Asia Society India Centre spoke with Mohsin Ali Mustafa, Asia 21 Next Generation Fellow Class of 2015, a medical doctor and public health expert dedicated to strengthening healthcare systems in Pakistan. As the co-founder of Clinic 5, a pediatric clinic franchise, Mohsin has been instrumental in creating accessible healthcare solutions for middle-income communities.

In this interview, Mohsin takes us through his journey from clinical practice to large-scale healthcare reform, his motivations for staying in Pakistan despite global opportunities, and the role of mentorship and leadership in shaping sustainable healthcare initiatives.

Could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your work?

I am a medical doctor who works in the area of public health. Public health means you think of healthcare in a systemic manner. My particular area of interest has been disaster response, overall health system strengthening. Currently I work in academia, but most of my time has been spent implementing large scale programs.

What I've been doing over the last couple of years since I've last engaged with Asia Society is, I’ve been writing a book of clinical guidelines in partnership with faculty at my university (Aga Khan University) and we have created guidelines that are catered to Pakistan. Usually guidelines are written in countries like North America or the UK, but for the first time ever we got physicians together from all over Pakistan to write a comprehensive book that would be used to train and teach young doctors. So I did that over the last three years.

What motivates your work in healthcare in Pakistan and beyond? What difference do you hope to make?

The answer to this question keeps changing over time. I think when I was younger, just fresh out of university a decade and a half ago, it used to be about creating change and changing the world and making it better for everybody. For me, particularly what got me into this space was the amount of war that plagued this region. I was in med school at a time when there were a lot of bomb blasts in my city, Karachi.

Almost every month we'd have one large bomb blast and we'd have people coming in with all the issues that happened with bomb blasts: injuries and everything. That got me thinking, most of the graduates from my university tend to go to the US and they go with the intention that they’re trained there and then come back, but most quite often don't. I understand why that happens now. But for me, I thought I just want to figure out a way to contribute to some of the problems that I see firsthand.

A very stark moment in my life was when I was in the US as an elective student, as an internship student, as a medical doctor. I was treating a patient, a young kid, who was significantly overweight and he was there in the ER because I think he wanted to miss school or something. I gave him a slushie. And in the US healthcare system, you need to really take care of your patients in such a way that they can leave you a good rating. That was a moment when I thought: what am I doing here, man? Back home, there are kids that die with diarrhea. I've seen several kids die of things that they shouldn't be dying of.

That moment, I think back in 2012, is the moment when I was like: I just want to find a way in which I can contribute to the place where I come from, the people that I come from. It started from there and then life has an interesting way of helping you find your way and destiny. So, I've had some very interesting work along the way and so, 15 years ago, when I was much younger, it used to be like, I want to change the world.

Now, it's about, I want to make small incremental value additions to the system that I work in. And as I mentioned, one of the value additions that I've made over the last two, three years is to work with 150 plus co-authors to write guidelines that will help treat the patients from our region better because our guidelines are written from our context for our people. So, that is how my view on what I do has changed.

That's the reason why I think I feel most motivated. I get the most purpose from doing the work in this region and in our setting.

What according to you makes a good leader?

I believe leadership has two parts. One is the ability to identify a purpose for yourself, to be clear about what it is that you want, and then be able to influence your surroundings to channelize that vision for yourself and for others. Good, or ideal leadership  is a bit of both: where you know what you're going for, and then you have the ability to carry out that change as well.

Quite often nowadays, there's a focus on learning these tricks and tips to how to influence people and how to get people to do things that you want to do. But there's not as much talk about: what is it that you want to create?

I believe a good balance of good leadership is where you first understand what is it that you want to do, and then get the other things along the way. I think if people are focusing more on the former, the latter does tend to happen because once you believe in something a lot, you just end up finding ways to build influence, create the momentum that you want to create around you.

Considering the intricacies of South Asian cultures and experiences, there's a gap in the available conventional wisdom and conversations on leadership and problem solving. It can be a challenge to adopt conventional ideas to work through situations that are in need of culturally specific solutions. As a leader, what has your experience been addressing such complications?

We live in an interesting time where we are exposed to a Western school of thought from a very early age. We are taught to be independent thinkers. We're taught to question conventional wisdom, which is unlike a generation ago. A generation ago, conventional wisdom was considered irrefutable.

You weren't expected, or in fact, it was discouraged to challenge the status quo. I think the great thing about Gen Zers and Millenials - perhaps, I think it started at the time of the millennials - that we started questioning things. We didn't just take things as they were given to us, even in South Asia and some of these more Eastern cultures.

We are at an interesting confluence of times where we are challenging the ways previous generations used to conduct their lives. Hierarchy is still, to some degree, respected, but it's not respected without question. We do ask those questions as well. And I think that's a good balance.

Sometimes – I'm going to generalize here and generalizations inherently are wrong –  but sometimes when I view American culture, where I see there's everybody's being addressed by their first names – maybe it's the background that I come from, but I find that a bit off-putting. I feel age should command a certain amount of respect, even if you do challenge it, but there is a certain amount of respect that comes with it.

I've seen in Indian, Hindi culture, there's a lot of ji added (to people’s names). Here, in Pakistan, there's a bhai, there's a sahab that's added to the name. I think that is fair. And then each generation should be open to saying ‘I'm wrong.’ I think that is the right balance.

If we can learn some of those challenging of the status quo and the search for truth from perhaps Western cultures and the respect for tradition and the respect for culture from our Eastern values, I think that is the perfect combination that we'd have. And I think our generations, the millennials and the Gen Zers, have the ability to kind of define what that equation looks like. Because one without the other is – well, dangerous is a strong word, but one without the other can be a bit unpleasant at times.

Given that mentorship is a significant part of the Asia 21 Fellowship, how do you think it has contributed to your development as an emerging leader? How do you feel about mentoring aspiring young leaders?

Most Asia 21ers are already to some degree, doing some pretty cool work in their areas of interest. So I think maybe mentoring is a strong word for it. But I guess maybe some kind of a peer mentoring makes sense. I've benefited a lot from it.

I've got friends from Asia Society who I do lean on, speak to every now and then, and they've helped me make some pretty big decisions. I think the next question that you have on your list is who are some of the Asia 21ers you would say you do look up to or really like? I think one of them is Emily Chew. Emily is, I don't exactly remember which year she's from, but she was a huge proponent. She encouraged me a lot to apply to a certain business school that has a focus on social impact. I applied to the Oxford Saïd Business School based on her recommendation. And we've kept in touch for many years.

And she, even though we work with very different industries; she works in sustainability, I work in healthcare – here's this kinship that you develop, and it would never have happened had it not been for Asia 21. Because I remember it was one of our –  oh, she's actually from my cohort. It's been so many years. 2015, 2016, she's from my cohort. And we shared a bus ride during our summit in Hong Kong. And on that bus ride, she encouraged me to apply to that business school. Before that, I hadn't considered it. I was looking at North America. But I think that encouragement set my life on a certain pathway that would have never happened.

The second fellow that I admire a lot is Kristen Kagetsu. Kristen is an entrepreneur. She co-founded an enterprise called Saathi Pads. She’s originally from MIT. I find her pretty cool. She’s younger  to me, but we both started our entrepreneurial journeys at a similar time. So there was that natural affiliation for each other.

Then there is this Aarti Wig. She's pretty cool. I haven't spoken to her in a long time. But we follow each other on social media. And it's just great to learn about the progress that each person is making in their individual lives. Even if you don't talk to them, it's a nice feeling to see that there are other do-gooders out there who are championing causes that they believe in. This might be a good way to give them a shout out and reconnect with them. So yeah, I think these three people I find pretty cool.