DR. WHO?
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
DEEPAK AZAD, MD
Aaron Burch
Deepak Azad, MD, spent the first 28 years of his life in India and
was 36 before he visited Louisville for the first time. Now that he’s
spent 20 rewarding years here in Kentucky and Indiana, it’s clear
Dr. Azad calls both sides of the Ohio River his home.
Growing up in the small town of Kadod in the state of Gujarat
in India, Dr. Azad’s parents practiced health care together for a
community of just 500.
“That’s where my dad grew up and he wanted to give back. My
mother was a nurse and they had a small clinic. In monsoon season,
Dad would drive to patients on his motorcycle when they couldn’t
reach the clinic,” Dr. Azad said, also recalling the moment he realized how deeply his father cared for the town they called home.
“I was seven or eight-years-old. I can see my dad in our living
room with a big pile of papers. I asked him what it was. He told
me we need roads so Kadod could connect to the bigger city. He
prepared these papers at his own expense. It was before an election
and they said ‘No road. No vote.’ And the road happened. He was
always interested not only in the practice of medicine but also in
making a better life for the people in the area.”
From an early age Dr. Azad, along with his older sister and younger
brother, were exposed to social causes from both parents. “If we
traveled by bus to go to a different town, my mom would stop the
bus if someone was smoking. She’d make the person get out and
finish the cigarette outside. That was many, many years ago when
there were no rules or regulations about smoking. But she was so
proactive,” said Dr. Azad. “Now I can look back and see how it was
a maternal instinct for her to protect her children.”
When Dr. Azad’s sister, Ilea, finished high school, the family
moved to the bigger city of Surat to live while Ilea attended arts
college. For a time, Dr. Azad wasn’t planning on being a doctor at
all. Instead, he wanted to follow his sister into an art related field and
then perhaps into law as a judge. He wrote short stories and poems,
and still has a passion for it today. It took one of his father’s patients
to make him reconsider the health care field he would grow to love.
“I went to my dad’s clinic one time and one of the patients waiting
asked me what I was going to do. ‘When your dad retires, who is
going to take care of us?’” Dr. Azad recalled. “That’s how I began to
think that being a doctor was a very noble profession. The patients
were happy. My dad was happy. I saw that I could make a difference.”
After high school, the young would-be doctor attended Government Medical College in Surat. It was a difficult time for Dr. Azad,
as his mother, Vijayalaxmi, was suffering from schizophrenia. “She
wouldn’t go to her treatments, but she listened to me so I was the
one to take her. She died during my time in medical school.”
Still, Dr. Azad persevered. After medical school, he stayed in
Surat working at local hospitals until he could start up his own
practice. It was there he met his future wife, Vyoma, and his world
irrevocably