Vikas Gupta, MD, PhD, is a gastroenterologist who specializes in diseases of the gastrointestinal tract as well as liver.
Growing up, Dr. Gupta had a unique perspective of medical education and training. His father switched careers and entered medical school when Dr. Gupta was about 7. “My father wasn’t a full-fledged physician until I was in high school, and I got to watch the whole process of his career,” he says. “It struck me as an intellectually interesting and rewarding career path.”
After medical school, Dr. Gupta considered specializing in cardiology, but during internal medical training, his exposure to patients with end-stage liver disease changed his mind.
“I found the physiology of people who have end-stage liver disease really interesting and saw opportunities for clinical improvement,” he says. “When your liver doesn’t function well, it can affect your lungs, heart, kidneys, gastrointestinal tract, and brain. By taking care of patients who have liver disease, it keeps me thinking about the physiology of all organs.”
The additional chance to treat, diagnose, and use therapeutic endoscopic interventions was just icing on the cake. “I love the feeling of taking out polyps, no matter how large or small. Knowing that you potentially prevented another case of colon cancer is very gratifying.”
In the clinic, Dr. Gupta likes to keep it simple, “In medical training, we learn so much jargon that is not useful to patients,” he says. “I try to draw diagrams and simplify the terminology to make it easier for patients to understand.”
