“Cancer touches
countless lives worldwide. As a cancer researcher, I applaud Dr. Rahman’s
effort to make cancer biology accessible to everyone in Our
Connected Lives. As a physician, I appreciate how his
thoughtful stories illuminate the practice of cancer medicine—not just by
revealing the struggles patients and doctors face, but also by highlighting the
importance of treating patients as people rather than cases. The lessons in
this book are instructive for us all: cancer patients and their loved ones,
general readers as well as the members of the medical profession.”
—Hagop M.
Kantarjian, MD, Professor and Chairman, Department of Leukemia; Samsung
Distinguished University Chair in Cancer Medicine; MD Anderson Cancer Center,
University of Texas
“The renowned clinician Dr. William Osler, considered the ‘Father of Internal Medicine,’ observed: ‘The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.’ Fazlur Rahman is not only a great physician; this remarkable man is also a wonderful writer.
From his humble beginnings in what is now Bangladesh (and for this story I highly recommend his cultural memoir, The Temple Road), and throughout his post-graduate training in internal medicine and oncology in New York and Houston, it took amazing fortitude and faith for Dr. Rahman to find his way to San Angelo, Texas. There he garnered the love and respect of its citizens through his delivery of high-quality primary and specialty care over many decades.
How he accomplished this is the main thrust of this memoir. Every turn this writer takes—into medical science, the evolution of oncological treatments, the intricacies of doctor-patient-family relationships—serves to enlighten and enhance this story. This physician’s dedicated attentiveness to the daily, then yearly, then career-long practice of patient-centered ‘connected’ medicine is rare in America’s fractured health system today, and we are all the poorer for it.
With this book, Dr. Rahman joins the ranks of other great physician writers: Anton Chekhov, William Carlos Williams, Richard Selzer, Oliver Sacks, and Abraham Verghese, among others. You will not be able to put this book down. And when the last page is turned, you may wonder where you might find someone like this author to care for you. I know I did.”
—Jerald Winakur, MD, MACP, FRCP
Author of Memory Lessons: A Doctor’s Story and Human Voices Wake Us
“Fazlur Rahman is a wonderful storyteller. I was immediately drawn in by
the vivid characters, touched by their plights and by the author’s depth of
compassion.”—Jonathan Balcombe, bestselling author of What a Fish
Knows and Super Fly
“Dr. Fazlur
Rahman’s Our Connected Lives: Caring for Cancer Patients in Rural Texas is
a must-read, flush with all the richness of human life in the face of illness.
In these pages, the cancer doctor walks alongside his patients through the
difficult conversations, complex medical decisions, losses and triumphs that
cancer brings. Dr. Rahman’s intense empathy for his West Texas patients
vivifies these pages, and drives him to provide excellent, diligent, humane
care. Any reader who wants to know what cancer is like from the other side—the
doctor’s side—will be enlightened to find in Dr. Rahman’s stories a testimony
to how deeply doctors care for our patients and indeed how connected we all
are, in the end. If you have doubted whether doctors actually care not only for
patients but about them as human beings, this book will change you. It shows
how the best doctors among us are, and how we all ought to be.”
—Rachel Pearson, MD,
PhD, Humanities Director, Charles E. Cheever, Jr. Center for Medical Humanities
and Ethics; Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Distinguished Professor in
Bioethics; author, No Apparent Distress: A Doctor’s Coming of Age on the
Front Lines of American Medicine
“The story of each
of these five unforgettable women and men makes a powerful reading. These are
mesmerizing and page-turner tales, making us genuinely concerned about the
lives of those individuals with cancer. But their stories are also relevant to
other people whether they have cancer or not.”
—Kanti Rai, MD, Winner
of the ASH Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology
“Dr. Rahman takes
us on a journey of resilience, love, and empathy. He has the ability to see
light when many of us would see only darkness while caring for patients with
cancer. This book shows us that not only are we all connected but also we walk
together on the path of our lives. Moreover, he teaches us that empathy and
hope are the most powerful tools we have to help our patients when they are
most vulnerable, and that showing dignity to our patients is an integral part
of care. This is a must-read!”
—Alfredo
Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD, William J. and Charles H. Mayo Professor, Monica Flynn
Jacoby Endowed Chair, James C. and Sarah K. Kennedy Dean of Research, Mayo
Clinic; author of Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to
Brain Surgeon
