DR. WHO?
Dr. Babar as a resident with
mentor Nurse Betty
MEMBER
SPOTLIGHT
MUHAMMAD
BABAR, MD
Aaron Burch
M
uhammad Babar, MD, MBA is Pakistan-born, a husband and
father to twin boys and a physician of Geriatric Medicine.
But, like many others, he is living a life filled with unexpected
responsibilities.
In recent years, Dr. Babar has added more titles to his CV. Some were
unanticipated but none unwelcome, as he has become a spokesperson
for compassion and inter-faith community building in Louisville.
Today, Dr. Babar serves as president of the Muslim Americans for
Compassion, but he has also acted as past-president of the Association
of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of Kentucky and Indiana (APPKI),
and as a board member of the Center for Interfaith Relations, the Fund
for the Arts, Louisville Public Media, the Speed Art Museum and more.
“As a physician we are supposed to be compassionate,” Dr. Babar
said. “Compassion is present in every human soul. That’s all we can
offer and that strength can tackle poverty, hate crimes and many other
problems facing us.” Acting upon compassion has come naturally to
Dr. Babar, growing from childhood experiences in Pakistan all the
way to present day.
“I was born in a small city called Kharian in the state of Punjab. I was
the oldest of three brothers and a sister. My father moved to Copenha-
gen, and I stayed in Punjab where I grew up with my grandparents,”
Dr. Babar said.
“My grandmother was a religious person. My grandfather was secular
and a veteran of WWII. After the war, his whole perspective changed.
He would have nightmares. Years later, when I was in medical school,
I realized he had PTSD.”
Growing up, Dr. Babar played cricket and field hockey with other
children in the neighborhood, but his true love was reading. In the
third grade, he began to read the newspaper each day and was com-
mitted to learning as much as he could about history, geography and
soon, medicine.
“In a third world country, health care is not as readily available as
it is here. So, growing up, I saw a great need for physicians,” he said.
“Medicine is a very sacred profession. We deal with human beings, and
when you treat them, you become a part of their life story.”
To pursue his dream of practicing medicine, Dr. Babar sought a higher
education at Allama Iqbal Medical College in Lahore, Pakistan, near
the north-western border of India. It was a big change for the young
doctor but he studied hard, graduating second in his session (class).
Unfortunately, Pakistan was transforming for the worse as he studied,
leading to days where even going about normal life could be terrifying.
“Islam became mandatory in schools, and soon the whole society
transformed. Martial law and military ruled the country. There were
more terrorist attacks in the country. As a medical student, I was always
afraid of going back to my hometown, because there could have been a
bomb in the bus we were traveling on. Those things became the normal
in society,” he recalled.
“My grandmother was religious, and I was always a practicing Mus-
lim. But I saw things, which had nothing to do with my religion, done
in the name of that religion. That’s one thing that is still a burden on
my heart.”
Dr. Babar was inspired to pursue medical education in the United
States thanks to a professor in Pakistan, Dr. Ashfaque Ahmad Khan.
“Many people from the college were doing post-graduate work in the
UK because we were a British colony. But Dr. Khan was from Chicago
and I was very impressed with him. I decided to go to America and
applied to residency in New York near Niagara Falls.”
In 1996, Dr. Babar traveled to America for the first time and began
his internal medicine residency in Buffalo, where he would spend the
next seven years of his life. “I loved the city of Buffalo. I was probably the
biggest fan of the Buffalo Bills and always had a passion for sports. My
friends and I would go to Toronto for ethnic food and we became friends
with the guards on the border. But after 9/11, travel changed for us.”
It wasn’t just travel that changed. The terrorist attacks of September
11 brought with them a new animosity and suspicion of people of the
Muslim faith, even towards those who had lived in America for years. “I
had to go through a security program, The National Security Entry-Exit
(continued on page 30)
Editor’s Note: Welcome to Louisville Medicine’s member spotlight section, Dr. Who? In the interest of simply
getting to know each other as a society of colleagues, we’ll be highlighting random GLMS physicians on a
regular basis. If you would like to recommend any GLMS physician member to the Editorial Board for this
section, please e-mail [email protected] or 736-6338.
MARCH 2017
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