For Dr. Anup Patel ’95, serving sick children and their families is a mission—for one simple reason.
“As an adult, I’ve been able to make my own health decisions. A sick child is really not given that opportunity,” Patel said.
While working with pediatric patients during medical school at Wright State University, he remembered, “I felt compelled to try to help them have better outcomes—or at least have better health care. I really wanted these kids to have a normal life.”
Patel’s drive to help young patients continues to guide his work. Today, he is back in Columbus, Ohio, at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where he’s section chief of pediatric neurology. This clinical specialty first emerged during a pediatric residency at the University of South Florida.
“A neurological disease is almost like a puzzle, and I like being able to use my mind and the skills I’ve learned to help figure out that puzzle,” said Patel, who developed a kinship for patients suffering from brain and nerve disorders. “[These cases] were very challenging, but also very rewarding if you could figure them out.”
At Nationwide Children’s, Patel’s day-to-day is “completely different—that’s one of the things I like most about my job.”
One day, he may be in his clinic—“I see very hard-to-treat kids with epilepsy who have failed multiple medications, aren’t candidates for epilepsy surgery and have ongoing seizures,” he explained. Another, he might be in the operating room, monitoring pediatric patients’ brain waves as they undergo complex neurosurgeries. Other times, Patel can be found mentoring junior colleagues, conducting drug trials, or overseeing quality improvement projects.
This October, Patel returned to campus to receive the 2019 Alumnus of the Year Award, the highest accolade the university presents to its alumni. The award recognizes the breadth of clinical work Patel has been involved in, and also honors a dedication to his community and philanthropic work with nonprofit organizations such as the Make-a-Wish America Foundation, where he served on the medical advisory council. He still remains active with the Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana chapters of Make-a-Wish.
He enjoyed the visit immensely.
“It was awesome to be able to share my story, but more importantly, really share why I felt that the award wasn’t my award—it was really a culmination of all those who helped me get to where I am, whether it was professors, parents, or friends,” Patel said.
“These are the folks that brought me up and allowed me to become who I am today, so I really felt like it was an opportunity for me to be able to say thanks to them.”
Treating children with rare neurological conditions can mean tough decisions and even harder conversations. As director of the Complex Epilepsy Clinic—a sub-clinic of the hospital’s comprehensive Epilepsy Center—Patel focuses on patients who have failed to become seizure-free after using at least two different medications and are not candidates for epilepsy surgery.
“The idea is really to see if there’s any other possible treatment option: is there a research trial that they may qualify for? Is there testing that needs to be done to help clarify what’s going on with them? That could be gene testing, it could be imaging, it could be work of different kinds,” he explained.
Many of Patel’s patients are seeking a second or even third opinion after having exhausted options elsewhere. The Complex Epilepsy Clinic has become a model for similar institutions around the country in part because it takes a multidisciplinary approach to these toughest of cases, bringing social workers, pharmacologists, genetic counselors, neuropsychologists in on the treatment plans.
This is especially important given that the likelihood that a patient will become seizure-free after two unsuccessful drug treatments is only 1 to 3 percent. In spite of this, Patel has had more good experiences than bad.
He recalled one family who inspired him as much as he did them.
“Even though I would recommend treatments that kept failing them, they never gave up hope in me, and they never gave up the faith that I would help their child,” he said. Finally, Patel was able to involve the patient in a research trial. This patient has now been seizure-free for several years.
“He is living a different life than he did, and the family’s faith in me did pay off. They’re obviously very grateful, but I’m grateful to them because they never gave up on me, and they never gave up on my potential ability. That’s always stuck with me.”
Nationwide Children’s is also a teaching hospital for The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Patel— who has won several teaching awards—serves as an associate professor of clinical pediatrics and neurology.
“I feel like teaching is a very important aspect of what we do in academic medicine, and it’s really very rewarding,” he said, adding: “In the summer, I’ve been able to offer a couple of students a research opportunity, and hopefully that leads to a publication that they can help write and be a part of,” contributing to their career advancement.
But Patel also works with recent graduates and with junior residents at the hospital.
“I just love it because they’re so energized to learn.”
The connection between Patel, his hospital, and his hometown of Columbus has also been key to his success. Though he grew up north of the city in Ashland, Ohio, he has always considered the state capital a second home.
“As far as Columbus goes, you won’t find very many bigger cheerleaders than myself,” Patel said. “I’ve been here for about 10 years and genuinely feel like part of the community that I live in, and [I believe in the] hospital and the mission it’s trying to achieve. I really love it here.”
Patel found this same type of community when he first visited Wittenberg as a prospective student.
“I fell in love with the campus; I fell in love with what the biology program had to offer; I fell in love with the potential for mentoring that you’d receive through faculty,” he recalled. He enrolled with medicine in mind, recognizing that Witt’s “strong biology program was just as advantageous as a good pre-med program. Their curriculum had all the classes I needed to prepare myself for medical school.”
Patel’s first faculty mentor was former Professor of Biology Timothy Lewis, whose bio 101 and 102 courses were foundational for the major.
“He was always there for me and always a great role model,” Patel recalled. “I try to emulate a lot of what he taught me— the idea of mentoring and being available to your students or residents.”
Another key figure was Professor Emeritus of Chemistry Nelson Sartoris.
“His [organic chemistry] classes were probably the two most challenging I took at Wittenberg, but also the most rewarding,” Patel said. A “passionate teacher, he did such an amazing job with us. And he helped me learn to love a subject that I honestly didn’t think I was going to love at all.”
In both his clinical and research work, as well as in his dedication to the community, Patel focuses on giving back. Having the light, he strives to pass it on to others.
“I hopefully get to help a subset of patients in my clinical work, but with my research and quality improvement work, with my teaching and the other aspects of my job, I’m hopeful I can impact the field of child neurology as a whole,” he said.
And his work with the hospital’s Complex Epilepsy Clinic continues to impact both patients and their families around the country.
“Parents and caregivers are sometimes a forgotten portion of the medical side of it. We focus so much on the patient and the child, who obviously deserves our full attention, but this disease can really impact families,” Patel said.
“I really wanted to be able to make a difference for the field because it is underserved.”
