The personal statement for my vascular surgery fellowship application read “In ten years I see myself practicing in a tertiary care center where I clinically care for patients with complex vascular pathology and academically pursue my interest in translational and clinical research…..with an emphasis on the effect of genomic variation on illness susceptibility and outcomes”. While my journey has been anything but linear, I can reflect back and say that I have been consistent. I am grateful for my background that prepared me to achieve many of my professional goals. Growing up in Saudi Arabia in a conservative society with deep roots via my father and knowing that I too had deep roots in the United States via my mother prepared me with a high degree of tolerance for uncertainty and never ending determination. This served me well when I moved to the United States to pursue a degree in medicine.
The early days of working to support my education, first as a cashier in Walmart in a small Florida town, then as an emergency medical technician and ultimately a paramedic, gave me tremendous opportunity for insight into people from diverse backgrounds. These dynamics shaped my identity as a surgeon and researcher in which I am defined by the relationships with my patients during their journey to wellness in addition to performing the surgical operations. I have been drawn to the care of patients with heritable aortic conditions such as Marfan syndrome, Loeys Dietz, and Vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndromes as well as familial aortopathies and other rare vascular conditions. A great deal of their care requires repair of their aortas as well as associated arterial aneurysms. In my mind, a well conducted aortic or arterial operation is simply a tool to help patients heal as they navigate their individual experiences with their diagnosis and illness.
My dual heritage has afforded me the comfort of diverse interactions and the ability to understand seemingly contradicting points of view. This background created a drive to merge different specialties, such as genetics and vascular surgery, or patient engagement and vascular surgery (or a combination of all three as it happens). I have focused my research on areas where there are clear gaps in knowledge such as the optimal management of patient with vascular Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Because of the rare nature of the disease, engaging the community directly was an innovative solution to best understand how to care for the individuals affected by this diagnosis by first understanding the research priorities and then creating a global natural history study. I continue engaging with patient communities living with or at risk for aortic dissection and the stakeholders who are involved in aortic dissection care and research. Our work is funded by the Patient Centered Outcomes (PCORI) Eugene Washington Engagement Award. Engaging a diverse group of stakeholders has yielded tremendous understanding of the challenges faced by this community that we have described in this month’s issue of Seminars of Vascular Surgery.
I feel fortunate to have a community of friends and colleagues in vascular surgery who support each other. Surgeons encounter a tremendous degree of challenges in seeking their professional goals, and in that I felt that I was no different. I have learned over time that there are challenges that are purely related to one’s gender or ethnicity. I also learned that these challenges are unique to the culture within one lives. This realization has driven me to counter this particular set of the challenges via mentorship and creating opportunity for those who will follow in our footsteps. I am grateful for those who have led these uncharted territories before me. It is my hope that by the end of my career, I would have contributed to the ever expanding universe of knowledge in vascular surgery, and perhaps, made the journey easier for a few of those who are sharing in this tremendous experience.