An ophthalmologist who was not sure whether he wanted to become a doctor or not, Dr. Tirth finally took the decision to become a super specialist and claims to have cured more than thirty thousand eye-patients so far.

Dr. Tirth Patel is an Eye Surgeon and Ophthalmologist. He also runs a clinic under the name ‘Shree Eye and Dental Hospital in Ahmedabad’.

Dr. Tirth completed his schooling in Ankleshwar, Gujarat. Later, he did his higher secondary education in Ahmedabad. Though he completed his MBBS, he was in two minds whether to pursue Medicine further as a career as everyone in his family was engaged in business. He toyed with the idea of going to the IIMs but eventually decided to pursue the field of Ophthalmology from Narayana Nethralaya, Bangalore. He also did superspecialization in cataract and refractive surgery.

Later, he came back to Ahmedabad and found a job. After a couple of years, he ended up starting his own clinic because he was not getting complete freedom to work according to his will in the job. However, he continued to provide treatment in hospitals whenever they needed super-specialist surgeons. He has also been the Head of the Refractive Surgery Department at Shree Santram Eye Hospital.

Dr. Tirth says that during the pandemic he decided to reach out to more people and, with the help of his colleague Dr. Bhawana, started another clinic by the name of Sattva Eye Care.

Dr. Tirth laments that too much use of mobile phones is affecting the eyesight of children these days. A decrease in physical activity also decreases nutritional needs and impacts the overall growth of the child. It is necessary for children to play outside. Furthermore, he says doctors cannot perform surgery before the age of 18, so prevention is better than cure.

Recalling his childhood, Dr. Tirth says he was more into games. He used to finish his homework quickly in order to play games. It helped him a lot to grow. He has represented his district in basketball.

When asked about his role models, Dr. Tirth says his father is his role model, as he learned a lot from him. He takes inspiration from his hard work and struggles in his business. He also learned a lot from his mentors, and his friends also motivated him to study and become a better professional. Dr. Tirth gets motivation from the movie "Guru," and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s journey also inspires him to keep going.

Sharing his opinion on education and experience, Dr. Tirth says both are necessary as there are many gold medalist doctors who are actually not good in practice. On the other hand, many of them did not have good marks but are still performing well as doctors. He believes that experience is also a part of knowledge. It is important to keep learning, whether it is in the form of knowledge or experience.

If given a time machine to go back in time, Dr. Tirth would like to go back to his college or school days, when there was no pressure to earn and he used to enjoy more with less money.

Advising the youth, Dr. Tirth says India is a tough place to pursue a career as a doctor, as competition is high and it takes a long time to become a specialist. You need to have patience in this field in order to achieve success. We should contribute to the development of our country and promote Make in India. Furthermore, you need to give yourself time to grow.