Bon Vivant Chic - Life Well Lived

Heartfelt Connections: A Conversation with Dr. Jay Amin

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Ernestine:

welcome to Bon Vivant Chic Life Well Lived the podcast. For anyone who wants to cut through today's noise and just listen for a few minutes to meaningful conversations on the human experience and the power of connectedness, I'm your host Ernestine Morgan, an advocate for kindness with a passion for showcasing human interest stories that matter. Today I'm happy to be sitting with Dr. Jay Amin, who is board certified in cardiovascular disease. He was born in Canada and spent his childhood growing up in rural Alberta. I've known Jay since he arrived here in Clearwater in 2003. Jay has agreed to sit down with me for just a friendly conversation. Physicians are always so busy and I'm very grateful he has carved out time. For a nonclinical chat. So let's get started. Please welcome Jay. A well-respected physician in our community, family man and a man passionate about ensuring quality healthcare in our communities and the impact philanthropy has on those efforts. Jay, thanks for sitting down with me today.

Jay:

Yes, thank you so much. That's a honor and pleasure to be here. I'm excited about this whole endeavor you have with podcasts, as we've talked about before. Love radio. And I think this is a great way to have you back on stage in a different format for you.'cause I know you love being on stage, but this is very different for you. Thanks for inviting me to be here. Appreciate that.

Ernestine:

Thank you share a little bit about, growing up and what life was like.

Jay:

I'm Canadian. My parents are from India. I'm Canadian. I grew up in Alberta, rural Canada, middle of nowhere. My, father's a primary care physician, and we're talking old fashioned primary care physicians. So we're talking about a small hospital. This is a community of about a thousand people. This is a farming community. It was a little bit of a struggle, from the standpoint we didn't have access to a lot of things that kids have now, but it taught me about the value of hard work and the importance of relationships, close friends safety. I grew up there. Went through high school there, always wanted to be a physician.

Ernestine:

Are you an only child?

Jay:

I've got, the middle of three. The younger brother and an older brother. I was the only one that went into healthcare it was, a different experience. I wish I would've had more access to things that kids, have now I went to college in Alberta, the University of Alberta was there for three years and then we got our green cards. My father had this vision at some point years before of going the United States and moving the United States and having us all come down here.'cause he thought the opportunity even. Greater here. And so we moved here. I at least came down here and I, went to, university of Connecticut for about a year in the mid eighties. Got my undergraduate degree there. And then I worked for a couple years in a basic science lab and wasn't really sure I was still gonna go into medicine or I wanted do something else. Wound up going to graduate school, then ultimately to med school, did all my training in the northeast. Ultimately moved to Michigan where I did my fellowship. I got married during my first year of fellowship and we moved to Florida, which I never thought it would've been moving to Florida, but here we are 22 years later. It's been a great experience. And why not Florida? I don't know. It's just something about when I think about Florida, thinking about beaches. We don't really have winters, beaches. There's no winters. I always wanna go back to the northeast. Oh, okay. Just love Boston. I love the culture, I love the restaurants, love everything about that area. My mother was passionate about moving back to somewhere in the southeast she grew up in, North Carolina. At the time her father was still alive and she wanted to be close to her parents, and she's very close knit with her sisters and her family. I said, we can move to the southeast. We wound up moving to Florida, which is really the best move in my career, fortunate enough. Some of these things happen just by chance. It's been a great move and we've been very happy here.

Ernestine:

What are some of your fondest memories of growing up?

Jay:

It's a shame'cause I think society's changed a lot and that may be partly living in Canada in a small community, but I remember as a kid, coming home after school, and this is the winter, I was 14, 15 at the time, even younger. We'd go outside and we played road hockey on the road. Right. There be so much snow. It's not like the snow is getting cleared from the streets. We'd build our pillars for a goalpost. They'd be on either sides of the street and we'd play road hockey. Ultimately we got hockey nets, so we got a little sophisticated. I remember just looking forward to doing that every day during the winter. And I remember the cars going by and you have to get off the road and the cars would run over your goalposts and you have to go back and put new goalposts up, but it was just this, idea of growing up, knowing all your neighbors, having close friends, relationships. Which I think has changed a lot in society now. Sometimes you don't even know your next door neighbor, those are really fun. Just childhood, just growing up with friends I think and I still stay in touch with some of them.

Ernestine:

I

Jay:

do that and someone I know in first grade, I still stay in touch with her. I've got another friend I stay in touch with, It's nice'cause there's not a lot of people that can remember their friends from first grade or stay in touch 50 plus years later and I still stay in touch with Beverly. That's wonderful.

Ernestine:

Who had the biggest influence on you when you were young? I think,

Jay:

Obviously I think my parents, my father worked really hard as a primary care physician, so you gotta think, think back what it was years ago in a small community in rural Canada. This was a hospital, run by, nuns, by a Catholic church and nuns. He worked there and as a physician, he was on call all the time. I remember him working hard and rounding on the weekends we never really took a whole lot of family vacations and holidays, but he taught me the value of hard work. And for my mother, the real important value that she made is the value of human kindness. And caring about other people. I've got the work ethic from my father, the perseverance, the determination, the desire, and more of that human compassion side. From my mother. She passed away a little over a year ago. Oh, I'm sorry. I think it was just I was very fortunate. To have parents that cared as much as they did. And again, it was a different era, a different environment.

Ernestine:

Was it expected that you would become a physician?

Jay:

It's one of these immigrant stories where. When to get to United States and get to Canada and get to north America, the goal is to make a better life for your children. it only takes one generation to change a whole family legacy. My father and mother, came from very poor, backgrounds, very poor upbringings. My, my father was one of six children, so my mother was one of six children. And they didn't have a lot of access to a lot of things that I have now, but they sacrificed their whole lives to make a better life for us. And so when you arrive in a country where there's a lot of opportunity, the real ticket for a lot of immigrants is education. And there's a lot of successful people in other industries that are entrepreneurial, that have opened up grocery stores. And barber shops and different things, but. The real ticket is education. The value of working hard to obtain a really good education to further your career goals was the real ticket to get to the next level. And so I think I've been fortunate in that way to. Have parents that kind of edged you and pushed you on. Didn't force me into that. I didn't see myself do anything else. My brothers had other, inklings and different interests, but, it all worked out in the end. For me, I'm grateful.,

Ernestine:

I remember when I was first telling you I was doing this yes. A few months ago. I was telling you I was starting this podcast and you were very delighted in your response and it was really funny'cause you said. You know, I really wanted to be a sportscaster, We talked a little bit about it, but now is an opportunity just to dig a little deeper into that. Right,

Jay:

right. You've got a great voice for it. Well, I love sports first of all. So I love, watching, and I don't watch sports year round, but I love the major events the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NHL playoff series. As a kid growing up watching some of these, listening to the broadcasters, not just on television but on radio, I said to myself, that's something I could easily do. And it's a lot'cause I love sports and I think I can, do that. I could be a, color commentator or comment on statistics. And then I started thinking about this. I started researching, where do you go to become a broadcaster? I came across, Howard Stern who went to some, I think it was the Connecticut School, public broadcasting, I think there's a school if Howard Stern can do this, how come I can't do this? I've never gone down that path. But I've always been fascinated by the radio, listening to other people, and that's why I love podcasts so much. I've got'em on my phone, listen to different things, it's just a way of communication and I think to be a broadcaster, if you're on the radio, everyone's focused on listening to what you say, so you're presenting a whole game, or the play or whatever it is. To them, and they're the ones interpreting it by the words that you use. And the descriptions. And so it's just something I've always been interested in, loved as a kid, watching really good commentators doing hockey games, and,, Danny Galvin and, just a long history of great, broadcasting.

Ernestine:

We talked earlier about how different life is today for kids but opportunities there are for, podcast or this kind of platform, right? Yes. We're sort of going backwards, right? Yeah. So interesting.

Jay:

cause I think, as a kid growing up, like I said, was a small little town, two television stations. There was CB, C and, another station So it was only two stations that were watching on television. So a lot of times it was just late at night listening to the radio. As I got a little bit older, listening to some more baseball games, I remember one, I forget which baseball game it was or which, league it was, but every time a baseball hit was, made a broadcaster would have a piece of wood sitting on his. On his table, have a pencil, and then to make it more lively for the fans listening to the game, if there was a base hit, he'd tap his pencil on the wood to make it sound like a click. Like it was a base hit. I thought that was really kind of neat. And he'd listen to the sports game and so I thought, this is interesting. I started listening to the radio all the time. Obviously you have less time to do that as you get older through college and stuff.. I'm not a big television viewer now. I listen to more radio and podcasts. So it's like almost full circle. In terms of the mass media. We sell, you watch, other shows and things. In different formats. But it's just for me, radio's become. back to when I was a kid.

Ernestine:

Yeah.

Jay:

Listen to it as a kid, and it was

Ernestine:

very important for me to do this podcast only audio. I'm just more interested in listening to the voice. And also this preconceived idea of the person. When you see them visually. Interesting.

Jay:

There's a lot of thing in, in terms of voices. In terms of sports. You think about people like Howard Cosell and Vince Scully back several years ago, just these names and just the sound of their voice. It would just make you wanna listen to them speak. Listen to them broadcast the game. And you didn't care who was playing. It was just listening to them do their thing. It was just, fun to listen to them.

Ernestine:

What was the first job you had and how did it shape you?

Jay:

I remember my father telling me, you need to get a job after school. He said, you need to learn about more values outside of school. I was studying all the time. So he made me get a job at the one grocery store in Killam, Alberta, where it was the major supermarket, and I became, a bagger. This is with. The brown paper bags, trying to put in the jugs of milk in there and help with the car and doing all that stuff. Saturday mornings I'd have to go in and work there as well. It made you respect. There's another way of life other than just through books and school all the time that people do make their living. And you need to learn to see what that's like. actually if anything, it motivated me to work even harder at school'cause I didn't want to be. Bagging groceries in a supermarket. It taught me a lot of stuff. But that was probably my first job. I did other jobs in the summer, even before when I was younger. I remember cutting grass at the neighbors it would take me two hours to cut someone's grass. And they paid me like three bucks and I had to pay for all my, I had to push my lawnmower over there and bring the gasoline two and a half hours later and three bucks to me, I think. Oh, that's great. But that was back then, right?$3 is a ride. You could buy a candy

Ernestine:

bar for 50 cents

Jay:

It was just small things like that.

Ernestine:

You've built a very successful career in cardiac medicine. What are some of the most rewarding moments as a physician?

Jay:

Anytime a patient shows their appreciation and gratitude for what you're doing and the value you bring to them, it's always rewarding, right? I think what's even more, for me personally, more, rewarding is when doctors see you as their physician, they come to see you or they send you their family members. I call that the psycho gratification. It makes you feel good about yourself, the fact that they trust you. To take care of them. These two are also physicians and have their loved ones that they care deeply about. And they're trusting you to take care of them, right? For me, that's the most humbling thing in the day to day. I love what I do, but I think when patients show that gratitude, it makes you want to keep doing it more. And I've enjoyed it over the past 22 years for sure. I've enjoyed a lot of it.

Ernestine:

Yeah. What have been, pivotal moments or decisions that change the course of your life? Life?

Jay:

That's a really interesting question'cause they say health is wealth. Fortunately I've been in pretty good health. My wife Anita's in pretty good health. We were blessed with our twins. Now they're 13. And we got into a little bit of trouble'cause of the prematurity. Anita had trouble with the preeclampsia. They had to be delivered early, so they were born at 29 weeks. And so at that. Age. cause I'd always dreams of, we're gonna do all this, that and the other. And then when you have that level, and we always want to have children. I didn't think I'd have two kids all at once. I didn't think I had baby premature at that age. But that really,'cause that was a really tough time for us for the first, three years my daughter came home with a feeding tube. She was a failure to thrive. She would take both of them to their physical therapy and occupational therapy twice a week for two or three years. Wow. And then they caught up.. But for me, that really put a whole new, let's take a big step back, think about what the big picture is, and then all of a sudden the little things mean less. Because you realize you've got now two healthy, beautiful children. And look what you went through to have them. It was a struggle initially, but now that where we're at, you start to reflect back and say, those were wonderful years. I wish they were small again. Maybe when they were five or six. Maybe not when they were two weeks old or three weeks old when they're in ICU at All Children's. Really, when you have these types of connections,'cause we talk about health as being wealthy for you. And you start to. Something goes wrong. It really makes it take a step back and wonder why was I worried about, a bonus? Or why was I worried about not getting a promotion it's so insignificant compared to the bigger picture of life. I think they're wonderful. they're very competitive.. But they really take care of one another. And it's a beautiful relationship. I hope it's something that they can have for the rest of their lives and always stay in touch with one another like that. It's special and I think it's a blessing for me to be a father taking care of them because they bring a lot of joy to our lives and we never thought we'd have children. We were blessed to have twins, and I think now that they're there I can't imagine our lives without them I can't imagine them not being there. They're growing up quickly. So fast. That's the, unfortunate thing so fast.

Ernestine:

What lessons about family and relationships would you pass along to medical students or physicians just starting out?

Jay:

I think, we're so involved in our careers and so focused on the long-term goal. You gotta smell the roses as you go along, and I think we all want to be successful both within our profession but also financially. One of the most, meaningful books I've ever read was, die With Zero, which teaches you more about, look, when you're 65 years old, there's some things you're not gonna be able to do, as opposed to when you were much younger, when you're 40, like climbing Mount Picchu or going somewhere far right? I think knowing what I know now, I wish I would've. Take some time off when you need to take some time off. At least value the importance of relationships with not just your family, but also your friends. Sometimes through medical training you can get a little bit separated. And not just with your friends, but your family as well. It's not something that you deliberately did, it's just the way it evolves. We're so involved with, not from medical school, but also postgraduate training and internship and residency and then fellowship. It's just a lot and. Something sometimes has to give and sometimes it's relationships. Keep in mind the relationships, you want to keep those together and do what you can to try to preserve those. Because sometimes those are harder to get back.

Ernestine:

I found too that, you really have to be intentional. Pursuing that, yes.

Jay:

Any friendship or relationship. Takes work. And this is a sad thing that you see in what happens now. We're so used to texting, and we've used that as our method of communication where it takes one second to text someone a happy birthday, but does it really, truly meaningful as opposed to picking up the phone or getting together for dinner or just getting together in general? We've used media. Had, there's advantages to media, but the texting I've really tried to get away from, cause for me, you could text anybody you want. You could send out seven texts to seven people and wish'em a happy holiday. But is it meaningful as it is than picking up the phone or meeting up with friends? And I think that, as we've gone through, you've seen with COVID what that has done, it's put us in some isolation. You've seen different industries where it's still working from home and you kinda wonder is that really healthy, long term for. Where people want to be in terms of their happiness. Because what makes you happy? And they've done studies looking at happiness and it's the social connections. That makes you want to get outta bed, what's your purpose every day? What's your passion? And it's the human connection that keeps that all moving.

Ernestine:

There's studies out there on.

Jay:

Longevity for sure. Yes, for sure. We work in this environment you work till you're 65 and all of a sudden you quit and that's the end. It's a shame you can't have some sort of transition, because when you just stop working, and if your whole career has been what you've known to do for the past 30 plus years, all of a sudden stop doing that with no transition. That's hard. And especially it's hard for physicians. I think that's why I start to see physicians re not wanna just quit. And you go 90 miles an hour and just stop, right? Because you gotta have something to replace that. What makes you, or what defines you, right? What gives you purpose, and for some people it's hard to find out what that next step is.

Ernestine:

I know that I had to be really intentional a couple years before I actually. Retired. I had to be very intentional in reaching out and trying to build new tribes. I've dived into more projects. I think it's fantastic, but still, it's fun. Yes. Interesting, and having these conversations, meeting new people

Jay:

yeah. And getting to more detail.

Ernestine:

You talked a little bit about, the secret to a fulfilling and happy life. Can you elaborate even more?

Jay:

What are the things that we're looking for? When you say happiness, that's such a big topic, I think the key thing to happiness. There was this quote about what's a meaningful life from the standpoint of your relationships, the quote is, we are, children to our own parents. We then become parents to our own children. We've then become parents to our own parents, and then when we're 90, we're children are our own children. So think about the whole cycle of that, and if you can maintain the relationships with not just your parents, but also your children, and have that all connected from the standpoint of family. That's a pretty well-rounded. Connection and a meaningful life. Some of us don't have all that. I missed some of those pieces. But the issue is, the connectivity, the relationships with their family. And of course you're building relationships with your friends as well. We live our lives in chapters, some chapters close, other chapters open and new lives begin you start meeting new people, and that's the way life evolves. But I think if you've. Can complete that family circle that family dynamic and be connected to everyone. If you can find four or five good friends for the whole course of a lifetime and become productive, give back in terms of the way that we want to give back through philanthropy and other things. That's a pretty meaningful life. And it's not all just about financial and achieve a certain degree of wealth. It's really, it's the relationships. And I think there is a, there's actually a psychiatrist outta Harvard and I think his name is Robert Waldinger.'cause I remember sitting in on a mastermind group. With some of his disciples. During COVID when we were isolated. Sure. Looking for some sort of entertainment. Here we are with podcasts and radio. And so this was a Zoom call once a week for six or eight weeks with individuals looking for that. Source of happiness.'cause Robert Waldinger is a psychiatrist outta Harvard who's part of this long-term study that began years ago, I think he took over the study. But it's been going on for years, looking at what makes people happy. He studied Harvard, Harvard under students and followed them for decades. And what came down to was not how much money you had, it's the relationship you had with your friends and family. It was the defining factor? So beautiful. Just like how we have in cardiology, we have data on what Framingham is and what the risk factors for cardiovascular disease following patients for several years. This is a happiness Framingham study kind of interesting. And he's done a Ted talk on it as well. Which is interesting to listen to.

Ernestine:

What inspires you and keeps you motivated every day, We know healthcare has really changed over the course of the last 20 years. What is it that keeps you inspired and motivated?

Jay:

The fact if you can get outta bed and think that, you can go help someone, and I've got, when I see 25 patients, I've got 25 opportunities to help a patient. And it'd be something very minor, something large, that's enough to motivate me. What I think is the struggle is with physician burnout and the demands on us as physicians, and I think there, you've gotta. Take a step back and say to yourself, there's certain things you can do in the office seeing a patient, but then there's other larger things that you can do. You can step outta that room, step into a medical executive committee, or take some administrative leadership roles and try to work with the healthcare system and try to make healthcare better and delivery better. Working with. Hospital administrators to, try to do that. And I think it's always a, it's a win-win when you work with people that have the same goal. You've gotta reach out, you've gotta put yourself out there. You've gotta commit some time and some sacrifice.'cause the healthcare, we're all in the healthcare system together. Hospitals, nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, physicians, nurses, we're all in it together. It's the healthcare system. The issue is just trying to get people aligned and And build a a common goal. And sometimes the, there's misalignment, unfortunately.

Ernestine:

How do you avoid burnout?

Jay:

That's a long conversation. Burnout's pretty high if you start doing surveys and there's podcasts on burnout. And I think for me, obviously exercise, eating healthy is important. Sleep. We underestimate the importance of sleep. Taking time off. We need to take time off. A lot of times people approach us as physicians thinking we know everything. We sometimes don't know everything. You've gotta realize you're human as well. Sometimes you've gotta reach out to other colleagues and go over cases together. And it's a collegial, it's gotta be collegial burnout is an ongoing issue within. The healthcare community amongst physicians, it's not like any other profession, out there. Everyone's working hard. The demands on us are different. There's been labor shortages. You've gotta take care of yourself. And I think as physicians, sometimes we forget to do we put our health and our wellbeing and self care behind everybody else's, and that's not healthy either.

Ernestine:

Good points. I've been in the philanthropic world for the last 25 plus years. And I've met so many people. Philanthropy means something different to everyone what is. Philanthropy mean to you?

Jay:

When you look at the actual origin of the word, it's a Greek word philia, Which is this concept of caring for others, human kindness, right? I think I used to always think of philanthropy as. I can't do that. That's someone that when you're 65 or 70 or seven, five years old, you've accumulated this huge fortune of wealth and you can now donate money to a great cause. That is a huge aspect of philanthropy in our society for sure. I think there's still opportunities to practice some philanthropy through the course of our whole life. It's not necessarily giving back in terms of dollars. It's giving back in terms of time. Absolutely volunteering. There's other ways to give back to help others. And it's that human kindness. I remember my father telling me something along those same lines, this was, around the holidays. It was around Christmas. I was studying for a final exam. This was in high school. And I was working at that grocery store. And they were having a holiday party on a Saturday night and I wasn't gonna go. My supervisor reached out and said, Jay, we'd love you to come, but we also need some help setting up. I asked my dad, I said, I don't really want to go. I've gotta study for my, exam the next Monday or Tuesday. He said, no, Jay, he's reaching out to you, but he's also looking for some help and it doesn't hurt to go and help people when they're asking you for some assistance. I remember helping set up the chairs, going there, wound up staying there for the party. Went end up at one o'clock in the morning. I didn't study that night, but I remember the idea. That you can't go wrong in life by caring for one another. And when someone asks you for some help to give back. That's philanthropy in of itself. Yes. As well. It's human kindness, right? Absolutely. It's human kindness. And so I think we have opportunities to practice that. Not just when you're 65, when you can make a huge impact financially. Hopefully that could do that at some point too. But I think also along the lines of our day-to-day lives That we think things that are simple you take for granted, but it really makes an impact. In more ways than you realize. And it's small, but for some other people it's huge. Part of that is also what's your nature? Some of us, are more giving than others, at the end of the day, it's part of, what makes you feel good about yourself and the impact you can make on someone else's life One of our favorite charities. Is All Children's, because we're connected to that. When you see our twins, when they went through what they, went through at their age, you can see someone had to have donated something, to give them the opportunity to. To get to where they're at. We're, paying it forward so I think that, this is all good. I think this is really exciting and every discussion so far has been this, connection and the impact personally that they have with that organization or institution. It's because They've gone through something similar. When you see that, you can identify with it. It takes a lot in terms of meaning.

Ernestine:

Well said. Thank you.

Jay:

Yes, absolutely.

Ernestine:

Thank you for sitting down with me. Yes. No, I

Jay:

appreciate it., I love this, I love radio and I love what you're doing and I wish you the very best.

Ernestine:

Thanks for listening to Bon Vivant Chic Live Well Lived I hope you'll tune in for more meaningful stories on the human experience and share with family and friends. All the episodes are available on Spotify Buzz Sprout, Apple and on my website, bonvivantchic.com Till next time, remember, every day is a gift. Live it. Kindness matters