Dr. Riyaz Basha, GMHE Exec Programme alum, outlines the new face of healthcare leadership
Dr. Riyaz Basha is part of a growing tribe of senior healthcare professionals who want to shoulder the administrative burden of healthcare operations.
There’s a general sense that healthcare providers cannot be good administrators due to the strong human element involved in their day-to-day jobs. An ally to one, an adversary to another, bureaucrats have perennially been relied upon in administrative roles. Armed with firm will, ready to change minds, Dr. Basha climbed the ranks of medical bureaucracy to take up essential space in senior administrative roles. Today he serves as Registrar (Evaluation) of Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences.
His journey to the top made him realize that ‘people management’ has more to it than bureaucratic busy work. Unflagging in his efforts to bring management prowess to preventative care, Dr. Basha joined the General Management Programme for Healthcare Executives (GMHE) at IIM Bangalore.
GMHE alumnus Dr. Riyaz Basha, Registrar (Evaluation), Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Karnataka.
In this first-person account, Dr. Basha gets candid about his career journey, his bouts with bureaucratic apathy, a much-needed paradigm shift towards preventative care, and his takeaways from GMHE.
The making of a public health advocate
Probably the fact that there was no other Health Science graduate in our family at that point in time. That is why I joined MBBS. In 1993, for middle-class kids like me, career choices were unambiguously binary: engineering or medicine, and I applied to both. A merit seat at JSS Medical College, Mysore University, sealed the deal. In a society where securing an MBBS admission is as much about prestige as it is about passion, my choice was clear.
Prof. Gopal Mahapatra, OB&HRM area, and Dr. Basha at Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Karnataka.
JSS, however, turned out to be more than just an academic journey. The college’s ethos of community engagement took students beyond the lecture halls and into the grassroots—primary health centers, camps, and inaccessible locations off the beaten path. We were of course treating patients, but more importantly we were encouraged to understand the lives behind the illnesses. It was this immersion that nudged me toward public health—a field rooted not in treating symptoms but in preventing the disease altogether. Based on the formative experience, I chose my Masters in Public Health-Community Medicine at MS Ramaiah Medical College, Bangalore.
My dissertation indulged the dual burden of disease, both communicable and non-communicable, with a focus on leprosy. At the time, cases were in decline, but the stigma around leprosy hadn’t disappeared. I studied the satisfaction levels of patients with the government services they were being offered and brought those findings to the attention of administrators. It was my first real experience trying to bridge the gap between what patients needed and what the system delivered.
During that time, I gained exposure to biomedical waste management at MS Ramaiah, a premier institute in the field. It was during my postgraduate years that my public health skills truly came to the forefront. I participated in cancer detection camps, which provided deeper insight into the public health burdens of these diseases. What we see in hospitals is merely the tip of the iceberg—patients often seek care only when they are severely unwell or immobile. Sub clinically, however, a significant portion—nearly 80%—of individuals remain undiagnosed, particularly for non-communicable diseases.
After completing my postgraduation, I joined Bangalore Medical College (BMC) as teaching faculty, rising from Assistant Professor to Professor between 2006 and 2014. Alongside teaching, I took on key public health roles, including serving as District Nodal Officer for Tobacco Control. As the District Nodal Center, this position placed BMC at the forefront of anti-tobacco initiatives and led me to mid-level training programs at Johns Hopkins and Monash University, where I studied global control measures and presented research at international conferences.
I transitioned into administration as Deputy Registrar at Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in 2014. Over five years, I managed critical tasks: affiliating medical and nursing colleges, streamlining admissions and examination systems, and leading the digitization of evaluations through a Compact Examination Management System, implemented with NIC support under the Vice Chancellor’s guidance.
Meanwhile, around this time, I also took on the task of preparing first-time Haj pilgrims for their journey to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Through a series of training sessions, I guide them through the essential social, religious, and medical preparations needed for the pilgrimage, ensuring they are fully prepared for the experience.
A surgeon’s scalpel meets administrative reform
By 2014, I had grown cognizant to a rising phenomenon of administrative harm in medicine. I was having to reckon with the increasing vulnerability of patients to the systems and failures of admin-driven interventions. It was clear to me—what better way to overhaul a troubled system than to be a part of it and fix it from the inside. So, I rolled up my sleeves, ready to patch the cracks and tackle the inefficiencies to build ground-up solutions.
Dr. Basha with the GMHE cohort at IIM Bangalore.
Then came 2020. The pandemic hit like a storm, and I found myself in the heart of the chaos—working in the Central War Room with the Principal Secretary of Health and Family Welfare. My days blurred into nights, juggling statistics, bed allocations, data compilation, issuing guidelines, and setting up oxygen plants. It was all hands on deck, nonstop.
At the peak of the crisis, most decisions were driven by data, with IAS officers at the helm. And while doctors were on the ground, the system needed more than just frontline warriors—it needed sharp, pragmatic administrators who could navigate bureaucracy. That realization lit a fire in me. I wanted to manage at scale.
I had previously pursued a PG Diploma in Health and Hospital Management. But I quickly realized there were gaps—especially in high-impact communication. How do you translate data into something policymakers can act on? How do you present the numbers in a way that sparks change? Theory alone wasn’t enough; to make a real impact, you need the tools to manage, communicate, and drive action.
That’s when I decided to take a deeper plunge into management function. Enter GMHE at IIM Bangalore and acquire the tools to align a workforce with the fundamentals of modern medicine—teamwork, transparency and accountability.
What after GMHE?
After GMHE, I was called back to the university to take on the role of Registrar of Evaluations. I now oversee exams for nearly 3 lakh students across Health Sciences—ranging from Medical to Allied Health Sciences, UG and PG levels, Super-specialty, and even PhD programs. I’m involved in essential governance processes, including exam planning, identifying centers, compiling and valuing papers, to declaring results, handling external credentials, HRD verifications, and ensuring transparency and high standards throughout the process. It’s a massive operation, spanning from the first year to the final steps of graduation, and it requires meticulous planning, strategy, and people management at every turn.
When I think of the core components of the physician leadership pipeline that GMHE equips you with, the competency that impacted me the most ispeople-management skills. Not everyone you work with is going to share the same pace or mindset. Not everyone has the same drive towards the design or decisions you envision. GMHE has effectively taught me how to adapt to those differences. It is a skillset I now consider invaluable in managing over 1,000 institutes that come under my jurisdiction, that helps build trust and professionalism as a remedy to unilateral administrative encroachment, and also address diverse teams’ queries and crises efficiently.
Second, I learned the intricacies of financing and budgeting. As head of the department, I’m responsible for the budget, balancing the books and ensuring everything is financially sound.
Third, there’s the challenge of brand-building. While government institutions don’t rely on aggressive marketing, establishing a strong, approachable presence for students and stakeholders is essential—a roadmap I now feel equipped to shape.
Learning beyond the lecture
Whether online or offline mediums, there is no avenue where you don’t dedicate yourself through teaching. But I must pay my highest regards to the quality of teachers at GMHE. Being an educator myself, I am well aware that our attention span doesn’t last beyond 30-40 minutes, but I must commend the level of instruction our Professors at IIMB were able to draw in a 90-minute class; it was unparalleled. The learning was intense, practical, and compelling.
Dr. Basha (center) with his colleagues at Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Karnataka.
Beyond the classroom, the program offered us a powerful network. In fact, just recently I invited Prof. Gopal Mahapatra to lead a vision workshop at our university. It felt like a full-circle moment, seeing how these connections go beyond the program and continue to make an impact in real, tangible ways.
Management is the antidote to overburdened medicine
While management has found its way into postgraduate curriculums, at the UG level, the focus remains firmly on curative care. So, management is taking shape, but only just after-the-fact.
The delivery of preventive care is expensive, fragmented and the tangible gains are long-term. However, a focus on strengthening systems that promote good health would not only beat down pervasive causes of ill-health, but also reduce over-reliance on frayed and overburdened health systems. Long-term research inquiries and clinical investigations stand to virtually change the way we approach patient-centered health, and ultimately my hope is that over the next few years of service, I am able to bring grounded improvement as a counterweight to hindering and unaccountable administrative priorities.
