Meet Dr Jagdish Chaturvedi — recognised by MIT technology review, 2016 as one of the 35 innovators under the age of 35 — a medical doctor, a stand-up comedian, and an author of best-selling books on medical device innovations.
Born in Bangalore he had a typical Bangalorean childhood and schooling. “I was not very studious and would do just enough to make it to the next class. I was more interested in sports (cricket, badminton, table tennis) and theatre, and I have been acting in plays since the age of seven. I used to get into trouble quite frequently at school and with my parents,” he says.
Multi-tasking
However, he juggles multiple roles today as a practicing ENT surgeon medical device innovator, author and stand-up comedian, and admits it is not very complex. “I work with teams for each of these activities and outsource logistical hassles. I only focus on the core task of Innovations, treating patients, doing comedy or writing books. Surgeries and patients are seen during the day and comedy happens at night. There is no overlap of timings, but yes sometimes my patients end up attending my shows and audiences end up on the OT table. Innovations and writing books are sporadic activities that usually take up eight-10 hours of my week once every five-six months,” he asserts.
Comic cues
For someone who has been doing comedy in theatre for over 25 years, he says it was hard to balance clinical practice and hectic rehearsal schedules for plays. “I’ve always been on stage for something or the other since childhood. Either as a theatre actor, improv artiste or a mimic, doing something fun alongside my studies or work has always been the normal for me. So, even as a practising doctor, until 2015, I was actively performing in three to five plays every year. But as clinical work grew, making time for play rehearsals became challenging. Hence, the shift from theatre to stand-up comedy, because it allows the flexibility to develop and prepare content without the need for rehearsals with a team. It can be done alone in one’s own time and schedule. For me, I write best in traffic and in the toilet, then test the jokes in some comedy shows and then refine it before it is released to the world. So it never really has been a switch from medicine to comedy or vice-versa. The switch has been from theatre to stand-up comedy, while practising as a doctor I have never stopped being that,” he shares.
His performances are observational in nature, usually, anecdotes that were funny and ones that he has experienced in unusual circumstances, or his abstract sarcastic take on how people behave and react. He even made the viral WhatsApp video, ‘Main Corona Virus hoon,’ and says he did it as he has always tried to bring comedy to medical topics and attempted to make them simpler for non-medical audiences. “A year ago, when not many people knew about coronavirus, it had already created havoc in Wuhan. I felt the need to put it out in a simple and entertaining manner for people to understand and be aware of. I wrote a small monologue speaking like the virus and had no clue it would go viral on WhatsApp.”
His YouTube channel, Jagdish Chaturvedi, is a one stop shop for comic relief and has all his comedy, and many of the smaller healthcare information videos in an entertaining manner.
Innovations galore
Dr Chaturvedi has also been involved in the development of over 18 medical devices. They are designed for usage in the Indian setting — more robust, lower maintenance, reusable and low skill requirements. HiiiH (pronounced as Hi) is his latest stint with innovations where he helps other doctors, startups with their ideas, to bring their products to the market through a services model.
“Any doctor with a new idea can reach out to us and get any service they feel they need our expertise for. It could be for filing a patent for them, making a prototype, creating the designs, regulatory, testing, marketing and commercialization support, validation, fundraising and most importantly team finding. We also produce entertainment content that drives information on Healthcare and innovations. We developed a web series called Starting Troubles, which started streaming on a social media platform called BuddyBits, and also on Facebook and YouTube.”
Future perfect
Dr Chaturvedi has also authored three books. Inventing Medical Devices: A Perspective from India talks about his experiences of inventing and failing at developing some medical devices. “It is a handbook for any aspiring innovator to understand how to start with the idea and in a step-by-step fashion develop the product all the way till it reaches the patient,” he says. He has also authored The Benefits of Failing Successfully, an anecdotal collection of ten failures of his life that helped him become a better entrepreneur, and One Year of Stand Up Comedy is all about his early experiences of stand-up comedy from an Indian perspective and talks about how much one can earn and grow while doing comedy in India.
Looking ahead he says he plans to do many exciting things in the coming months. “In addition to season two of the Starting Troubles web series, I am working towards developing a patient consulting platform on HiiiH that will also allow remote examination and small procedures. I am also writing a children's book with an awareness of mask usage and social distancing. Let’s wait and see how these go,” he signs off.
