EP #116: Aurthi Muthukumaran - Physician Assistant & High Level Tennis Player

Aurthi Muthukumaran (@aurthi.pa) is an emergency medicine and orthopaedic surgery physician assistant and high-level tennis player.

She joins Ara on this week’s episode of #TheTamilCreator to discuss why she is a big advocate of the physician assistant role as something that young people with an interest in medicine should pursue, how a shoulder injury playing tennis when she was 13 years old had increased her academic focus, having an innate desire to give back to the Tamil community through her work at SHN (@shnfoundation), how physician assistants positively impact the patient experience while helping to remove barriers to healthcare, how she balanced a demanding academic load with her athletic pursuit of being a high-level tennis player and so much more.

Follow Aurthi:
- LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aurthi-muthu/)
- Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/aurthi.pa/)

Timestamps

00:19 - Ara introduces this week’s guest, Aurthi Muthukumaran
00:46 - What led her to a career in healthcare; a tennis injury
05:02 - Being further inspired by an opponent in her varsity career
06:21 - What is physician assistant; a relatively new role
09:35 - Difference between a physician and a physician assistant
12:23 - The importance of the pandemic for physician assistants
13:57 - Canadian universities increasingly offering PA programs
14:41 - Being one of less than 1,000 PAs in Canada today
15:29 - Resonating with Scarborough Health Network; the Tamil community
16:36 - What Aurthi’s day-to-day looks like
19:57 - Retracting a patient’s abdomen; becoming desensitized over time
21:02 - Winning an ‘Excellence in Leadership’ award; her advocacy efforts
22:21 - Balancing academics and athletics from a young age
24:34 - Being used to 10-hour days; being grateful for a busy upbringing
29:48 - The importance of maintaining physical and mental health as you age
31:49 - Extrinsic motivation versus intrinsic motivation; winning habits
37:52 - Where she sees herself in the next 3-5 years; personally and professionally
40:28 - Her biggest learning lesson; a steep learning curve when switching specialties
43:29 - Advice she would give her 16-year-old self; no such thing as perfection
44:34 - The personal legacy she wants to be remembered for by friends and family
45:36 - Her dad being an avid chess player; training players who are famous today
46:15 - Creator Confessions
50:02 - The Wrap Up

Intro Music

Produced And Mixed By:
- The Tamil Creator
- Yanchan

Written By:
- Aravinthan Ehamparam
- Yanchan Rajmohan