So I did my internal medicine residency. And it was around this time that I started looking into plant-based diet. Someone gave me the China Study book — I keep hearing about this book. [And I thought] "There is probably nothing here that I don't already know; I just graduated from medical school. What could there possibly be in this book that I don't know?" And there was a lot, actually!

Pretty much everything in the [China Study] book was never mentioned in medical school and it's so common for us physicians. That book led me to read more books. It influenced me personally. I became vegetarian and then vegan and then I like to say Whole Food Plant-Based.

And that also reflected into my practice because I felt it to be unethical & immoral to withold this information from a diabetic or a hypertensive or an obese. Just felt strongly compelled to tell them. Fast forward. Hundreds of papers or more, and here I am, spreading the word about plant-based diet, specifically kidney disease. That's really my goal now.

I did a nephrology fellowship. What I realized being a transplant nephrologist is that you focus so much on the consequences — the aftermath of kidney failure but what about preventing it? We have preventive cardiologists but we don't have preventive nephrologists. I wear a lot of hats: nephrology, primary care & plant-based medicine. But one of the hats I would like to wear — maybe hope to wear in the future — is preventive nephrology!