Dr. Akshay Syal

“There’s nothing comparable to the doctor-patient relationship,” says Dr. Syal. “I love being a patient’s quarterback, helping them navigate the health care system to find the best treatment.”

The son of a neurologist, Dr. Syal grew up in Paradise Valley, Arizona, and medicine was never far from his awareness. From an early age, he developed a love of science and the human body, a curiosity about how everything fit together, and a desire to use that knowledge to improve people’s lives. He received his Bachelor of Science in Physiology from the University of Arizona and earned his MD from New York Medical College before completing residency in internal medicine at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Following residency, Dr. Syal joined University of California, Los Angeles Health, as an internal medicine physician and Clinical Instructor of Medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. There, he managed a high-volume practice of patients with a wide variety of conditions, including heart failure, kidney disease, transplant-related complexities, and more, developing deep fluency in chronic disease management and a sharpened instinct for the ways preventive care could help avoid larger health problems.

Teaching medical students and residents alongside his clinical work reinforced his belief that curiosity is a physician’s most important trait. “Medicine is a career of lifetime learning. I’m always happy to explore questions that students or patients bring to me,” Dr. Syal says.

This love for learning brought Dr. Syal to his work as a medical journalist. After working for his college newspaper and The Dr. Oz Show, he joined the NBC News health unit in 2020 during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. He continues to work as both an on-air and digital reporter, covering everything from artificial intelligence in medicine to emerging therapies for cancer and other chronic diseases. He can be seen on NBC News platforms including TODAY, NBC News NOW, and NBC News Digital.

“Working in media, you learn so much about how to communicate with patients,” he says. “Making things simple is so much harder than making them complex. That work has made me a better doctor.”

Traveling to leading research hospitals and interviewing clinicians at the frontier of medicine gave him an unusual vantage point. “I’m going to some of the best hospitals, and they’re doing all this amazing, cutting-edge research,” he says, “but because of the limitations of insurance in a traditional system, I’d come back to my day job as a physician and think: I can’t use any of this. That’s what’s so incredible about Atria—we are on the cutting edge of research and medicine.”

Dr. Syal enjoys the personal relationships he builds with each patient and the time he can take to learn about their medical experiences and lives. “Journalism has taught me that every patient has their own story, and I love listening to them,” Dr. Syal says. “You can actually see in practice how patients’stories translate into symptoms and help us find the answer to delivering the highest quality care.”

Dr. Syal is a skilled navigator of the information landscape his patients live in. Whether someone comes to him with a question about a social media wellness trend, a new supplement, or a headline they saw, he takes the time to probe the topic with his patient. “I'll do my due diligence, look into it with them, and take them behind the curtain to ask: What is this product? Who is making this product? Who is telling you about this product? Do they have a relationship with it?” he says. “I think that’s how physicians build trust: really going beyond the surface and showing how we come to a conclusion.”

At Atria, Dr. Syal works closely with neurologist Dr. Richard Isaacson and the Precision Prevention Program. Dr. Syal brings the broad clinical lens of primary care to a system built on precision medicine. “We’re using cutting-edge diagnostics and treatments, and a collaborative approach that you just don’t see in traditional medicine,” Dr. Syal says.

Dr. Syal lives in Manhattan and when he’s not working, he enjoys playing guitar, golfing, exercising, and cooking.