing multiple tests on patients will get you a lot of money, but after

paying everyone who participated in administering the test, getting the results and others, the

net gain is significantly less than what your patient has paid you to do. Also, the amount of time

you spend on patients may only limit you to working with a number of patients per day, which

may decrease how much money you make. This idea is much related to the phrase “time is

money”. When your time is limited, so is the amount of money you make. Next, came Dr.

Shafiq’s main point regarding this matter: be in multiple places at once. By hiring a staff, this will
allow you to be in multiple places at once to do more things in the limited amount of time that

you have. For example, a single dentist may only be able work with some patients per day and

make that much profit, but if he hires another dentist, he makes double the amount in the same

time. If he hires 2 more dentists, he can work on up to quadruple the number of patients he

alone would've been working on, in one day. “It’s all about your business model”, Dr. Shafiq

stressed. Dr. Shafiq’s brother and Dr. Shafiq are neighbors, and live a couple houses from each

other in the same neighborhood. Just as Dr. Shafiq was talking about his business model, his

brother stopped by at his house. Coincidently, I was introduced to his brother, and found out

that Dr. Shafiq’s brother runs his own business. His brother’s business is based on the idea of

selling computers , where customers can buy them from him through amazon prime. By buying

computers in large bulk from companies such as dell, he acquires the latest technology, puts it

together, and ships it off to customers who have purchased the computers. However, working

alone took him a lot of time in order to put multiple computers together in a limited amount of

time, which in turn limited the number of computers he sells each day. Because of this, Dr.

Shafiq’s brother wisely hired 5 people who help to build the computers and ship them out. Like

Dr. Shafiq’s example, by being in 6 places at once, his brother was able to get 6 times the

amount of work done than he would’ve done by himself. His brother is a prime example of the

business model that Dr. Shafiq was discussing. Before this visit, I was not familiar with the

extent of what a hired staff could do. Previously, I understood that staff helps to complete work

at a quicker pace, but the example that Dr. Shafiq’s brother provided me with shows how far a

staff can benefit your business.

The new information that I earned in this visit with Dr. Shafiq was impactful in the way

that I was able to learn a lot about the financial side of not only being a Cardiologist, but any

professional in general. In order to make more money and gain a larger profit, it is important for
you to be able to wisely invest your money in order to benefit yourself in the long run. This can

be attributed to a company making a long term investment in technology, where although you

spend a large sum of money on machinery, the cost is eventually overcome in the long run

because you make more in a shorter amount of time. Dr. Shafiq was able to show me how

important time is in the fact that you can only do so much in a given amount of time. In the

future, because my goal is to start my own practice, I need to know how to invest in a staff in

order to gain a maximum profit. Having a lot of staff does not mean more money, as you need to

take into consideration their salary and how many patients you receive daily. Because of this,

Dr. Shafiq has provided me with enough information to create a slight idea of how I would

manage a staff and yield the biggest profit I could make from having my own practice.

In the end, this information provided to me by Dr. Shafiq can prove to be very important

in the future, as I hope to start my own practice as well. While being a Cardiologist deals with

having knowledge about how to deal with the heart and your patients, it also incorporates a

responsibility of how to deal with your money. The information provided to me by Dr. Shafiq and

his brother has given me an idea of how I should deal with money as I head into the profession

of a Cardiologist. Dr. Shafiq, with the amount of experience he has had, was able to pass that

information onto me in order to help me capitalize on my future, and how to make myself all the

more successful. By giving me this knowledge, Dr. Shafiq has proven himself to be selfless and

determined to help aspiring professionals such as myself. In the future, I hope to gain more

knowledge by working with Dr. Shafiq through his experiences.