Mohammad Rahman
Mohammad Rahman, MD
Associate Medical Director
NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler
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Compassionate Care for Older Adults
As a student in Bangladesh in the early 1990s, Dr. Mohammad Rahman thought physics might be his career, or maybe engineering. He went so far as to apply to graduate school programs in both – and was accepted. But it wasn’t until he visited a medical school that he knew what he really wanted to do. “Watching medical students and physicians making their clinical rounds in their neat white coats, taking care of patients, inspired me to be like them, a caregiver who could change people’s lives,” he says.
Dr. Rahman completed his medical degree in Bangladesh and came to the United States to continue his training. In New York, he found himself drawn to the special challenges of geriatrics. As associate medical director of NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler since 2001, he has inspired colleagues and students alike with his compassionate and skillful care of patients with multiple chronic conditions as they near the end of their lives.
“In geriatrics, we have many patients who cannot verbalize what’s going on with them and their symptoms are not clear,” he said. “Maybe they are not talking, but why are they not talking? A patient could have ten diagnoses but in geriatrics we are trained to pick up subtle changes and focus on underlying conditions.” He’s found that palliative care can have an outsized impact. One measure of success: “With comprehensive teamwork, we have liberated significant numbers from ventilators.”
“The most challenging work of my life,” Dr. Rahman says, “was taking care of very sick patients and residents during the pandemic, when we could not transfer them to hospitals that were over capacity.” It was months of triage. “Like a war zone. But we had no choice but to do whatever we could with the resources we had. And we saved a lot of lives.”
“Even when times are stressful, Dr. Rahman has a positive attitude and a smile on his face,” said Coler’s chief medical officer, Dr. Melissa Martin. “He always steps up.”