This episode is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. From breaking news to in-depth features, MedicalBrief keeps you up to date with everything happening in healthcare. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1.

Some conversations end before they're finished. Ours with Dr Avi Jagathpal was one — so we asked him back, which we've never done with anyone else.

We start somewhere unexpected: a Bryan Johnson tweet, and whether any of us would actually want to live forever. Avi's answer, that the beauty of life is precisely that it's limited, sets the tone for everything after it.

Then we get into the work. What it's like to practise in a field where the science keeps moving underneath you — and what that does to how you think about the treatment you did last week. The zirconia crowns that were the best thing since sliced bread until they started failing in patients' mouths. Why so much dental material reaches the market untested, and what happens when the lab bench and the human mouth disagree. The in-house milling machines quietly reshaping how some dentists treatment-plan. Healthy tooth structure ground away in the name of an instant result, and the one-way road that starts once it's gone. Turkey Teeth, and the couple who spent half a million rand only to be told all of it had to come out and start again.

Running through all of it is a question about restraint: when to treat, when to wait, and when to hand a patient to someone else entirely. Avi's answer — send them to the best person for the job, even if that isn't you — is the line that stayed with us.

And then the human stuff, which is where the episode really opens up. Why clinicians are so hopeless at asking to be paid. The practice manager who stops the place being run as a charity. A two-year-old who comes to work every single day. A piece of paper on a fridge that turned into fifteen goals and fourteen achievements. And why a man who plainly loves his profession would still hesitate before handing it to his own children.

GUEST Dr Avish "Avi" Jagathpal — prosthodontist, Capital Prosthodontics, Pretoria — https://capitalpros.co.za/

START WITH PART 1 "The Face You Know, The Story You Don't" — https://whydidibecomeadoctor.com/2389691/episodes/16891921-the-face-you-know-the-story-you-don-t-dr-avi-jagathpal

WATCH THIS EPISODE https://youtu.be/RKSFm5zpqiE

DISCLAIMER

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Why Did I Become A Doctor are those of the individual guests and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast, its hosts, or producers. Content shared on this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered medical or professional advice.

Guests appear in their personal capacity. Episode titles, descriptions and editorial framing are chosen by the producers; guests do not review or approve them. Any links to guests' practices or professional pages are provided for reference only, and are not an endorsement or recommendation.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. From breaking news to in-depth features, MedicalBrief keeps you up to date with everything happening in healthcare. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1.

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Dr Bongiwe Nhlangulela, known to most people as Dr Bee, is a family dentist and the founder of Dr Bee Inc Family Dentists, with practices in Sandton and Constantia Kloof, Johannesburg.

In this conversation with Dr Yash Naidoo and Dr Yakshen Lindy, Dr Bee traces her journey from growing up in Mthatha in the Eastern Cape to boarding school in KwaZulu-Natal, where she recalls being the only black girl in her class and learning to assert herself in spaces that were not built with her in mind.

She talks about her own dental struggles, and the jaw surgery that followed, and how the experience changed the way she saw herself. Shadowing her childhood dentist showed her what a smile can do for a person's confidence, and it was enough to make her turn down a full scholarship to study medicine and choose dentistry instead.

Dr Bee speaks candidly about nearly failing her way through dental school, community service spent extracting teeth for up to 50 patients a day, and a harsh introduction to private practice that, in her telling, left her in serious tax debt after a profit-sharing arrangement went wrong. She explains how that experience taught her to know every corner of her own business, and how she rebuilt from a single rented room into the group practice she runs today.

She also reflects on building an authentic social media presence, becoming a key opinion leader for oral care brands, stepping back from the online world, and the kind of practice culture she wants for the young dentists she now employs.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

💬 Enjoyed the episode?

Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. From breaking news to in-depth features, MedicalBrief keeps you up to date with everything happening in healthcare. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1.

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Dr Nikita Sahadew got into medical school and turned it down. On the advice of her small-town GP in Verulam, she chose podiatry instead, a profession she says has only around 400 registered practitioners in South Africa, trained at the only university on the continent that offers the degree.

In this episode, she tells Yash and Yak how a teacher's daughter from Mountview Secondary ended up qualifying as one of only two podiatrists in her year, why her very first patient at Joburg Gen involved maggots, and how she built her practice, PodMed South Africa, from one patient in her first month. She talks about completing her PhD in diabetes while running a practice and raising two small children, her role as a podiatry representative on the HPCSA's Professional Board for Physiotherapy, Podiatry and Biokinetics*, and why she believes foot care is life-saving for diabetic patients.

Recorded before her PhD was finalised, this episode releases with Dr Sahadew newly entitled to the title. Congratulations, Doc.

Find her at PodMed South Africa on Instagram and TikTok.

*Note: At the time of recording, Dr Nikita Sahadew was the sole podiatry representative on the relevant HPCSA Professional Board. Since 1 August 2026, podiatry representation on the Board has expanded, and Dr Sahadew continues to serve as a podiatry representative.

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This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

💬 Enjoyed the episode?

Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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Nadia Shiba and Kamini Shanmugam join Why Did I Become a Doctor South Africa for a conversation sixteen years in the making: two best friends who became business partners.

Both raised in Lenasia, both lawyers by training, they each describe how they "ended up in insurance" almost by accident, fell for one of its most specialised corners, and eventually left the security of corporate to build their own claims-outsourcing business together. Today they handle specialist liability claims, from medical malpractice and professional indemnity to cyber and financial lines, and they make the case that good claims handling is far more human than most people assume. As they put it, the job was never about looking for reasons to reject a claim. It is about fairness, judgement, and meeting people on their worst day.

Along the way they reflect on growing up in a close-knit community, the friendship that has carried them from one workplace to the next, the leap into entrepreneurship, dealing with online critics, and why they started their own podcast to help close the skills gap in their industry. It is a warm, candid conversation about loyalty, reinvention, and finding meaning in a profession most people overlook.

#WhyDidIBecomeADoctor #WDIBAD #CareerJourney #Insurance #Entrepreneurship #Friendship #Lenasia

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

💬 Enjoyed the episode?

Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. From breaking news to in-depth features, MedicalBrief keeps you up to date with everything happening in healthcare. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1.

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She could have studied dentistry. She chose instead to become the person who helps make sure you never need one.

Kaokie Sepuru, full name Mmakaoka Sepuru, is an oral hygienist who has been involved in the leadership of the Oral Hygiene Association of South Africa (OHASA) since her first year in the profession. In this conversation she makes a quietly powerful case for oral hygiene as a calling in its own right.

Kaokie grew up in Soweto, raised by a single mother, Iris, a teacher who later became a principal, always wanted more for her only child, and moved the family out to Northcliff. According to Kaokie, an aptitude test once told her she should be an accountant, but she knew she needed people and movement rather than a desk and numbers. She found oral hygiene almost by chance at a University of Pretoria open day, and she has not looked back since.

In conversation with Yash and Yak, she traces the path from shadowing an orthodontist, to a mobile dental truck serving communities across the country, to the Waterfall practice where she has worked for eleven years alongside specialist prosthodontist Dr Ashana Harryparsad. She explains why she calls herself a "floss fairy", why she believes prevention should come first, and how she has taught patients who cannot afford floss to improvise with what they have.

She is just as open about the parts of the job that rarely get spoken about: the patient who wept in her chair and called it a "safe space", the frightened children she has coaxed into trusting her, and why she measures her own success by how many people choose to come back. Her view is a simple one, that you do not have to be a doctor to heal people.

Beyond the chair, Kaokie's work with OHASA and with ITOP has taken her to Dubai, Nigeria and Egypt as a speaker and instructor, mentored along the way by Stella Lamprecht and Angelique Kearney. She speaks candidly about turning down work abroad, the ongoing and affectionate argument with her mother who still wishes she had become a dentist, and why she has chosen to build her life in South Africa.

Follow Kaokie on Instagram: @kaokie_xing

Subscribe for new conversations every fortnight.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

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Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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He walked into medical school. Two weeks later, he walked out. What followed was a career that would shape South African law for decades — from drafting the Competition Act to chairing the Davis Tax Committee, from a TV show he did entirely for free to a bench appointment he didn't even want.

Judge Dennis Davis grew up in a working-class Jewish family in Cape Town — his father a motor mechanic, his mother a legal secretary. He was a first-generation university student who finished second in his law class, got no bursaries because he was too outspoken, and spent nearly two years at Old Mutual doing estate planning for wealthy clients just to save enough money to study overseas. None of it was planned. Almost all of it was accidental.

In this episode, Judge Davis speaks candidly about what it actually felt like to sit on the bench for over two decades — the exhaustion, the under-resourcing, the weight of custody cases, and the salary that senior counsel earn five to ten times over. He talks about being "bulldozed" onto the bench by Chief Justice Ismail Mahomed, applying once for the Constitutional Court and not getting it, and why he jokes that the interviews were simply too long. He reflects on growing up under apartheid, the parallel he drew as a 12-year-old between the Holocaust and what he witnessed on the streets of Cape Town, and how that moment set the course of everything that followed.

He also shares why, in 2026, he is no longer certain that constitutional democracy in South Africa is here to stay — and why he still wouldn't leave.

Hosted by Dr Yash Naidoo and Dr Yakshen Lindy.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, legal, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

💬 Enjoyed the episode?

Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. From breaking news to in-depth features, MedicalBrief keeps you up to date with everything happening in healthcare. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1.

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Dr André Hugo has been practising as a specialist orthodontist for 42 years. He grew up in Krugersdorp as the son of a dentist — and very nearly became a plastic surgeon, until he watched his uncle operate and fainted. He is also a pilot — he learnt to fly gliders as a dental student at Wits, went on to hold an instrument rating for 25 years, owned several aircraft including a Cessna Centurion, and for years flew his family across borders to Lake Kariba and Bazaruto Island. He is also the man whose practice's transformation from analogue to digital became a teaching case at the UCT Business School.

At 74, he is still practising, still fascinated by new technology, and firmly of the view that retirement is a dirty word — though a stent and a brutal course of statins last year have complicated that position somewhat.

In this conversation, Yash and Yak speak with someone who has watched orthodontics evolve from hand-bent wires and plaster casts to AI-driven treatment planning and direct resin printing — and who has strong, considered views on all of it.

Topics covered: growing up in Krugersdorp as the son of a dentist; a plastic surgeon uncle who inspired him until he fainted; why his father steered him away from prosthodontics; gliding at Magaliesburg, an instrument rating, and international clearances; the stent, the statins, and rethinking invincibility; delegation as the key to scaling a practice; how his nephew Chris Kerr-Peterson dragged him from analogue to digital; a practice transformation that became a UCT Business School teaching case; online booking and the evolution of informed consent; aligners vs braces and the limitations nobody advertises; direct resin printing; AI in orthodontics; why he never considered emigrating; the Kruger elephant problem; and succession planning, retirement, and barefoot walks on the beach.

Co-hosted by Dr Yakshen Lindy | Recorded 23 May 2026

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

💬 Enjoyed the episode?

Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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🚀 Want to collaborate, support the show, or find out more?

Visit whydidibecomeadoctor.com or email us at [email protected].

This episode of Why Did I Become a Doctor South Africa is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief — South Africa's leading daily healthcare news service. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1

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At 19, Luvaan Rooyan is the youngest guest we've ever had on the show, and his road to dental school is unlike any we've heard.

A week before his mid-year matric exams, Luvaan was in a serious car accident. He describes breaking his spine, fracturing his dominant hand and suffering a severe concussion, then spending a week in ICU and two months in recovery, unsure at first whether he would walk normally again. He missed those exams entirely, and what followed was a slow, stubborn comeback: relearning how to study with a healing brain, a maths test he says he opened and went completely blank on, and a matric he salvaged one fifteen-minute study window at a time.

He'd set his heart on dentistry but didn't get in at first. With an engineering place secured and an apartment already sorted, he was days from starting a different degree when an early-morning email arrived asking if he still wanted a dental seat. He replied within minutes, and by the time he'd stepped out of the shower, the switch was done.

In this episode, Luvaan sits down with Dr Yash Naidoo and Dr Yakshen Lindy to talk about growing up in Midrand, why his mother pushed him towards a public boys' school, what it's really like inside a University of Pretoria dental class, and why he wants to specialise in paediatric dentistry, particularly for children with special needs, precisely because so few people do. Along the way: a frank, friendly disagreement about single-sex schooling, a Gen Z take on content and attention, and the Porsche that may or may not be waiting at the end of it all.

It's an honest look at how someone this early in the journey thinks about pressure, failure, gratitude and the kind of dentist he hopes to become.

Guest: Luvaan Rooyan, second-year dental student, University of Pretoria
Hosts: Dr Yash Naidoo and Dr Yakshen Lindy

New episodes every second Sunday.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

💬 Enjoyed the episode?

Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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This episode is brought to you in partnership with MedicalBrief. Stay informed with trusted reporting, expert insights, and analysis that matters to healthcare professionals. From breaking news to in-depth features, MedicalBrief keeps you up to date with everything happening in healthcare. Subscribe free at https://bit.ly/3Pei7o1.

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Dr Ninakhulu Ntsanwisi is a medical doctor and admitted attorney who now runs her own consultancy in the medico-legal space, helping doctors and healthcare facilities identify and mitigate risk before it turns into litigation.

Her journey is unlike any we've featured. The daughter of a traditional chief and granddaughter of a former homeland chief minister, she grew up in Limpopo — technically a princess, though you'd never hear it from her — before heading to UCT to study medicine. As a junior doctor in the public sector, she found herself at 2 a.m. forced to choose which of two mothers went to theatre first, performing a Caesarean section she says she wasn't yet qualified to do, because the senior on call refused to come in. Experiences like these, she says, planted the seed: the system itself needed fixing, not just the patient in front of her.

So she did something almost no one does — she studied for her LLB at Wits full-time while working weekends, public holidays and school holidays in emergency departments to pay her fees. She went on to practise at Adams & Adams on the plaintiff side, then crossed over to defend doctors at Webber Wentzel, before heading up legal at a medical indemnity brokerage and ultimately starting her own consultancy.

Along the way, she unpacks what doctors get wrong about the HPCSA, why she believes most patients sue for answers and accountability rather than money, why specialists get sued more often than GPs, and why, in her view, communication remains the single best protection a clinician has. She also shares her own venture into podcasting with The Legal Clinic, her show educating doctors on the legal side of practice.

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

💬 Enjoyed the episode?

Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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This episode is brought to you by Bedfordview Dental Care. https://bedfordviewdentalcare.co.za/

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Dr Kiash Arjun is a 26-year-old dentist working in private practice in Pietermaritzburg — and a recording artist with original songs on radio, an EP, an album, and a history of gigging his way through dental school. He takes us from growing up in Verulam and receiving his first guitar as a seventh birthday gift from his late grandfather, to opening for Jeremy Loops at Park Acoustics, to navigating the jump from community service at KwaDabeka to private practice.

Kiash speaks candidly about what dental school at the University of Pretoria actually looks like from the inside, the friendships and the band he built along the way, and why he was terrified of Pietermaritzburg before growing to love it. He talks about his mentor Dr Elvin Naidoo — whose philosophy of treating the whole patient, not just the problem, changed how Kiash thinks about dentistry — and about the postgrad in dental aesthetics he is currently pursuing through the University of the Western Cape.

But this conversation keeps returning to music. Kiash explains how he writes songs, why he records voice memos at the gym and in the car, how he got his song to number one on the 5FM pop charts, and why he is still figuring out whether he is a dentist who does music or a musician who does dentistry. He also opens up about imposter syndrome, the doubts that come with being a young dentist, and why having an outlet matters more than people admit.

Along the way, he performs several original songs — including "Lady Smith," available now on all streaming platforms — covers a Justin Bieber classic, improvises a wedding song on the spot, and closes the episode with his go-to song, "Stay."

This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views expressed by guests do not necessarily represent those of the podcast or hosts and do not constitute professional advice. Always consult with qualified professionals for medical, financial, or career decisions.

🎙️ Why Did I Become A Doctor shares honest, unscripted conversations with doctors, dentists, healthcare professionals, and other inspiring individuals who are shaping the future of healthcare and beyond.

💬 Enjoyed the episode?

Please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps us grow and inspire the next generation.

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🚀 Want to collaborate, support the show, or find out more?

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