DR. WHO Manikya Kuriti, MD
After dropping her daughter at school, Dr. Manikya Kuriti begins another carefully calibrated day in endocrinology clinic. By the end of the workday, she will have navigated complex diabetes cases, reassured anxious patients and adjusted treatment plans that can quietly reshape the trajectory of someone’ s life. But long before she became the physician patients now rely on, her journey began thousands of miles away- with a high school teacher, a crush on a fellow pre-med student and a willingness to adapt.
Dr. Kuriti grew up in India as an only child, in a household far removed from the medical field. In fact, her earliest ambitions didn’ t even include becoming a physician.
“ In my middle school and high school, I was more of a science person rather than math. That was more of my forte,” she said. The spark came from a high school science teacher whose clarity and passion left a lasting impression.“ Originally, I thought I might be a science teacher because I was so impressed and motivated by her.”
But the path shifted once she entered pre-med coursework that was required for a science teacher.“ When I took that route, I realized that if I was already going to go through that much work, I could go ahead and become a physician,” she said. Just as important was her desire for independence and to be a professional.
In pre-med, she developed what she initially dismissed as a fleeting crush on a classmate named Vinay.
“ At that time, I was 18 or 19 years old, coming out of a girl’ s school. I thought it was just infatuation and I told myself I needed to focus on my studies,” she said with a laugh.
Fate had other plans. The two landed in the same medical school, became friends and by their third year were serious about their future together.
During their final year of medical school, they were offered the opportunity to complete an externship at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, and quickly discovered that clinical excellence required more than strong medical knowledge.“ It was a major cultural shock,” she says.“ Our accents were different, our medical records were different.” But the biggest surprise? Bedside manner.
“ Back home, many patients think of physicians as godlike figures,” she explained. In India, efficiency in medicine often meant brief, directive encounters. In the U. S., the expectations were different, and deeply human.
“ Understanding things like how we express ourselves to the patients, not waking them if they’ re sleeping unless it’ s an emergency, introducing yourself to them … those were some of the things we had to learn just by observing.”
There were technical hurdles too. When American hospitals began transitioning to electronic medical records, they faced an unexpected obstacle.
“ My husband and I had to learn online how to type,” she said.
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