Dr. Nikesh Seth, Integrated Pain Consultants CEO

Dr. Nikesh Seth began his journey by studying biomedical engineering and pre-med at Johns Hopkins University, followed by medical school at the University of Arizona School of Medicine. He then completed his residency in anesthesiology at the University of Texas, followed by an interventional pain management fellowship at Northwestern University in Chicago.

In 2011, Dr. Nikesh Seth returned home to Scottsdale, Arizona, to practice pain management. He worked as a partner at a couple of practices before starting Integrated Pain Consultants in 2016.

Dr. Nikesh Seth is a double board-certified pain management physician and anesthesiologist. He has been voted Top Doc in Phoenix Magazine every year since 2015. He also made the 30 People to Watch in 2017 list in the So Scottsdale! magazine.

1. Tell us a bit about what you do.

I’m an interventional pain management physician. I evaluate chronic pain and acute pain patients and try to determine the underlying reasons for their pain. I get to know the patients underlying pain history and the limitations that this is causing in their life. Using all the tools from my comprehensive pain management education and training, I then come up with a treatment plan to help decrease their pain and improve their functionality in day to day life.  My goal is to use the least invasive methods to help a patient do the things they love.

2. What gave you the idea for Integrated Pain Consultants? How did it start?

While I was in my residency and medical school, I saw many patients while in various specialties and was able to follow multiple doctors.   When I was going through my training, I found some doctors who were treating patients’ pain, adequately. I saw the significant change and impact it made in a patient’s life. I also saw the gratitude that these patients had towards their physician. This was something that I enjoyed and appreciated seeing. It was good to be able to make an impact on these patients’ lives immediately with a certain type of injection or certain types of treatment. After looking more into it, I decided to find a way to go into that specialty.

I went into an anesthesiology residency, and then I did an interventional pain management fellowship at Northwestern, which allowed me to get into this profession. After that, I decided that I would practice in my home state of Arizona and open a practice, that way I could treat patients, evaluate their needs and to take care of them in the appropriate manner.  Having my own practice would allow me to take care of patients in the correct way.

3. What’s your favorite thing about your chosen profession?

My favorite thing about my chosen profession is the ability to help people and make a difference in people’s lives. I love seeing patients, interacting with them on a regular basis, and creating a relationship with them. I like having a continuity of care with them and understanding why they have pain, what’s causing their pain, and coming up with ways to alter their lifestyle and regimen of things that they’re doing to help decrease their pain. I think by having excellent communication with patients and getting to understand what they do for fun and work; you can actually make an impact in their day-to-day life. This is one of the many reasons why I like being in my profession.

4. What keys to being productive can you share with us?

One of the most essential keys is not to be lazy. I think it’s very easy to become content or complacent in your position, in your work, or life. However, if you’re always looking for a new opportunity, if you’re always looking to work hard and make a difference, you will always find a way to do that. The key is not to be lazy and content with what you’re doing. Always look for other opportunities, seizing every moment, and then you will find ways to improve your own life and others, and become a successful person.

5. Tell us one long-term goal in your career.

I believe a good long-term goal for me would be to have a balance between my career and my personal life. Clinically, and in my career, I have worked very hard to create a very busy and booming practice. I have many patients who would like to see me regularly. However, to be able to do this for a very long time, I need to make sure that I am not only taking care of my patients, but also taking care of my health and spending time with my family by being able to have that work-life balance. I should be able to do this for a very long time without getting burnt out. This would ideally allow my patients to benefit the most.

Another thing, a career goal, is to slow down, spend more time with my patients, and create a better relationship with them so that way I can create a better relationship with them and get to understand their underlying pain and make an effective change in their life.

6. What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned through the course of your career?

I believe the most valuable thing that I’ve learned is to analyze any opportunity or any business decision to its full extent. They’re not always as amazing as they seem on the surface, so it’s imperative to spend your time and due diligence to figure out if every business opportunity is worthwhile to pursue. Also, make sure that you seek the advice of others that are ahead of you, older than you, wiser than you who would have gone through this already. It’s incredible to realize that many people have already done things like this and have had successful businesses. Seek the advice of those who’ve already done this before to become smarter, that way you don’t make the same mistakes. You can avoid common mistakes the first time and do it correctly from the beginning.

7. What advice would you give to others aspiring to succeed in your field?

My advice would be to get an excellent education and learn the appropriate ways to help a patient. Learn all the interactions that are possible to appropriately treat patients’ pain. If you can get a good education, and a good mentor to help you figure out how to use that education, you’ll be able to help a lot more patients. Then, once you get that good education, find a good practice or business that will allow you to treat patients as human beings, as opposed to just another patient. On top of a good education, I believe you also need to be compassionate to be in medicine, which is sometimes lacking nowadays.

8. What are your favorite things to do outside of work?

I have two little children, so my favorite thing to do outside of work is to spend time with my family and nurture my two children.

I also love to play basketball to get some exercise and to be able to relieve some stress that comes with being a physician and having your own business.

9. Name a few influential books you’ve read and/or websites you keep up with that you’d recommend to readers.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey is a book I love to read. I have read it several times. I also read a lot of medical journals as I don’t have much time to read leisure books, but I do like to keep up to date on news articles such as the New England Journal of Medicine. Even though they’re not always pain related, it does help keep you in tune with other medical issues and up to date on the new advances in medicine. I also like to read the Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine magazine that comes to my home regularly, which keeps me up to date on new trends in my profession and allows me to apply these novel treatment modalities to my patients.

10. What advice would you give your younger self?

My advice to my younger self would be to discuss any business venture or opportunity with people who have done similar things before me to avoid making mistakes. Also, to learn from other people’s mistakes. Quite often, you think that these mistakes won’t happen to you, but if you can listen to others who have gone through similar things in the past, you can avoid making those same mistakes. I think it’s vital that we do things so that we don’t repeat history again and again. So, I would definitely tell my younger self to focus on analyzing his business decisions a little bit further in-depth before implementing them.

Follow Dr. Nikesh Seth on his social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook.

Website: drnikeshsethscholarship.com