Maqsoodur Rahman
Maqsoodur Rahman, MD
Attending Physician
NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health, East New York
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Patience with Patients
Dr. Maqsoodur Rahman has a way with patients. Most are people from the East New York community of Brooklyn who are in their 70s and 80s and come to him with multiple medical problems. He has a rapport with them that comes down to something very simple: “I sit with a patient and I talk to them. It’s never ‘see and go.’ You have to have patience with patients.”
It helps that after practicing for more than 40 years Dr. Rahman still has the kind of solicitous manner, humility and unflappability that can win over even the most challenging patients. Not long ago, there was a habitually combative patient whom he had to calmly but firmly coax into getting surgery to remove a mass in her abdomen. “After the surgery she came to me with a gift and said, ‘Dr. Rahman, you saved my life.’ I said, ‘I didn’t save your life, I took care of you.’ “
Dr. Rahman, an internist with a specialty in endocrinology, came to New York from India in 1981. For many years he was in private practice in Brooklyn with affiliations at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center and Brookdale Hospital, and for a time he was an attending physician at NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler on Roosevelt Island.
In 2009, Dr. Rahman became a patient himself. He was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, a debilitating condition that attacked his muscles and kept him at home for a year. He recovered and returned to work, and in 2012 he moved to NYC Health + Hospitals/Gotham Health, East New York.
“Dr. Rahman has been a critical member of our team,” said Chief Medical Officer Dr. Peter Tesler. “He is very loyal to his patients and strives to optimize care for a challenging population. He is a mentor and preceptor to the medical staff, especially nurse practitioners, and he’s been a stabilizing influence during the pandemic and in a recent period of transitions.”
Working in the city’s public health care system, he says, “reassures my belief that we are all connected to each other as one.” His job can be grueling at his age, Dr. Rahman says, but the rewards bring him to work every day. “When I thought about retiring, I noticed that I love to work and I love my patients. They keep me going.”