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First-year Resident in Family Medicine, Aspects of a Learner, Navpreet Badesha, MD

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Tell me about your childhood, what’s your family like? Both of my parents are immigrants and hustlers. My parents grew up in India and immigrated to California and started their own business. I grew up watching them live out the American dream. They were always telling me as a kid that I could grow up to live out any dream I imagined.

What made you decide to go into medicine? It’s funny because one of my friends recently told me that in sixth grade, our teacher asked us to write on the board what we wanted to be when we grow up. He said I wrote “doctor” on the board and he congratulated me by saying “you became exactly what you said you would.” I didn’t even remember that! It meant the world to me. As I progressed through school, I was drawn to science and sports. I had a dream of being a professional athlete or a sportscaster when I was young, when that didn’t work out, I was into studying sports and sciences. The more I learned about the human body, the more obsessed I became with how awesome our bodies are! Remember, no matter who you are, someone is always loving and fighting for you – your white blood cells!

Why did you choose family medicine for residency? I love the idea of treating what we call from the “cradle to the grave” or “womb to the tomb.” In med school I learned how much I love babies, I love caring for moms and their babies. When I was exposed to caring for women during childbirth, I knew I wanted to take care of families as a whole. Plus it really encompasses my philosophy around caring for your mind, body and spirit at the same time.

You have a side project outside of residency too. How did that come to fruition? In my first year of med school, I was really focused on a mind-body-spirit connection. One day, while I was meditating by a beautiful ocean, the name MEDspiration came to me. It started as a blog about functionality of the human body. The blog grew to be extremely popular, to the point where we got featured on ABC news, Business Insider and The Doctor’s TV show. After all of this success sent more people to the blog, I decided that I wanted MEDspiration to be a non-profit organization, something that could be much larger than just one person. Today, we offer free open access medical education to over 5 million people each month! We have a podcast, an awesome YouTube channel and a team that is truly dedicated to promoting healthy living across the globe.

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