Meet the doctor who breaks stereotypes in medicine and modelling

Dr. Priyankha PushRag, a medical practitioner and model, breaks stereotypes and pursues her dreams in Chennai.

“I still remember my general surgery posting with night rounds, check-ins at the casualty ward before my shift ends. Then, instead of crashing into bed, I would slip into my stilettos and start practising my ramp walk. Why? Because the next day was my 24-hour duty shift,” says Priyankha PushRag, a medical practitioner in Chennai, who squeezes the in-between time not only to try her hands in a hobby but also to break the many stereotypes that surround her.

“Being a doctor is living my childhood dream,” says Dr. Priyankha who completed her MBBS in 2023. “And being a model is healing my inner child,” she says.

Healing? Years of bullying by friends at school for being dark-skinned made her realise, as an adult, that she needed to reclaim her self-worth. “I started posing for photoshoots, and for the first time, I appreciated myself. That’s how modelling came my way,” she says.

But balancing these two distinctly different worlds has not been easy. “First, the stigma. So many people around me could not wrap their heads around a doctor being a model. And then came non-stop judgments because of the inhibitions relating to the modelling industry,” shares Dr. Priyankha.

“The thing is, no matter how devoted you are at your full-time profession, someone will always have something to say. The moment I stopped caring about everyone’s opinion, I truly started living,” she says.

Modelling helps her recharge after long shifts at the hospital. Starting with local ramp walks at DOT School of Fashion in Chennai, she went on to ramp-walk for international clothing brands in Singapore and competed in beauty pageants such as Miss Smiling Queen’23, Miss Ramp Walk’23, and Miss Fashion Icon’23.

She was also a finalist in Foden Face of South India and Global Miss Asia India.