In early 2020, as COVID-19 cases started to emerge in the US, healthcare professionals found themselves at the forefront of battling a fight against a previously unknown virus. Doctors, nurses, EMT staff lacked proper personal protective equipment to cope with the onslaught of admissions. With a limited supply, doctors and nurses were compelled to reuse their protective gear, risking their own lives for service to others.
Medical professionals like Dr. Abdallah Ajani who has been practicing emergency medicine in Detroit for four years started his journey during the initial Statewide declarations of self-quarantine. Hospitals were experiencing high volumes of infected patients. Serving in the line of duty, Abdallah oversaw numerous COVID-19 patients of all ages.
Abdallah started his career as a Dean’s Honor List student, destined to work in Emergency Medicine, and eager to welcome the challenging environment of expecting the unexpected. He mentions the new set of regulations impacting access to medical facilities, requiring each visiting patient to be checked for COVID-related symptoms prior to admission. In addition, he recognized the significant shift in the management of his patients, requiring a greater degree of empathy and compassion in care, as patients and families were exhibiting fear and concern.
As the peril continues, Abdallah is inspired by his favorite quote by Khalil Gibran, “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars.”
Patient care is a quality prevalent in the Ajani family as Abdallah’s wife, Ambreen Allana, is an Infectious Disease specialist working at the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston/MD Anderson Cancer Center. As implementation of new procedures continue Ambreen’s schedule was transformed from seeing patients physically, to via teleconferences.
Aside from being an internal specialist, Nasreen has been engaged in researching possible antiviral solutions to the recent pandemic. She has worked vigorously to see which drug possesses the most potent results against cytokine release syndrome, with several promising contenders for potency.
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During these difficult times, Ambreen remembers the words of author Arundhati Roy: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks, and dead ideas, our dead rivers, and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Among the various medical specialists within the family, is Dr. Nasreen Notta Ajani, an internal medicine specialist who graduated from the Aga Khan University Medical School. She has been in practice for almost 20 years at the Texas Medical Center. She believes the battle to truly manage COVID is through following rules of social distancing, hand hygiene, and the wearing of protective masks. Nasreen has recognized the changes in how medicine is practiced, saying, “This pandemic has changed how we practice medicine, the technology of telemedicine is here to stay, even after this is over.”
During the mandatory stay-at-home policy, Nasreen has inspired her children, Zahra and Aliya, ages 13 and 9 years, to participate in promoting the MaskUp campaign of Texas Governor Abbott and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Serving the need for immunocompromised children, Aliya and Zahra used a school project as an opportunity to make masks and donated them to the Texas Children's Hospital.
Nasreen’s aunt, Shameem Ajani, serves as a Doctor of Pharmacy, in Des Plaines, IL. She continues to advise patients and her pharmacy staff to follow CDC recommendations. In hard times, she remembers a quote from Mawlana Sultan Mahomed Shah, “Struggle is the meaning of life; defeat or victory is in the hands of God. But struggle itself is man’s duty and should be his joy.”
Kiran Ajani, represents the youngest generation of the Ajani family seeking a career in healthcare. Currently a second-year student at Case Western University in Cleveland, OH, she has been actively involved in contact tracing for COVID19 and hence seeks to improve the lives of people around her each day.
The Ajani family has illustrated its commitment to combating this virus as its members work in various medical areas to assist patients, a tradition that even the children have adopted.
