Amr Hassan Mostafa, CEO of Oasis Clinics: Each week, My Morning Routine looks at how a successful member of the community starts their day — and then throws in a couple of random business questions just for fun. Speaking to us this week is Amr Hassan Mostafa (LinkedIn), CEO of Oasis Clinics. Edited excerpts from our conversation:

My name is Amr Hassan Mostafa. I’m a physician, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine, consultant interventional cardiologist, and CEO of Oasis Clinics. In 2010, I transitioned from my teaching and research career and redirected my energy toward co-founding Oasis Clinics with my colleagues. Oasis Clinics is a healthcare organization that functions like a cooperative bringing together doctors to work collaboratively as a cohesive team. My time is divided between caring for my patients — which I deeply value — and advancing the vision and growth of our practice.

Working in multiple countries has shaped my perspective on how healthcare should be delivered and deepened my understanding of limitations within our current healthcare system. I’ve realized that health systems — including higher education, pharma, and healthcare providers — are biased towards treating disease rather than ‘creating health’ or preventing disease. At Oasis Clinics, we took a more comprehensive approach that supplements the latest evidence-based clinical guidelines with modern preventative health insights that promote overall wellbeing and vitality.

I typically start my day around 7am, where I do all my reading and exercise in the first few hours of the morning. My workday starts pretty late around 11am and can go on until anywhere from 7-8pm. Starting 11am, I’ll either be making rounds on patients in the ICU, performing catheter interventions, seeing clinic patients, or solving business problems at Oasis. So, the only time I have to read and advance my knowledge is in those few hours in the morning before the phone calls start coming in. I try to take a two-day weekend, but that’s often interrupted by urgent patient needs.

One of the things I value most is giving patients enough time for a detailed medical and personal lifestyle history. Most busy clinics don’t give patients enough time with senior doctors, which is crucial. One piece of information, one sentence, can redirect a diagnosis entirely. I encourage patients to stay informed about new health developments and bring that knowledge into our treatment discussions, ask questions, and compare well-documented data. Patients today are engaged and genuinely want to understand their health and the factors affecting it. They also want to have a say in choosing the best treatment options for themselves. The traditional healthcare model just doesn’t cater to this mindset, which is driving the shift toward a more patient-centered approach.

I think AI will play an increasingly significant role in the future of the field. In my opinion, the most applicable AI capabilities we have today concerning healthcare are pattern recognition and generic productivity tools. Productivity tools like speech-to-text, text synthesis and text generation can reduce the time physicians and assistants spend on data entry and writing, enabling them to focus more on patient care. Pattern recognition allows AI to classify and diagnose patient cases using inputs like imaging, lab work, and symptoms. The more objective the problem, the more effective AI is at identifying the correct classification and diagnosis. A recent study showed AI’s superior performance over radiologists in early breast cancer detection. But AI-based diagnosis is still in its early days, and there’s much more work to do until it becomes sufficiently effective and comprehensive. Much of medicine today still relies on the doctor-patient human connection and interactive communication to extract the best inputs needed for a proper diagnosis. Beyond diagnosis, when it comes to the treatment phase, medicine today isn’t a rigidly codified sequence of steps. It requires a very humanistic approach.

At Oasis Clinics, we’re transforming into not just downstream healthcare but upstream healthcare. What I mean by this is that we don’t just treat patients who have problems; we also work on the root cause of disease, wellness, and the prevention of diseases. We look at the human body as an ecosystem with different complex systems working together, and we treat it as such. I don’t like this kind of treatment to be referred to as ‘alternative medicine’. Alternative medicine, such as Chinese medicine, Unani medicine, or Ayurveda, also view the human body as a single, interconnected system. I believe these approaches should be presented to patients as complementary to conventional medicine, not as substitutes.

When I want to relax, I like to listen to music and read stuff unrelated to medicine, science, or business. I often listen to the music I grew up with because it brings back memories of not having to think or worry about much, mostly 70s rock or some easy listening piano. The top three songs on my playlist are by Guns N’ Roses, Led Zeppelin, and The Eagles.

I’m currently reading a book called Deep Medicine, written by Eric Topol. He made major contributions to the development of cardiovascular medicine, and he recently wrote a book about the philosophy of how to integrate technology, medicine and healthcare policy — going back to the theme of the doctor-patient relationship. I definitely recommend it, and it’s not only for physicians.

The best piece of advice I’ve been given (that I want to pass onto others) comes from an Ayurveda proverb which says, “When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is correct, medicine is of no need.”

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