Dr. Eesha Singh’s background in computer engineering studying AI led to her current path as a stroke neurologist after an experience with clinical medicine during her time as an undergrad at Vanderbilt. Growing up in India allowed Dr. Singh to witness first-hand the consequences of health disparity, which continue to inform her care and interests. In her free time, she enjoys gaming with friends, board games, as well as reading, listening to podcasts, and brunching with friends.
Tell us about your background.
I was born in India. We moved to the suburbs of Memphis from New Delhi when I was 10 years old. I first moved to Nashville for undergrad at Vanderbilt. I studied computer engineering, and was not thinking about doing anything medical at the time. Eventually I added neuroscience and math since I became interested in Artificial Intelligence from a computational science perspective. I also had my first experience with clinical work during undergrad through the biomedical engineering lab, as I worked with neuroimaging. I liked the immediacy of the clinical side of science. I took a break from school after undergrad, as I tried to decide whether I wanted to explore that clinical side more or to pursue a Ph.D. route in the computer engineering/AI field. During that gap year, I did research in a neuro-pharmacology lab at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Ultimately I decided to pursue medicine, and I attended medical school at the University of Tennessee in Memphis.
There I tried to hone my prior interests, especially in education and health disparity, which were both a product of growing up in India and honed by my experiences as a college and medical student. I was able to add some experiences to our curriculum to aid in the students’ understanding of health inequity and social determinants. I decided to come to Vanderbilt for residency because I genuinely liked the people I met here on interview day, plus I knew from undergrad that I liked Nashville.
I’m currently focusing on stroke. Practicing this specialty in the Stroke Belt is very tied to health disparity issues, and I also really like how closely stroke neurology is tied to imaging. It gives me the opportunity for very acute hands-on care, and I like the fast-paced nature of it.
Has residency been what you expected? Have there been any surprises along the way?
I think it’s honestly been about as hard as I expected. But I think my experience has been a great balance of working hard, while I always felt supported and never pushed beyond what I was capable of. Based on my prior experiences with neuroimaging and how intimately it is tied to care, I hope to continue exploring clinical research throughout my career. If there’s something that surprised me, it would be that I’ve developed that interest, and I want to pursue it in addition to being an academic clinician.
I’ve been able to explore my interest in health disparity and equity as well through some of the initiatives with our diversity committee, such as education about implicit bias.
What do you consider the biggest rewards of residency? What about challenges?
As a medical student, you don’t see a lot of continuity with patients because you go out of rotation so quickly. So the continuity we have in the neurology clinic, seeing patients improve and see how grateful they are–that’s very rewarding. That’s not something I actively sought or expected because I just didn’t experience it as a medical student. Even though my conversational Spanish is very elementary, patients have been incredibly grateful when I make the effort to talk to them and it has been invaluable at times during more emergent situations such as stroke alerts.
In terms of challenges, I can say that clinically I have been so well supported, that I've never faced a situation where I felt completely unprepared. The impression I had of my colleagues on interview day has stood the test of time!
What's been the best advice you've received from any of your attendings thus far?
One of the biggest pieces of advice that has informed how I'm approaching fellowship interviews is this: try to find someone wherever you are that’s living a life you want to live (either in terms of career or work/life balance). There are successful mentors everywhere, but a successful mentor for you is living a life you want for yourself.
Another piece of advice that’s commonly doled out is to “read more.” As I’m becoming a senior, many attendings are encouraging us to discover the “art” of medicine and explore more of the non-textbook cases, and their advice is, accordingly, become more focused and actionable.
What are your current plans post-residency (fellowship, practice, etc)?
I am currently interviewing for stroke fellowships. I hope to continue learning about social determinants and how that impacts stroke care and health equity to hopefully find better ways to deliver care.
How do you like to spend your time away from work?
I like having brunch with friends; I also enjoy reading and board games. I play video games and D&D with friends long-distance; it’s how I stay in touch with some of my friends who don’t live in Nashville.
What are you currently reading/watching/listening to?
I’m currently re-reading A Memory Called Empire, which is a futuristic dystopian novel dealing with colonization and identity. I listen to a lot of podcasts: Stuff You Should Know, true crime, that sort of thing.
