In the second episode of Qatar in Quotes, host Natasha Das sat down with Shahryar Rana, a medical student from Weill Cornell in Qatar. Currently, Rana is doing his sub-internship in Pediatric Intensive Care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

On a Friday morning, towards the end of junior year in high school, Rana started feeling an unusual pain in his chest. His father suspected that it was the outcome of his gym workouts; Rana had not been to the gym in three weeks. The chest pain continued to increase so the family rushed him to a hospital after the Friday prayer.

After visiting two different hospital and waiting weeks for biopsy results, Rana and family learned that he had leukemia, and that he would have to go through chemotherapy. The doctors also informed them that the survival rates were over 97%. Rana thought to himself, “If I get to survive this, I get to milk it for sympathy forever.”

The start of chemotherapy meant that Rana could no longer see his friends at school for at least 7 months. It also meant that Rana could not graduate at the same time as his classmates. “We thought, you know, we’ve been together since like high school. We’ve already had this bond and I can’t see them for a while. It was very upsetting for me.” 

Soon, Rana started to lose hair and turn bald. His family decided not to share the news with anyone because of the evil eye – a popular belief in several Muslim households. Rana added that his father became more religious and started spending more time with him. From the siblings, his 16-year-old brother was confident that Rana would come out of it in one piece. His sisters, on the other hand, were too young to understand his condition and were puzzled by the fact that he was suddenly bald.

During his time at the hospital, Rana befriended an intern from Bahrain. She would often cook his meals and spend hours talking to him and his family. “It was probably one of the better parts of the entire ordeal,” said Rana.

Rana’s experience gave him the inspiration that he needed to pursue medicine, both professionally and academically, after defeating cancer. He hopes to get specialization in pediatric oncology and bone marrow transplants, both of which interest him due to their severe nature and complexity. He believes that his journey with cancer allows him to better understand the situation of his patients and also makes it easy for him to empathize with their families.

Tune into this episode to learn more about Shahryar Rana and how he fought against cancer.

Written by: Syed Ali Ahsan