Dr. Vishal Shah, MD

Vishal was paged as the on-call doctor for my treatment, when medication-induced insomnia had only afforded me 3 hours of sleep by 3 am. The medication requested actually has little to no clinical impact on total time asleep (major clinical impact is on falling asleep, ex review: “Pharmacotherapy of Insomnia with Ramelteon: Safety, Efficacy and Clinical Applications”). Moreover, the half-life of this drug is only 1-2.5 hours, meaning the majority would by metabolized within only a few hours. Unfortunately, he refused to prescribe it at 4 am. His reasoning was it “was too close to the morning, and did not want the rounding doctors to have me only partially awake.” Unfortunate that doctors like this were not taught to think critically, read research on drugs they use, and have a deeper understanding of their work and its impact on patients. I would opt for a doctor that cares more about his patients and has greater intellectual capacity for his work, rather than Vishal.