As a physician, for the longest time, I thought my MD title, this profession, would be a shield in a world full of so many challenges. I was and am wrong.
Growing up as an immigrant in the United States, I became more acutely aware of my differences after September 2001. Due to my background, skin tone, complexion, name, religion, everything about me stood out. During this formative period, I struggled with defining myself as a person amid the caricatures, bullying, and unkind behaviors from adults and children alike around me.
My personal experiences being bullied for being a Muslim kid growing up post 9/11 in America are shared by countless thousands in this country. These experiences with hatred, Islamophobia, do not take away the pain and suffering of those who were directly affected and impacted by the terrorist attacks. However, minimizing the ripples and impact of this tragedy on the very fabric of society is also not right. From my experiences and those of countless others, an entire generation of brown-skinned kids in America began to redefine how we related to the very idea of “Americana.” Being an American meant adopting a certain set of values, there were rough boundaries, jagged edges, and lots of inhospitable terrain to navigate emotionally, psychologically, socially, and personally. With every new war, American imperial conquest, and disturbance in West Asia, Muslims are regularly caricatured and the hate is normalized as a matter of convenient political calculation.
I used to think, if I ever had children, what would I do differently? What would my response be like if they were bullied or made to feel less than for the same reasons? I also thought that achieving a title, professionally, would be a tool against racism. I have been proven wrong over the past few years where a patient casually told me, “Muslims should just be killed to make room for peace in the Middle East.” Unlike my parents’ generation who just tolerated the vitriol, I find myself thinking about why?
I was shocked but carried on with my obligations to him as a medical provider and pushed my anger, disgust, and frustration aside to do my best as a physician. This interaction truly cemented something for me. Racism doesn’t care about professions or titles or degrees. Thus, now as I see the virulent Islamophobia running amok most recently in the recent NYC mayoral election or currently with the Michigan Senate race with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign, it is triggering to see so much hate normalized.
Being a doctor, a public health professional, is not helping Dr. El-Sayed against the Islamophobia and racism directed towards him. He alongside the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, are regularly being painted as people to fear, foreigners, whose views do not align with “American values” by just about everyone, including the sitting president of the United States, vice president, and many others across the political and social spectrum.
As a Muslim American physician working in New York, I am closely following this race for the U.S. Senate and Mayor Mamdani’s tenure, to see if America is truly at a point of inflection or will hatred, fear, racial resentments, and just outright bigotry continue to win. As a father of a child also named Abdul, I hope I can show him that America is a place of belonging and his identity as a Muslim American is not a scarlet letter but something valid, certain, and worth protecting today and always.
Sameen Farooq is a Muslim physician in New York City. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and his work spans both inpatient hospital medicine and community-based hospice care. He is board certified in internal medicine, addiction medicine, palliative and hospice medicine, and obesity medicine.
His scholarly work spans serious illness care, substance use disorders, and the ethics of decision-making for patients without advocates. He is the lead author of a Palliative Care Network of Wisconsin Fast Fact on serious illness considerations for the unrepresented and adult orphans, and a coauthor of research in Substance Abuse on a pilot overdose education and naloxone distribution program for hospitalized general medical patients.
Outside his work as a doctor, he is always trying to figure out how to make the perfect cup of Pakistani chai, incorporate walking and spiritual reflection into his daily routine, and enjoy his time with family and friends.
