If I were white, would anyone asked me if I had a class of white fellows?

Sachin H. Jain shared a post on LinkedIn:

“When I was a young child, I always looked forward to June when my Dad would host the outgoing fellows in the pain management fellowship he directed at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center at our home.

As a child, I enjoyed meeting these early-career doctors and getting a window in my Dad’s professional universe.

Before anyone talked about diversity, my Dad exhibited it with the fellows he recruited to his program.

From the very start, his recruits looked like a gender-diverse United Nations.

Many of them graduated from the top medical schools and residencies in the country.

And others—like him—were graduates of foreign medical schools from across the globe.

One year, after meeting another class of his treasured fellows, I asked my Dad a ‘kid’ question.

‘Dad, why do you always have so many foreign graduates in the program—and why’s there always an Indian?

I also asked him whether it might reflect poorly on him that—as an Indian himself—he always seemed to have an Indian fellow or two.

In response, he asked me a few questions:

‘If I were white, would anyone asked me if I had a class of white fellows? Why should it be any different for Indians?’

He also remarked:

‘Some of these young people are extremely well-trained—the best from their country. If I don’t give them a chance, who will?’

He also told me that the final fellowship selections were made by a committee and that they always chose the best qualified.

But he wasn’t shy about advocating for people others might ignore or leave behind.

I left the interaction a bit dumbfounded.

He was right.

If he was not Indian, no one would think twice about the racial identity of the people in his program.

Why should he? And if he had access to top flight talent who shared his ethnic heritage, why should it bother anyone?

In retrospect, it took real guts for my Dad to take the position that he did when he did (1980s and 1990s).

It might have been much easier for him to hide behind a committee’s selection—or select fellows who looked more conventionally appropriate for the program.

But he had a viewpoint and it was his job to express it.

Even if it was bold and out-of-sync with the times.

Or even a little professionally risky for him.

He took his position and its associated obligations seriously.

My Dad was ahead of his time in seeing excellence where others perceived risk.

And I think it arose from the fact that he never lost sight of the fact that someone took a chance on him—when there were countless others who looked past him.

And he was fiercely committed to paying it forward.”

Source: Sachin H. Jain/LinkedIn

Sachin Jain is the President and CEO of SCAN Group and Health Plan and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. He also serves as a Board Member at The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, an Academic Hospitalist (WOC) at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and a Board Member at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). He is also a board member of Omada Health.