Few professions are as all-consuming as medicine. But for these Type A workaholic healers, cultivating intense hobbies, passions and side hustles is all part of the prescription.
It turns out doctors don’t exist solely in exam rooms and ER carrels – despite outward appearances, they actually have lives outside work.
And some have extraordinary extra-professional lives. Driven, presumably, by the same overachieving impulses that made them become doctors in the first place, they cultivate hobbies, avocations and even second careers with unusual vigor and focus. When they’re not removing spleens or installing pacemakers, some surgeons start restaurants and fly jets. There are stories of a local D.O. obsessed with NASCAR races; tales of a gynecologist who hikes jungle trails in darkest Africa; rumors about a Glendale general practitioner whose guest room is crammed with PEZ dispensers. These are hyper-driven professionals who – from the M.D. devoted to proving there’s life on other planets to the surgeon who moonlights as a think-tank correspondent – pour themselves into pursuits that fulfill them in other ways.
“I understand why people might forget doctors are people with other interests,” says Andre Hagevik, M.D., a 2022 Top Doctor. “We get put on pedestals, so it doesn’t occur to a patient we’re out here having another life.”
Hagevik’s other life takes place in a karate studio. The Sun City neurologist has earned a fourth-degree black belt, and studies and teaches both karate and tai chi at United Kung Fu in Peoria.
“In here, all the anxiety of telling people they’re sick goes away,” he says, nodding toward a tai chi group performing balletic poses in United’s main studio. “In this room, I get to move every joint in my body, to think and be in the moment. It’s made me stronger, my mind sharper. I’m here three or four times a week for a couple of hours. If there was an eighth day in the week, I’d spend it here.”
Most think of karate as a fighting discipline, says Hagevik, who’s studied it alongside tai chi for a dozen years. “But it’s not just learning to kick people or defend against attack. You’re learning balance and discipline and how to let go.”
He often recommends tai chi to patients who are struggling with balance. Some arrive at the studio using a walker. “And when they leave?” Hagevik says. “No walker.”
Being a karate master wasn’t something he planned. “But then I originally planned to be an engineer. So, you see, you never know where life will lead you.”
Hand surgeon Mark Leber, M.D. wasn’t surprised by where life led him. It was nearly inevitable he’d grow up to be a doctor who co-owns a local pro soccer team. Leber, co-owner of Phoenix Rising Football Club, is a third-generation Arizonan whose grandfather was a general practitioner and whose dad is an orthodontist. Meanwhile, his younger brothers went to Stanford University on soccer scholarships and Leber grew up loving the sport.
“I didn’t set out to own a sports team,” he says. “But I got to an age where my kids were playing soccer, and I could afford to invest in things, and the owners of the team approached me about joining them.”
Founded in 2014 as Arizona United Soccer Club, the team has excelled as a member of the United Soccer League, the professional league one step below Major League Soccer in the pantheon of U.S. professional sports. Phoenix Rising was a USL Cup finalist in 2020 and a division winner last year, and recently opened its own Phoenix Rising Soccer Complex in Chandler. Much of the team’s nuts-and-bolts stuff falls to general manager Bobby Dulle, says Leber, who repairs hands at OrthoArizona. His soccer time is spent bending the ball with the team’s youth club.
“We’re introducing kids to the sport at recreational and competitive levels,” he says. “But they’re training with professional players. Where else does that happen?”
In Leber’s family, it happens all over the place. His younger son is away at college on a soccer scholarship, while his daughter is attending Northwestern University and playing on the school’s club team. “And, OK, my oldest son is in medical school at U of A,” he admits. “But I never took my kids aside and told them they had a responsibility to soccer and medicine.
I swear!”
Surgeon Jeffrey Singer’s parents didn’t push him into medicine, either. Nor did they suggest the M.D. join a libertarian think tank.
“My father was a taxi driver. He didn’t go to college,” says the cofounder of Valley Surgical Clinics. “I grew up in Brooklyn, in a house that was like a Woody Allen movie. There were philosophical discussions going on around a dinner table, very animated conversations about politics and important ideas.”
“We’re introducing kids to the sport at recreational and competitive levels,” he says. “But they’re training with professional players. Where else does that happen?”
In Leber’s family, it happens all over the place. His younger son is away at college on a soccer scholarship, while his daughter is attending Northwestern University and playing on the school’s club team. “And, OK, my oldest son is in medical school at U of A,” he admits. “But I never took my kids aside and told them they had a responsibility to soccer and medicine.
I swear!”
Surgeon Jeffrey Singer’s parents didn’t push him into medicine, either. Nor did they suggest the M.D. join a libertarian think tank.
“My father was a taxi driver. He didn’t go to college,” says the cofounder of Valley Surgical Clinics. “I grew up in Brooklyn, in a house that was like a Woody Allen movie. There were philosophical discussions going on around a dinner table, very animated conversations about politics and important ideas.”
All this bigger thinking affected young Singer. By the time he was 14, he’d decided to pursue medicine as a way of saving lives and changing the world. As a freshman at Brooklyn College, he identified as a libertarian and attended anti-war demonstrations. Not long after completing his residency, he cofounded a Phoenix-based group practice and got busy rabblerousing.
“I’m not your normal person,” says Singer a few days before his 70th birthday. “On my day off, instead of getting my hair cut or golfing, I’d work on ballot initiatives. I believed in free markets and capitalism. Don’t tell people what to do with their money or their body, what to put into it or how to have sex with it.”
Some of Singer’s then-radical ideas have become commonplace. In the 1990s, he did TV spots for the Drug Medicalization Act, which promoted legalizing marijuana. As a visiting fellow for the Goldwater Institute, he co-authored a policy paper expanding the scope of practice for pharmacists. More recently, he’s cut back his practice to make time for senior fellowship work at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based libertarian think tank.
“I go to D.C. every few months and moderate a conference or whatever,” he explains. “Last year I had an op ed in The Arizona Republic saying nurse anesthetists should operate independently from doctors. I made a lot of enemies with
that one.”
Changing the world meant having adversaries. Sometimes it paid off in unexpected ways.
“I thought talking about medical marijuana on TV would hurt my practice,” he says. “Instead, business increased. People came from all over the Valley. One patient said to me, ‘You’re a doctor who’s willing to stick his neck out. I want that.’”
Sometimes your other life was less an inevitability than something that literally flew into your life while you were taking a bath.
“It was February 6, 1995, and I was in the tub,” Lynne Kitei, M.D., recalls. “My husband called out, ‘Come in here and see this!’ and I ran dripping into the room.”
Through a window of their mountainside home in Paradise Valley, she says, the pair watched a trio of amber, egg-shaped lights hover over the Valley.
“I didn’t move because I didn’t want to miss a minute,” she remembers. “I was watching the lights thinking, I would love to meet you, why are you here?”
Kitei kept the sighting mostly to herself. Then on March 13, 1997, she and thousands of others witnessed what came to be known as the Phoenix Lights, the world’s widest-seen purported UFO visit. Two months before, Kitei had enjoyed a return visit from the trio of lights she’d seen before.
Fearful that others would think she’d lost her medical marbles, Kitei – an innovator in early disease detection and chief consultant to the Arizona Heart Institute – was hesitant to come forward.
“I worried about ruining my credibility as a respected physician and student of science. I wanted a logical explication for what I’d seen, but realized this wasn’t about me, it’s about the data.”
Kitei retired from clinical practice in 2019 to focus on the Phoenix Lights.
“I have yet to explain it,” she says with a laugh. “But I feel obliged as a scientist to keep seeking this truth.”
Toward that end, she’s authored a book about her findings, founded the Phoenix Lights Network website, and directed an award-winning documentary about the sighting that enjoys an annual local screening for flying saucer fans.
Being a spokesperson for extraterrestrials wasn’t at all like her work as a physician and health educator. It had nothing in common with her pre-med-school career in musical theater, which found her understudying Barbara Eden in a bus-and-truck of The Sound of Music and starring opposite Sherman Hemsley in Alice in Wonderland. It was stranger than acting alongside Nicolas Cage in the Coen Brothers movie Raising Arizona, more engaging than her 1970s gig as a health reporter for NBC News.
“The Phoenix Lights has taken over my life,” she says. “Now I’m working on a classroom curriculum to help educate kids about UFOs, and an activity book with extraterrestrial word-searches and coloring pages of crop circles.”
Spine surgeon Ed Dohring, M.D., has an avocation that keeps him tied to the earth. Sort of. Dohring began scaling mountains in college and recently joined an elite group of climbers colloquially known as the Seven Summits Club. Estimated at around 500 worldwide, these high-elevation adventurers have conquered the seven highest mountaintops in the world, including Mount Everest, which Dohring summitted in 2019.
Climbing the world’s highest peak was both a triumphant and harrowing experience for the surgeon. Due to overcrowding and freak weather, 11 fellow climbers perished on the same week Dohring made his ascent, including one of his climbing partners – an experience he later shared with ABC News and PHOENIX.
Side hustle Spotlight: The Art of Dr. Khanuja
Many doctors collect art, but few do so with the fervor of oncologist Parvinderjit Khanuja. As the founder and managing partner of Ironwood Cancer Centers – the largest network of cancer treatment providers in the Valley – the native Punjabi M.D. emphasizes education and early detection. His passion for awareness extends to his personal life, albeit in a different medium: sharing the beauty of Sikhism through art.
Khanuja began collecting Sikh artwork more than a decade ago after discovering several ancient coins. “I love Sikh coinage because it represents a period of sovereignty,” the Michigan-trained healer says. He has since amassed hundreds of textiles, paintings and weapons made by Sikh artists or depicting places and people pertinent to Sikh culture.
Sikhism is a 600-year-old Punjabi religion and philosophy based on a series of spiritual guides (wahegurus) and places of worship (gurdwaras). “I’m a Sikh, and this is the fifth-largest religion in the world,” Khanuja says. “However, the majority of people have no concept of what I am or what this religion is about.”
Four years ago, Khanuja founded a gallery at Phoenix Art Museum, where he is on the board of trustees, with pieces from his personal collection. According to Khanuja, it’s only the second permanent Sikh art gallery in the Western World.
The gallery’s current exhibit is dedicated to The Golden Temple in India, which is “considered the spiritual home of the Sikhs,” he says. Featured works include photos by Felice Beato, one of the first photographers to capture images of Asia, and paintings by artists who have visited the temple over the last two centuries.
Khanuja recently penned a book in association with the Smithsonian titled Splendors of Punjab Heritage, in which he discusses his collection in detail. Sharing Sikh art with the public is part of his religious practice. “I want to create awareness to the general community,” he says.
— Madison Rutherford
“Like mountain climbing, spine surgery is fairly complex and tricky, with lots of dangers lurking around the corner,” says the president of the North American Spine Society. “But the mental and physical challenges are different enough that they provide a balance in my life.”
When the 64-year-old surgeon in late 2021 consecrated his Seven Summits membership by climbing Vinson Massif, the highest peak in Antarctica, he encountered climbers suffering frostbite who he feared would lose a nose or fingers. In situations like this, Dohring finds it hard to leave the doctor down on the ground.
“I’m supposed to be focused on my own climb,” he says, “but when I run into people with high altitude sickness or cerebral edema [swelling in the brain], I feel called on to practice medicine. For me, it’s not a total vacation.”
An apex isn’t as important to Dohring as time spent reflecting on his personal bounty. “There’s a lot of downtime on a mountain,” he says. “You might be in a tent for a day or two, furthering your climatization or weathering a storm. I use that time to be grateful for the people in my life and the things I’ve accomplished.”
For Joel R. Cooper, D.O., a career in journalism led him to med school and osteopathic medicine.
“As a medical writer and reporter, I was advocating for health-care consumers,” says Cooper, a local telehealth physician licensed in 17 states. “But I couldn’t help them clinically. This frustrated me. I knew I’d have to go back to school to offer the clinical piece.”
Returning to school in middle age was no mean feat. Cooper likens studying medicine later in life to drinking from a fire hose. “They fire it at you fast and hard,” he says of the curriculum. “And if you don’t know it all, they’ll nail you on a test.”
He prevailed, and finds practicing medicine as satisfying as writing about it. It’s also somehow not enough. Cooper recently returned to his earliest love: writing and recording his own tunes. “I’m a songwriter, first and foremost,” he says. “In my younger days, when guitars were babe magnets, I played in bands as a lead guitarist. Now I’m more of a studio rat, a writer and music producer.”
He’s just dropped a new album, Happy as a Dog I Am, available on various streaming services. When he’s not working on his next long-player, Cooper is off photographing sunsets and forests.
“I was taking photos way back in the days when people used film in cameras,” he says. “I prefer scenic shots, but I’ve photographed all kinds of things: product displays in grocery stores, people, objects, animals, flowers.”
Cooper likes to think that music makes him a better doctor, and vice versa. Mila Lopez, M.D., agrees.
“Following my passions improves my medical practice,” says the HonorHealth physician. “I only work 40 hours a week, and then I’m either with my kids or I’m writing. I love to dance and play the piano and I paint, occasionally.”
Mostly, though, she cooks. Her way with a boeuf bourguignon and one-pan orecchiette have made her a sort-of celebrity on Instagram, where she shares recipes and super-styled photos of orange-glazed salmon and cocoa-spiced lentil soup as @dr_mila_lopez.
“I was fascinated with cooking as young girl,” she remembers. “But the kitchen was forbidden to me. My mother didn’t want a kid making a mess in there.”
As a young woman in medical school, Lopez grew weary of eating cereal three times a day. She taught herself to cook and found a common ground between science and the culinary arts. Her favorite dishes are those she grew up with.
“I’m Indian, so I cook a lot of vegetarian Indian cuisine. I can make dal without even thinking. I make a lot of biryani, a rice dish with meat or vegetables. I do falafel and tabbouleh and couscous. I like making food for my kids that I can hide a lot of vegetables in. No one knows how many vegetables are in my spaghetti sauce because I purée it.”
Well, people who follow her Insta feed know. Lopez’s recipes for fresh-baked granola, winter tabbouleh and butternut squash mac and cheese are easy to follow and heavy on the wholesome.
“When I start talking about a heart-healthy diet, people are thinking, ‘Oh, no, boiled chicken and a steamed vegetable.’ I want to show how healthy food can be nutritious and glamorous.”
Lopez, a doctor through and through, likes to think about each dish in a biochemical context. What’s happening on a cellular level? she wonders, as she’s trying for the perfect sear on a chicken breast.
“Also, I’m thinking about how to make it taste wonderful without giving my husband a heart attack.”
The two met in medical school.
“I didn’t know what a great cook Mila was,” says her husband, Matt Lopez, M.D., a doctor of cardiac anesthesiology with Valley Anesthesiology Consultants. “But it’s why I got into cocktail culture. Mila would make these amazing dinners every night, and I wanted to be able to contribute, to help elevate the meal.”
Lopez is quick to point out he’s no proponent of heavy drinking. “Craft cocktails are all about the ritual, not about getting drunk,” he says. “It’s an invigoration of your senses – the smell, the look, the taste, which glass you pour into. It’s more advanced than just choosing the best bottle of wine.”
The similarity between anesthesiology and mixology isn’t lost on Lopez.
“Both combine elements to achieve a specific effect,” he says. “That idea of creating the right balance in anesthesia has played into my expertise as a mixologist.”
He claims no specialty drink. “I like to do new things to traditional cocktails. I think about the food we’re having that night or who we’re entertaining and go from there. What kind of acid do I want to cut through the sweetness? Instead of a lime, can I use a lemon? Can I make the drink healthier by lowering the sugar content?”
Modifications are as important as moderation. When Mila recently planned a Mexican-themed menu, Matt jazzed up a customary cocktail. “I made a smoked blood orange spicy margarita. I torched the orange and muddled some jalapeños. It was really out there.”
So is the idea that a doctor can’t mix a great cocktail, study karate or record an album of original songs.
“It’s easy to forget that doctors are more than their jobs,” Matt Lopez says. “People don’t know that getting into medicine is about more than test scores. Other doctors are looking for well-rounded people to work with. And that’s a lot of us. I mean, doctors are some of the most well-rounded people you’re going to meet in the world.”
