Fazlur Rahman

“Caring for the Whole Person”
Dr. Rahman’s interview with Cancer Today Magazine 

“One Physician’s 50-Year Journey to Make Sure Empathy is a Part of Patient Care”
—Texas Medicine, the Journal of Texas Medical Association interview by Jason Jarrett

“A Doctor’s Life-Changing Realization About Empathy After Becoming a Patient”
– KevinMD podcast interview by Dr. Kevin Pho

“A San Angelo Doctor’s New Book Highlights the Challenges of Rural Medicine”
– Texas Monthly interview by Sophie Novack

“Rural Cancer Care”
– Talk Nerdy podcast interview by Dr. Cara Santa Maria

“This book is not just a guide for doctors, but a call to all of us to better care for our loved ones battling this relentless disease.”
– 101.5 KEAN FM article by Rudy Fernandez

“This is a book about compassion, dignity and hope against the odds. We highly recommend Our Connected Lives: Caring for Cancer Patients in Rural Texas.”
– BreakingCancerNews.com article by Jamie Reno

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PRAISE & REVIEWS for Temple Road: A Doctor’s Journey

“In Our Connected Lives: Caring for Cancer Patients in Rural Texas, Dr. Rahman shares the many experiences of a 35-year career in cancer practice, during which time he immersed himself into not just taking care of his patients’ challenging medical needs, but learning from his patients and getting to know their lives, their families, and the circumstances that made each patient unique… Dr. Rahman emphasizes the importance of empathy in patient care, especially in cancer care. In the same vein, he urges nurturing empathy in clinical training by teaching medical humanities. ‘Empathy helps to build bonds between doctors and patients and lessens patients’ anxiety and distress; in turn, it improves patient satisfaction and clinical outcome,’ he noted.”
—The ASCO Post
Read the full review

“In a time when doublespeak and the colonization of memory prevails, Fazlur Rahman’s memoir, The Temple Road: A Doctor’s Journey, is a refreshing balm of deep and crystalline remembering. To see the world through Rahman’s eyes is to remember that the earliest maps we make are sometimes the truest. “I was that seven-year-old boy,” Rahman marvels at the beginning of this beautifully painted portrayal of a man whose self-awareness spans continents and decades. Through his vivid and thoughtful prose, we too are allowed to delight and wonder in our own earliest understandings of what it is to be a self, and what it is to be alive and living in the middle of our own powerful story.”
—Tarfia Faizullah, author of Seam

“The Temple Road is the story of a sensitive, gifted and determined young man who overcomes crushing loss, devastating illness, and humble origins to realize his dream to become a physician. His story is the story of countless strivers who, through strength of character, hard work, and the maintenance of core cultural values, find professional success in today’s globalized society. Dr Rahman writes with luxurious detail, great poignancy, and hard-earned wisdom. If you take this journey with him, I promise it will be one you will never forget.”
—Jerald Winakur, MD, MACP, and author of Memory Lessons: A Doctor’s Story

“A gripping story of a young man who came to the USA nearly half a century ago from a village in East Bengal which was to become Bangladesh. While narrating his tale of how he became a successful physician specializing in treating cancer patients and establishing himself as a highly respected member of his community, Dr Fazlur Rahman takes his readers through some awe-inspiring and exciting events. His recollections as a seven-year-old boy who went through the harrowing experience of his beautiful young mother dying during childbirth set a somber tone to the start of this mesmerizing memoir. His observations and commentary on medicine and society, the cultures of the East and West and fairness and justice clearly establish Rahman as a master storyteller. This is a most welcome addition to our contemporary literature because it proves beyond doubt that it is the immigrant population which makes America great, gives it its moral strength and the diversity it provides, its uniqueness in the entire world.”
—Dr Kanti Rai, MD, winner of the 2014 Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology

“Fazlur Rahman offers luminous tales of childhood scenes, narrated with clarity and effortless charm. His reflections on medicine arise from a deep conviction in the enduring values of empathy, compassion, and service to humanity. His musings gently but powerfully invite readers to look inward and reconsider their own journeys. The Temple Road is an engaging, resonant story—one that speaks to immigrants, to those in medicine, and to anyone striving to build a meaningful life. At a moment when our national mood feels fractured, his hopeful reminder feels especially urgent: “At the core, the unique American tapestry is woven out of diverse cultures and roots.”
—Azra Raza, MD, Chan Soon-Shiong Professor of Medicine, Clinical Director, Edward P. Evans Foundation MDS Center, Columbia University Medical Center

“For Fazlur Rahman, a distinguished oncologist, writing is every bit as much an act of service as practicing medicine. And like all great autobiography, The Temple Road is for and about its readers, an exemplum of attitudes and virtues that lead to a fulfilling life. Those who accompany Fazlur through the tiger-infested jungle of his boyhood just might find the courage and insight to face the tigers of their own minds.”
—Chris Ellery, winner of the X. J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction

“I was immediately captivated by the storytelling in this touching and revealing medical memoir, and transported to an almost timeless cultural and historical milieu.”
—Jonathan Balcombe, author of What a Fish Knows and Super Fly

“When I read The Temple Road by Fazlur Rahman, I was hooked. For that is the story of many who have traveled thousands of miles in search of a human dream—to build a better world. It immediately brought me back to my roots in the late ’80s when I came to America to fulfill that dream. Many years later, my own life has been intertwined between two rewarding worlds. This is one book that stands out among the clutter. It will surely engage and inspire the readers. We all have our Temple Road to travel.”
—Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD, author of Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon

 

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PRAISE & REVIEWS for Our Connected Lives

In Our Connected Lives: Caring for Cancer Patients in Rural Texas, Dr. Rahman shares the many experiences of a 35-year career in cancer practice, during which time he immersed himself into not just taking care of his patients’ challenging medical needs, but learning from his patients and getting to know their lives, their families, and the circumstances that made each patient unique… Dr. Rahman emphasizes the importance of empathy in patient care, especially in cancer care. In the same vein, he urges nurturing empathy in clinical training by teaching medical humanities. “Empathy helps to build bonds between doctors and patients and lessens patients’ anxiety and distress; in turn, it improves patient satisfaction and clinical outcome,” he noted.”
—The ASCO Post
Read the full review

“Rahman’s Our Connected Lives masterfully integrates case-study storytelling with the nuances of clinical practice to brilliantly address the humanism we all want in medicine but frequently can’t find in our health care system. The riveting stories illustrate the triumphs of personalized, engaged interaction between patient and caregiver, especially when the cards have dealt potentially bleak outcomes. Additionally, Rahman’s weaving of treatment decision-making facts into the stories is a valuable resource not only for health professionals but also for patients and families…”
—Choice
Read the full review

“Cancer touches countless lives worldwide. As a cancer researcher, I applaud Dr. Rahman’s effort to make cancer biology accessible to everyone in Our Connected Lives. As a physician, I appreciate how his thoughtful stories illuminate the practice of cancer medicine—not just by revealing the struggles patients and doctors face, but also by highlighting the importance of treating patients as people rather than cases. The lessons in this book are instructive for us all: cancer patients and their loved ones, general readers as well as the members of the medical profession.”

—Hagop M. Kantarjian, MD, Professor of Medicine and Chair, Department of Leukemia, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas

“Fazlur Rahman is a wonderful story-teller. I was immediately drawn in by the vivid characters, touched by their plights, and by the author’s depth of compassion.”
—Jonathan Balcombe, bestselling author of What a Fish Knows and Super Fly

“Dr. Fazlur Rahman’s Our Connected Lives: Caring for Cancer Patients in Rural Texas is a must-read, flush with all the richness of human life in the face of illness. In these pages, the cancer doctor walks alongside his patients through the difficult conversations, complex medical decisions, losses and triumphs that cancer brings. Dr. Rahman’s intense empathy for his West Texas patients vivifies these pages, and drives him to provide excellent, diligent, humane care. Any reader who wants to know what cancer is like from the other side—the doctor’s side—will be enlightened to find in Dr. Rahman’s stories a testimony to how deeply doctors care for our patients and indeed how connected we all are, in the end. If you have doubted whether doctors actually care not only for patients but about them as human beings, this book will change you. It shows how the best doctors among us are, and how we all ought to be.”
—Rachel Pearson, MD, PhD, Humanities Director, Charles E. Cheever, Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics; Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Distinguished Professor in Bioethics; author, No Apparent Distress: A Doctor’s Coming of Age on the Front Lines of American Medicine

“The stories of each of these five unforgettable women and men make for powerful reading. These are mesmerizing page-turner tales, making us genuinely concerned about the lives of those individuals with cancer. But their stories are also relevant to other people, whether they have cancer or not.”
—Kanti Rai, MD, Winner of the ASH Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology

“Dr. Rahman takes us on a journey of resilience, love, and empathy. He has the ability to see light when many of us would see only darkness while caring for patients with cancer. This book shows us that not only are we all connected but also we walk together on the path of our lives. Moreover, he teaches us that empathy and hope are the most powerful tools we have to help our patients when they are most vulnerable, and that showing dignity to our patients is an integral part of care. This is a must-read!”
—Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, MD, William J. and Charles H. Mayo Professor, Monica Flynn Jacoby Endowed Chair, James C. and Sarah K. Kennedy Dean of Research, Mayo Clinic; author of Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from Migrant Farm Worker to Brain Surgeon

“The renowned clinician, Dr. William Osler, considered the “Father of Internal Medicine”, observed: ‘The good physician treats the disease; the great physician treats the patient who has the disease.’

Fazlur Rahman is not only a great physician; this remarkable man is also a wonderful writer.

From his humble beginnings in what is now Bangladesh (and for this story I highly recommend his cultural memoir, The Temple Road), and throughout his post-graduate training in internal medicine and oncology in New York and Houston, it took amazing fortitude and faith for Dr. Rahman to find his way to San Angelo, Texas. There he garnered the love and respect of its citizens through his delivery of high quality primary and specialty care over many decades.

How he accomplished this is the main thrust of this memoir. Every turn this writer takes—into medical science, the evolution of oncological treatments, the intricacies of doctor-patient-family relationships—serves to enlighten and enhance this story. This physician’s dedicated attentiveness to the daily, then yearly, then career-long practice of patient-centered “connected” medicine is rare in America’s fractured health system today, and we are all the poorer for it.

With this book, Dr. Rahman joins the ranks of other great physician writers: Anton Chekhov, William Carlos Williams, Richard Selzer, Oliver Sacks and Abraham Verghese among others. You will not be able to put this book down. And when the last page is turned, you may wonder where you might find someone like this author to care for you. I know I did.”
—Jerald Winakur, MD, MACP, FRCP, author of Memory Lessons: A Doctor’s Story and Human Voices Wake Us