Photo by Ray LaVoie
In 1997, Bella Mehta was a PharmD student at The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy on rotation at Riverside Methodist Hospital. While she was there, Mrunal Shah was in residency at the same hospital.
The two met during a brief period when their experiences overlapped and they quickly built a strong relationship that became something more.
“That overlap of six weeks, we joke around about it a little bit,” Shah says. “It wasn’t a large window of time that we would have necessarily had a chance to meet each other. But the fact we did then shaped a lot of how decisions were made after that and I guess the rest is history.”
The two have been happily married since 1999, have two children – Nina, 15, and Sonali, 19 – and are blazing their own trails in their respective fields.
Assisting physicians
Shah’s path to his current position is defined in part by its unpredictability. Despite the challenges faced, one thing was always at the center of what he’s done: one-on-one assistance.
Shah went directly into medical school out of high school and graduated from his residency at Riverside Methodist Hospital in 2000. Early in his career, he found himself enjoying the personal connections he was making with his peers.
Photo by Ray LaVoie
He cherished opportunities to help young physicians through some of the more challenging aspects of the job, such as establishing personal connections with families or guiding patients through difficult, life-altering decisions.
Shah took a then-novel position as vice president in IT as a physician, helping hospitals implement the latest technological advances into their workflow. For example, he and his colleagues’ efforts enabled Dublin Methodist Hospital to open as a paperless facility.
He became chief medical officer at Marion General Hospital and Hardin Memorial Hospital, where he acted essentially as a liaison between the medical staff, the president of the hospital and the board that organized the institution.
For the last few years, he worked at OhioHealth systematically analyzing physician success. It was there that his passion in working one-on-one with physicians was set in stone.
So, he left OhioHealth to start his own company, Thrive Healthcare Consulting.
“The mission for Thrive Healthcare is improving the health care experience through the power of human connection,” Shah says.
He is committed to helping physicians stay in touch with their passions and create the best possible experience for their patients.
“This is a fairly unique space and there aren’t many people that do what I do and I specifically love coaching physicians,” Shah says. “As a physician, I love physicians, I love health care. And it’s my way of being able to help them on their journey.”
Prescriptions for all
“Mrunal and I had parents who immigrated from India and came to the U.S., in general, in the pursuit of education, and I think that has been a foundational piece for both Mrunal and I,” Mehta says. “I think that drives a lot of what we do individually and personally, but also how we’ve made decisions along the way together, as well, on our journey.”
Photo by Ray LaVoie
Mehta was born in Akron and has spent most of her life in Ohio, including more than 40 years in central Ohio. She graduated from Westerville South and took a job working at an independent pharmacy.
“Westerville was much smaller back when I graduated, so I loved the relationships that they had,” she says, “but also making the difference for those patients that we were taking care of regularly so I knew I wanted to go to pharmacy school.”
This led her to The Ohio State University to earn her undergraduate and doctoral degrees in pharmaceutical studies. She was the third student in her field to graduate from her residency program.
“We were really integral in establishing those practice transformations beyond what a traditional pharmacist does,” Mehta says.
All the while, Mehta gained experiences teaching and found that she loved making personal connections with students and helping them along their journeys. Sound familiar?
While looking at faculty positions all over the country, she made mentorship a key requirement in her search. She accepted a position at OSU and is now in her 26th year as a Buckeye, having steadily risen through the ranks.
She is currently a professor and chair of the Pharmacy Practice and Science Division at The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy. Her role is to represent the students and staff and be her department’s voice to the leadership of the college, as well as work with community partners to expand the footprint of what OSU does.
“I get the best of all worlds,” she says. “Most of my career, I was in patient care – about 50 percent of my time. So I got the patient care, I got to educate and train and teach. I’m involved in professional organizations so I get to go and network nationally and share and learn from others. … In a place like OSU, it’s not the status quo. It’s always what’s new and what’s next.”
Coming together in New Albany
When searching for a home to raise their children, Mehta and Shah found New Albany to be a perfect fit.
“What was a really easy sell for me was when I was working with our leadership, with our CEO and COO at OhioHealth, was that New Albany believes very strongly in the health of its community,” Shah says. “And by that, I mean members of the community feel it’s important to have walking paths, and it’s important to focus on health and well-being. And it’s important to have access to healthy options and meet health-related needs.”
Mehta and Shah are committed to helping New Albany become a more health-conscious and fit community alongside Phil Heit and the Healthy New Albany organization. Mehta worked with Heit on multiple committees to make plans for what became Healthy New Albany.
They are confident they made the right choice to raise their family here.
“We’ve always felt like this is home, this is where our kids have grown up,” Shah says. “And the way it’s organized, the things that are important and prioritized. The educational opportunities are second to none, and there’s nothing but pride that (I) feel when I’m walking around.”
Staying Healthy
Photo by Ray LaVoie
When it comes to practicing what you preach, Mehta and Shah are the gold standard, and they are always willing to share what it means to live an active and health-minded lifestyle.
Here are their top five ideas to help stay healthy:
- Shah: “First and foremost, we’re humans. Humans have to sleep a third of our time and we don’t always give ourselves that time.”
- Mehta: “Mental health and mental well-being, I think, are as important as the physical well-being part. (Make) time for self-care. It may be exercise, but it might just be 30 minutes of taking time to do something that brings you joy, whether that’s listening to music or going for a walk.”
- Shah: “We’re 80% water. We should really be keeping ourselves well hydrated. … If I think about what would prevent so many of these issues that we deal with, it would start with two things: adequate sleep and proper hydration.”
- Mehta: “I think it’s also (important) having a support structure, a support network. So whether it’s personal support, professional support, the relationships in your life; making sure that they’re bringing you the kind of joy and comfort that you need for your own well-being.”
- Shah: “Data and research ebbs and flows on what’s the latest trend on how to help reduce heart disease, or stroke, or diabetes, or weight gain or any of those things. But I would say there’s actually a much simpler thing to think about and that is how do you find 30 minutes a day, every day, to do something physically active?”
Tyler Kirkendall is an editor at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at tkirkendall@cityscenemediagroup.com.
