The son of two doctors, Iraq native Dr. Mohamed Al-Kazaz never expected to join the family business.
But like so many people in both Iraq and America, the coming of war in 2003 changed his life.
"During the war, you got to see people, you got to see human potential," said Dr. Al-Kazaz, who was a teenager living in Baghdad when the Iraq War began. "There's always this one savior, this one healer, the wise man — in Arabic, it's called 'hakeem' — and you go to him asking for help when needed. It's such a great power for you to provide positive change in an environment where violence was going on everywhere, and in a society where positive change was much needed. That was a great push for me, seeing that there is so much you can do with this profession from a humane perspective and from an artistic perspective."
Now a decade later, Dr. Al-Kazaz is a Class of 2012 graduate from Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and is amid his first year of residency in internal medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Challenged by the trials of war, his motivation to heal has been molded as much by his experiences in Iraq as it has his education.
Born and raised in Baghdad as the middle brother of three, Dr. Al-Kazaz grew up in a small community where everyone knew everyone. His parents were the neighborhood doctors, offering consults to local residents before they saw their own doctors. He attended Baghdad College, one of the elite schools in the city that was established by Jesuits from Boston in 1932. He aspired to be an engineer.
"It was nice growing up there," he said. "Of course, growing up with parents who were physicians, they emphasized the importance of education throughout my life, and they pushed me to the limits so I could achieve whatever I wanted to achieve."
Then the war started, and everything changed. The city he knew and loved became chaotic.
"The thing that bothered me the most was that the Iraqi people have always been tolerant people," said Dr. Al-Kazaz, who was 14 years old at the start of the war. "They've never cared about differences in terms of religion or political views. All of a sudden, because of the influx of people who had their own interests, people started segregating and discriminating against each other based on religion, political views, based on minute differences between groups. Everyone had arms and were acting on these intolerances and harming each other for no reason."
That's when Dr. Al-Kazaz realized how essential doctors are to humanity. For as resourceful as people were during those first few months of the war, he said, they couldn't repair their own health when they got sick. He knew then that he wanted to be a doctor.
But he knew he'd have to leave Iraq to achieve that goal. His father, had already left for Qatar, and the rest of the Al-Kazaz family soon followed. In 2004, Dr. Al-Kazaz and his family left for Jordan carrying travel documents, eventually obtaining passports to continue on to Qatar.
"It was an interesting trip," he said. "Learned a lot from it, being adaptable to many changes and many different environments, some a bit harsh. I learned that when life gives you a lemon, you make lemonade. You make the best of it and move on."
As a new resident of Qatar, Dr. Al-Kazaz finished up high school and planned to apply to a medical school in Jordan when he learned about Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, located in the rapidly-expanding Doha. After learning about the Cornell University medical degree offering at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar and discovering that the Qatar Foundation offered financial aid and scholarships, along with many opportunities for science development and success, the choice was easy. He started medical school in 2008 — building off pre-med studies he began two years earlier — conducting biomedical research in Qatar and at Cornell University in Ithaca and New York City along the way.
Landing a residency in New York was the perfect cap to his medical education, he said. He's amazed how much progress he's made just one year into his training.
"Last June I was this clueless intern who didn't know how to put orders in, who freaked out about every single page from everyone," he said. "It's fascinating how much you grow as a young physician and how much more confident and independent you become, more competent."
Dr. Al-Kazaz hasn't quite made up his mind what he wants to do after residency. He will most likely be a general internist and sub-specialize in cardiology. He might dedicate his career to research, or work as a physician-scientist. What's next for him is anyone's guess, but he's keeping an open mind.
"I never thought I was going to end up in the U.S.," he said. "I thought I was going to live my whole life in Iraq. I'm very grateful, but what the future holds for me, I don't know. What I can tell you is my experiences in Iraq, at Weill Cornell-Qatar and during residency — they gave me the perspective to just make the best of whatever I come across."