My Doctor Is a Pakistani Muslim. [View all]

[MineralMan]

I go to a multi-specialty clinic near where I live. At this clinic, regular patients have an internist or family practice specialist assigned to them as their primary care physician. When I moved here in 2004, my first visit to the clinic was for cluster headaches, which had recurred once again. The doctor I saw was brusque and dismissive, and not interested in helping me obtain the prescription for oxygen, which was the only treatment that worked for the condition in my case. I ended up getting the prescription, but was pretty unsatisfied with that physician's manner and attitude.

I had to come back a week later, and that physician wasn't available, so I saw a different doctor. This one was the exact opposite of the first doctor I had seen. He listened to me, recognized that I had long experience with my condition and paid attention to my explanation of what I needed. I got the care I expected to get.

I didn't have to return to the clinic for almost a year, but when I did, I asked for the second doctor, and asked if I could be assigned to him as my primary care doctor. From his name and accent, I assumed that he was from a middle eastern country. When I saw him, he told me that I was the first patient who had requested him as their primary care doctor. He had been with the clinic for two years. I was surprised, and said so. He told me that it could be because he was a Muslim, but he wasn't sure.

Even now, almost eleven years later, I can get a same-day appointment with my primary care doctor. Mostly, he still sees people who cannot see their regular doctor. I'm still one of his few patients where he is assigned as a primary care physicians I just saw him for my annual Medicare wellness checkup. We always have a good chat and he asks me about how I'm doing, and I ask him the same thing. This year, he told me that he had brought his mother from Pakistan to the US, where she is now living in an assisted living facility and getting dialysis three times a week. He remembers me from year to year, which is about the only time I see him. He's careful, a very good diagnostician, and a very affable, thoughtful person. He's a Muslim. He's also an excellent primary care doctor. Both my wife and my mother-in-law now have selected him as their primary care physician.

We're not very bright, I think, as a society. We allow our prejudices to keep us from things that are beneficial. We are foolish as a society. It's sad.