DR. WHO
DR. WHO
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
DR. JAHANGIR CYRUS
AUTHOR Kathryn Vance
“I
was not even in first grade; I was just five or six years
old. But I was very impressed with the pediatrician
that my mother was taking me to, and I fell in love
with medicine and taking care of people.”
As a child, Dr. Jahangir Cyrus was often sick with
ailments such as sore throat, fever, the common cold–
things any young child might have–and visited his
pediatrician’s office frequently. He was so impressed
with the expert care he received that he knew he would eventually
attend medical school, hoping to practice pediatrics himself.
“But when I went to medical school, I could not stand the sight
of a sick child,” he said. “It was so heart-wrenching for me to see
that.” Ultimately, he decided to go into internal medicine and endocrinology,
knowing that not only could he help take care of people,
but he could also practice in a specialty that teaches how to enhance
one’s quality of life.
He was born and raised in Iran and attended the Tehran University
of Medical Sciences, the largest and most highly ranked medical
school in Iran. His original plan was to come to the US for training,
but then to return to Iran to teach in a medical school. However,
during a trip back to Iran during his US medical training in 1976,
Dr. Cyrus saw what he described as “the calm before the storm.”
“I am a member of the Baháʼí faith, a religion that is brutally
persecuted in Iran. We knew there was no way we could go back,”
he said, noting this was when he knew he must move to the US
permanently. “I felt that I needed to stay here to raise my family,
and we are so happy with that decision.”
For him, the “last nail in the coffin” was in 1980, about a year
after the Islamic government had been established in Iran. He saw
many friends, colleagues and family members executed for their
beliefs and for being a part of the Baháʼí religion. In July of 1980,
he applied for his citizenship in the US, which was granted by the
end of that year.
In 1969, Dr. Cyrus graduated from medical school and married
his wife Vida, who was a friend of his sister. The two then moved
to the US together for his training, where their first stop was in
Berwyn, a Chicago suburb, to complete a rotating internship at
MacNeal Hospital. This was where he would find his interest in
internal medicine. They moved to Columbus, Ohio for three more
years in an internal medicine residency at The Ohio State University.
Finally, he completed a two-year fellowship in endocrinology at
George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
During his fellowship, Dr. Cyrus received a call late one night
with news that his cousin had died in Lexington, Kentucky. The
two had grown up together in Iran and even went through medical
school together before his cousin pursued a psychiatry residency
at the University of Kentucky. After his cousin’s death, Dr. Cyrus
and his wife spent time in Kentucky with family, and they decided
to move to Louisville to be closer and maintain an emotional and
spiritual connection to where his cousin had lived.
“During the time we spent in Kentucky, we just fell in love with
its nature, its beauty and its people. So even though emotionally
it was hard to come back to where I had lost my cousin, I am still
glad to be close to where he lived.”
Now in Louisville (which he has considered "home" since 1976),
Dr. Cyrus worked at the University of Louisville as a faculty member
and directed the endocrinology training program for nearly 15 years.
At the end of the 1977 and 1978 academic years, he was chosen by
the staff and residents of the Department of Medicine at the UofL
School of Medicine as Teacher of the Year and the winner of the
Golden Apple Award. After teaching, he joined a private practice for
several years before joining Norton Healthcare for six years. In 2013,
(continued on page 32)
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