Dr. Tej Singh has a theory that every 10 years or so, everyone needs an eye-opening experience as a means of professional invigoration.
Where might one find such an experience?
In Singh’s case, he found it during a two-week volunteer mission at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where the Los Altos Hills resident provided his medical expertise as a vascular surgeon to help soldiers wounded in battle.
Singh, who currently serves as El Camino Hospital’s clinical director of vascular surgery and as chief of vascular surgery for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, volunteered his time at Landstuhl through the Society for Vascular Surgery. The non-profit group established the volunteer program in 2006 to help offset a shortage of vascular surgeons serving the military.
“I think to really appreciate this you need to be at a certain point in your career,” Singh said of his volunteer experience in October. “At 10 years, you know your skill set and you know your strengths and limitations. At that point, you’re open to another charge, a new way of thinking. If I had just come out of training last year, I don’t think I’d get the charge that I got out of this.”
To that end, Singh said the experience has given him a fresh appreciation for the personal sacrifices made by those who serve. Several soldiers, he noted, suffered multiple amputations from improvised explosive device injuries during tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Coupled with the fact that several soldiers Singh treated were in their early 20s, the experience left him wondering about the long-term physical and mental effects some will endure in coming years.
“They’re so tough and they’re so solid, but deep inside their core, they’re young kids,” Singh said of the soldiers he treated. “Right now they’re being tough and stoic, but when life hits them, when this phase of trauma is over, and they’re in a living room looking at their bodies and saying, ‘I can’t play catch with my son’ – that’s when these things are really going to hit them.”
And while the experience tugged at the surgeon’s heartstrings, it also provided him with a practical lesson in efficiency and teamwork. He noted that the one piece of advice he received on arrival at Landstuhl was to buy into the hospital’s mission wholeheartedly.
Singh, who is currently working on a master’s degree in business administration through Auburn University, said he will apply that lesson as he transitions into a career in hospital management.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a hospital in my career – and I’ve been in a lot of neat places – that has that kind of cohesive focus,” Singh said of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American hospital located outside the United States. “I would bet you that if hospitals in America and doctors in America learned those simple things of mission and teamwork, you would solve a lot of problems.”
The volunteer experience had such a profound effect, Singh said, that he’s already applied to volunteer again next year. The goal, he said, is two-fold: to give back while also extending his review of Landstuhl’s efficient system of providing medical care.
“I’ve given and I’ve gotten,” said Singh, adding that his trip to Germany was one of the best experiences in his career. “Those opportunities are always the best opportunities to me. This is something where I went, ‘I gave, but I got a lot more.’”
