While in Medical college, Dr. Haresh sustained knee injuries while playing sports and subsequently underwent surgeries followed by months of rehabilitation. He was eventually able to go back to playing sports. During this process, he realized the value, rehabilitation can provide, in one’s life and decided to pursue a career in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R). He moved to the United States to pursue post-graduation in PM&R. During his training at New York Medical College, he initially wanted to focus only on sports injuries, but his mind changed after realizing the difference he could make in some of the most disabling neurological conditions especially brain-related conditions such as stroke, traumatic brain injury, anoxic/hypoxic brain injury, brain tumor, coma, etc. He then completed fellowship training in Brain Injury Medicine at TIRR Memorial Hermann/University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston.

After completing Medical college, Dr. Jacob was exploring career opportunities. Being a sportsperson, he was looking forward to pursuing a career in sports. This is when he came across this novel specialty, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R). The specialty touches every field of medicine, which he found to be fascinating. On exploring further, this specialty helped him understand the huge gap between the care of acute ailments and complete functional recovery. That’s when he was introduced to the terms, “function” and “quality of life” as an integral aspect of medicine. It made him realize that treatment doesn’t stop when the acute problem is taken care of but it stretches until complete functional recovery. Following this he pursued postgraduate training in PM&R from St. Johns National Academy of Health Sciences, Bengaluru.

Dr. Jacob and Dr. Haresh were Medical college classmates in Chennai. They were in constant touch during their post-graduation training. They frequently discussed India’s lack of comprehensive rehabilitation care and the need for improvement. This inspired them to make a difference by establishing a comprehensive rehabilitation center post-completion of their respective training.