India Abroad June 19, 2015 M48
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INDIA ABROAD PERSON OF THE YEAR 2014
ON THE FRONTLINES
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he Indian-American community — and the world for that matter — came to know of Dr Pranav Shetty’s selfless heroism only when he popped up on the White House radar, when we journalists received a release informing us that he would be among a select few invited to sit in First Lady Michelle Obama’s box during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address January 20. He created history by becoming the first Indian American to be accorded this special honor, specifically for leading the International Medical Corps team on the frontlines during the Ebola epidemic in Liberia. And when the President got to the part of his remarks where he recognized the selfless service of Ebola fighters and their lifesaving efforts in West Africa, the cameras panned toward Dr Shetty, 33, the Mangalore-born, Trinidad-raised, Virginia-based physician, and the IMC’s Global Emergency Health Coordinator, sitting in the First Lady’s Box. The IMC, a non-profit organization, that had been a critical partner in the international support efforts to fight the Ebola epidemic, had deployed him to Liberia in August 2014 to establish and oversee two Ebola treatment units. In addition, he managed teams of rapid responders that were deployed to Ebola hot spots in Liberia and a training center for local and international health-care workers. He had remained on the frontlines for four months. At the time, Dr Shetty had said in a statement: ‘The United States government has been a strong supporter of our work, and it was truly an honor to be recognized by the President and First Lady on behalf of tens of thousands of nurses, doctors, burial team workers, and others who are tirelessly working to save lives in West Africa. IMC is one of the few international organizations treating Ebola patients in West Africa, but we are also focused on building local health care capacity so medical professionals across the region can become their own first responders — to not only prevent and treat Ebola but also other illnesses.’ When India Abroad, immediately after he was accorded this unprecedented recognition, asked him what he would say to people who call guys like him ‘selfless heroes,’ Dr Shetty simply said, “That’s very kind of them to say so. But really, we are doing our function in the world. Any family physician in India, who is seeing patients day in and day out, they are also heroes and they are doing their best to make sure that the world is healthier and a better place and no different from us.” He viewed the entire experience as “a little surreal,” especially as he saw himself there as only a representative of the IMC and “the thousands of health workers and other people really working on the frontlines against Ebola.” “My position in IMC is Emergency Health Coordinator, so I represent the organization in these types of projects and for these types of events as well,” he had added. “It was quite a privilege to do so. I owe a lot to our heritage and upbringing in this regard. I am so proud to represent the entire community — both humanitarian as well as the Indian-American community.” But then this humility, keeping a low profile and flying under the radar shunning publicity, was quintessentially Pranav Shetty — as his parents, his sisters, his close friend Dr Aaron Skolnik, his colleagues and his boss at IMC would later tell us.
Perhaps no recollection was more emotional than his father’s. Dr Manohar Shetty spoke of how at barely age nine, Pranav became the man of the house, when he moved with his mother Sujatha Shetty to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in August 1990 so that she could pursue an associate degree in nursing. The senior Dr Shetty had remained in Trinidad and Tobago, continuing his work there as a plastic surgeon and burns specialist till he was able to get a job in the US, and move to Pittsburgh two years later. Pranav Shetty’s twin sisters, Meghana and Shivana, explained how he was their hero much before he became a hot-shot physician rushing off to war zones, disaster areas and epidemic-ridden regions of the world, further elucidating the soul of his character and why humanitarian work perhaps was his calling. As the initial health technical lead for IMC’s major emergency response operations worldwide, Dr Shetty is often one of the first to deploy to the affected area in the aftermath of a disaster or crisis. In that earlier interview with India Abroad, asked why he picked the IMC and the risks that went with it over a cushy job in the US (not difficult considering he had a medical degree from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, had completed his residency in emergency medicine at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, had completed a fellowship in Global Health and International Emergency Medicine at the University of Maryland, had received his Masters of Public Health from the University of Maryland and a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from the University of Pittsburgh) he had said, “I strongly believed in its mission. I believed in what the International Medical Corps did around the world as did other such humanitarian agencies. I really believe for those of us who work in this field — a lot of us who work for the International Medical Corps as well as other organizations — we believe in a sense of service behind it. It’s really a pleasure to be able to work
The IMC deployed Pranav Shetty to Liberia in August 2014 to establish and oversee two Ebola treatment units. In addition, he managed teams of rapid responders that deployed to Ebola hot spots in Liberia and a training center for local and international health-care workers COURTESY: INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS
here and alongside the colleagues we see in the field, who are making, as you mentioned, some of the sacrifices, to be able to do the type of work that we do.” “Every humanitarian emergency has risks,” he had added. “Any time we respond to any type of emergency situation those risks are inherent, and we need to manage those risks in every deployment. But it’s a tradition here (to work in these danger zones) that that’s what we are called to do. For myself, personally, and for the International Medical Corps, there wasn’t any question because we saw the need that was there on the ground and we had a capacity to respond and that’s what we did.” Before Liberia, in his nearly five years with the non-profit organization, Dr Shetty had already been knee deep in the war-zones of Libya and Iraq, tending to Syrian refugees in Jordan, taking care of the displaced in Sudan, or treating patients in the Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. And soon after returning from Liberia, he was off to West Africa again to establish IMC’s first Ebola treatment center in Guinea. And when India Abroad spoke to him in May, Dr Shetty was in Nepal where he had rushed following the devastating earthquake April 25 and where he was scheduled to remain until June tending to the injured and the sick in 4M49 remote villages and helping to put together the infrastructure to prevent an outbreak of infec-