DOCTORS OF INTEREST
Treasure Coast Medical Report
The WEIGHT-LOSS DOCTOR
BY L. L. ANGELL
Dr. Deepti Sadhwani is on a mission. Anyone driving
along U.S. 1 in northern Indian River County has
seen the billboards with the doctor’s smiling face
and the devastating statement: “Obesity kills.”
“Nobody wants to be fat,” says the doctor. “Everyone wants to be
thinner and healthier and to perform better. That’s why I’m dedicated
to teaching people how to live healthier lives.”
The board-certified physician of internal and bariatric medicine treats
obesity, inflammatory diseases and hormonal imbalances at her Wabasso
practice, Quality Health Care and Wellness Center, on U.S. 1.
Her husband, Dr. Harish Sadhwani, has a similar practice at
his Sebastian office and at Sebastian River Medical Center.
“My husband and I offer a very mature medicine. It took
time to mature it,” said the doctor, who asked to be called Dr.
Deepti. “Now, we are expanding our practices and creating a
new wellness center where we’ll work together.”
The doctors have broken ground on a lot adjacent to
Dr. Deepti’s present location at 8701 U.S. Highway 1.
They expect the new wellness center, which will bring an
additional 9,000 square feet, to be completed by May 2015.
As a girl in India, Dr. Deepti never expected to become a
physician. Members of the business class traditionally educated
their sons, but expected their daughters to
get married.
Dr. Deepti’s father was a successful businessman and politician.
Her mother was illiterate, marrying when she was 12.
“During my day, women were one step above farm animals.
We were treated as a commodity. The one and only job
we were expected to perform was keeping house for a man,”
she said.
But Dr. Deepti’s older brother, already a doctor himself,
persuaded their father to send her to medical school. While
she was there, her parents arranged for her to marry.
“We were fortunate because we met each other once first,”
says Dr. Deepti about her future husband. “And Harish
knew I wanted to practice medicine. So I finished med school
first. Then we married.”
Next, the two practiced medicine in Saudi Arabia for seven
years. Dr. Deepti calls that a learning experience.
“Where Indian men blundered about trying to dominate
women, the Saudis have made domination of women into a
fine art,” she says. “It only helped my self-confidence when
we came to America for our residencies in Chicago.”
During their residencies at the University of Chicago
Hospitals, they took a trip to Disney World.
“We loved the climate, and when Sebastian River Medical
Center offered Harish a position, I followed him with our
3-month-old baby,” Dr. Deepti said.
The Sadhwani’s three children are Divya, 27, a daughter
finishing her last year of medical school in dermatology at
University of Central Florida in Orlando; Anand, 24, a son
studying business finance at Bentley University, outside
Boston; and a second son, Rohan, 17, a junior at St. Edward’s
School in Vero Beach.
Dr. Deepti would have never developed her passion for
fighting obesity if Anand hadn’t become critically ill.
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ED DRONDOSKI
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Dr. Deepti
Sadhwani has
worked for the
past 15 years to
prevent disease
through weight
management
and nutrition.