“I’m My Father’s Son”: Abdullah Abdelkawy’s Path to the Miller School of Medicine
Abdullah Abdelkawy’s health care experience as a teen in his native Egypt influenced his decision to pursue pediatric surgery as a career.
If you plan to tell Abdullah Abdelkawy’s story, you’ll need to begin with his parents, Diyaaeldin Abdullah Hassan and Alyaa Gaffar.
Both were orphans in Cairo, Egypt. Hassan became “the man of the house” at age 14. The ambitious young entrepreneur started his first business, building and renting out ping pong tables, while Gaffar was taken in and raised by relatives. They met through family members, married and “they tried to make a better life for themselves,” said Abdelkawy, now a first-year medical student at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
From Egypt to the U.S.
The industrious couple scraped and saved, and they were successful in Egypt. But they didn’t see a future there for their son or his younger sister, Salma.
“My father said he didn’t need the money,” said Abdelkawy. “He needed for his children to do better.”
In 2011 the couple sold everything they owned, bid farewell to their families and emigrated to the U.S. on an entrepreneur visa. Life in a new country was challenging. They didn’t know the language or the culture. They had no friends. But they persevered. They started a business, and it failed. They started another, an online store. They didn’t get wealthy, but they managed to stay afloat.
“Life was significantly harder here than in Egypt,” said Abdelkawy, who was 14 when the family arrived in the U.S.
He picked up English quickly. He helped his parents with forms and papers and excelled in school. At the University of South Florida, Abdelkawy majored in biomedical science and earned honors all four years.
He also participated in research and was listed as a coauthor on several papers. He worked as a clinical trial activator at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa. He was also employed as a medical assistant in a pediatric clinic.
A Career in Surgery Calls
Working with children reminded Abdelkawy of his own health experiences. When he was a child, he was diagnosed with Kawasaki autoimmune disease, a rare inflammatory illness.
“The doctors in Egypt didn’t know what it was,” he said. “I almost died.”
A physician from the U.K. who was visiting Egypt examined him.
“He diagnosed me in seconds,” said Abdelkawy. “This showed me how much of an impact a doctor can have.”
That was when he began to think that a career in medicine would enable him to give something back, to his family and to humanity.
“I cannot live if I’m not doing something for other people,” said Abdelkawy. “And a surgeon gives back every day.”
The White Coat Ceremony: A Dream Realized
The photographs of Abdelkawy and his parents at the Miller School’s white coat ceremony speak volumes. They capture the exquisite moment that the couple’s dream was realized. Yet, they are still struggling.
“My mom hasn’t seen her family in five years,” said Abdelkawy. She has had to miss weddings and other life events. The white coat ceremony, said Abdelkawy, was “an accumulation of all those emotions. My dad said he felt like his heart was going to stop. I took off the white coat and put it on my dad. I gave it to him.”
Abdelkawy plans to apply for a residency in pediatric surgery. He got the idea thinking about how disease affected him when he was a child and the relief that a successful treatment brought to his family.
“I’m good with kids,” he said. “That would be the most impactful thing I can do—to save a kid’s life and give them 60 or 70 years.”
Every day, he said, the primary emotion he experiences is gratitude.
“I don’t take anything for granted,” he said. “God trusted me to help other people.”
And that is Abdelkawy’s plan. When he isn’t studying, Abdelkawy runs an online clothing business, Watany. Why not snorkeling, gardening or Ultimate Frisbee in his spare time?
“I’m my father’s son,” Abdelkawy said.
Tags: medical students, pediatric surgeon, surgery