Dependency Tree

160

NameAzra
Genderfemale
Country of OriginPakistan
Destination CountryUnited States

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s-1 Its a long way from where I grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, to the dining room in Vice President Joe Bidens home at the Naval Observatory in Washington, Yet thats where I found myself one day last December, along with a handful of other cancer specialists.
s-2 Im convinced that my perspective on medicine as an immigrant is what ultimately got me to the table.
s-3 Early in my career as an oncologist at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, I treated a woman who was terminally ill with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
s-4 As her disease progressed, I watched her struggle to write letters for her 2-year-old twin daughters.
s-5 She wanted them to read a letter from her on each of their birthdays until they turned 21.
s-6 She died before she got to the ones for their 13th birthday.
s-7 That experience nearly broke my heart.
s-8 It also suddenly clarified the purpose of my career.
s-9 I realized that we needed a more comprehensive understanding of her disease.
s-10 I needed to learn how pre-leukemia develops into leukemia, how it continues to evolve, and how it can be treated.
s-11 Had I received my scientific training in the United States, my immediate instinct probably would have been to develop a sophisticated mouse model to work on each of those steps.
s-12 But because I was educated in Pakistan, I thought about taking a simpler approach — examining the cells of patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), an early-stage version of leukemia.
s-13 The leader of the group gathered at Vice President Bidens home that day was another immigrant, Dr.
s-14 Patrick Soon Shiong, a South African-born, Chinese-American surgical oncologist.
s-15 He developed a way to transplant human islet cells to treat type 1 diabetes, performed the worlds first encapsulated human-to-human and pig-to-human islet transplants, and the first full pancreas transplant on the West Coast.
s-16 Thanks to this immigrants development of the drug Abraxane, the first FDA-approved chemotherapy agent based on nanotechnology, the lives of thousands of patients with breast, pancreatic, and lung cancers are being prolonged.
s-17 Many immigrants have brought their unique talents to serve their new country by fighting cancer as healers and researchers.
s-18 A 2013 study by the National Foundation for American Policy found that 42% of the researchers at the top seven cancer research centers across the country were foreign born.
s-19 According to a recent study published by George Mason University, immigrants make up 28% of all physicians and surgeons in this country.
s-20 My parents chose to live in Pakistan but encouraged all seven of their children to immigrate to the United States in search of higher education.
s-21 We were brought up to believe that it would equip us with the means of contributing to the knowledge of this world.
s-22 My parents were deeply moved by the welcome their children received in their new homeland, a place where merit was recognized and rewarded regardless of race or color or religion.
s-23 My older brother is a cardiac surgeon, my older sister trained as a pediatric oncologist, and my younger sister is a radiologist and breast imaging expert.
s-24 Another sister has a PhD in international relations, a brother is a professor of aerospace engineering, and my youngest brother is an electrical engineer.
s-25 We are Muslims, we are immigrants, and we are enriching, prolonging, and saving American lives.
s-26 We are just seven of the many immigrants, from many lands, of many faiths, who are — and have always been — an essential part of Americas strength.
s-27 We are hard workers, people with big ideas and big dreams, believers in this great country and our shared responsibility to make it even better for all of us.
s-28 Azra, MD, is a medical oncologist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, director of the MDS Center at Columbia University, and professor of medicine at Columbia University Medical Center.
s-29 Azra can be reached at [email protected]

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