The New Nation - Internet Edition

The Bangladeshi community of Montreal has organized a large citizens' reception to honour Professor Dr. Hamid Rabb, an outstanding medical scientist and physician of Bangladeshi origin, on Saturday April 11, 2009. Some people who know him well say that he may win a Nobel Prize for his discoveries in the future.

Born in Dhaka in 1962, Dr. Rabb Rabb came to Montreal in 1965 at the age of three. Soon after his arrival here, one day, when he came out of his pre-kindergarten school on Peel St., Montreal, he looked at the tall and round McIntyre Medical Building of McGill University on Drummond Street, and declared, "One day I shall be a doctor from that building." At 17 he entered McGill Medical School with a substantial and prestigious scholarship. He completed his MD degree from McGill with distinction in 1985.

Dr. Rabb did his postgraduate studies at two of the top medical schools of the US: he acquired a double MRCP from the UCLA Medical Center and Canada where he was placed first among all Canadian candidates, and a kidney specialist at Harvard University in Boston. He worked as a Professor for eight years at the University of Southern Florida and University of Minnesota. In 2001 he accepted the position of a Director of the Kidney Transplant Department of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. Johns Hopkins' Medical School and its hospital have been rated as the number one University Medical Facility in the US for the last eighteen years in a row.

Dr. Rabb's outstanding achievements as a medical scientist and a physician have made all Bangladeshis proud. In 1991 while waiting in Montreal for his visa to go to the US to join his position as a Professor, he developed a research project for the Pulmonary Institute of McGill which became so significant that it now employs some Ph. D's to assist the Director and offers Ph. D. degrees to graduate students. He has been on US television, including CNN, and in the newspapers several times for breakthroughs in kidney transplants that his Department at Johns Hopkins has made. To date he has about 360 publications most of which appeared in some of the best medical journals of the world. Now he also writes editorials for those journals. Some of his works are used as texts in medical schools all over the world. In 2006 he received two prestigious awards: one for being the best kidney transplant doctor among several thousand specialists in North America and Europe combined, and another for having made the largest number of discoveries in the field of medicine before the age of 45. Among many of his discoveries is a blood test for kidneys. Previously there was no way of determining when a kidney failure would occur. The test that he developed can now detect an oncoming kidney failure ahead of time. This test is benefitting people all over the world and saving many lives. Johns Hopkins University uses a description of his discoveries as a means of raising funds for that institution.

Dr. Rabb is frequently invited to deliver lectures to Universities and hospitals of North America, Europe and Asia. These institutions are interested in hearing about his discoveries in medicine and the new methods of treating kidney diseases.

Dr. Rabb won many millions of dollars by competition for his research. He employs a number of Ph.D.'s, some of whom are Bangladeshis, to assist him in his research. As a member of the US National Council of Research, he also assists in the distribution of millions of dollars to American Universities for research. He does the same for some European countries such as Holland and Germany.

Dr. Rabb is also an exceptional physician. Many patients with very complicated diseases are sent to him from all over the US for diagnosis and treatment. He is also frequently invited to go to the Middle East to diagnose and treat patients of royal families. Sometimes he goes to Europe to see high profile patients there.

Because of his reputation as a physician, Harvard University invited him to do something special in 2006. They had a patient with extremely complicated medical conditions. Some doctors of the Harvard Medical Faculty took a long time to diagnose his ailment. In order to demonstrate to the professors and students of the University how a good physician should proceed with the diagnosis of a complex case like that, they invited Dr. Rabb. This was also a big test for him because he was told nothing about the Harvard diagnosis. He had to diagnose the condition of that patient in front of a hall-full of professors (some of whom were his own former teachers at Harvard) and students of that University. The exercise lasted for eight hours or so. As Dr. Rabb went step by step, the professors and students asked him questions about the way he was proceeding, and made comments. At the end of the day Dr. Rabb declared his diagnosis to the gathering. The people of the gathering were shocked by his verdict. To them the history and symptoms of the case did not warrant Dr. Rabb's diagnosis; but his diagnosis was correct. Asked how he came to his conclusion, he said, "My gut feeling." The people of the gathering found it surprising that his diagnosis was based not so much on scientific evidences available to him, as it was on his intuition. Harvard University considered the event so significant that they wrote a 12-page article on the proceedings of the day, and published it in the New England Journal of Medicine which is one of the best medical journals of the world. It may be mentioned here that Harvard has a number of Nobel Laureate's among its Medical Faculty.

Last Ramadan Dr. Rabb was appointed a physician of Hon. Sheik Hasina. She was most pleased and proud to see a Bangladeshi doctor in such a high position at Johns Hopkins University. In appreciation she cooked Bangladeshi food with her own hands, and served Dr. Rabb and his family herself before sitting down to eat her own dinner at her son's house in Virginia.

The people of Japan, China, India and many other Asian countries have come to the area of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland for the last 100 years, but no Asian has ever attained the rank and prestige that Dr. Rabb has. Dr. Rabb is also the first Muslim to have attained such a status at that institution.

More than once the Federation of Bangladeshi Associations of North America (FOBANA) has bestowed on him the award for the Best Bangladeshi Physician and Medical Scientist of North America.

Dr. Rabb visits Bangladesh once every two to three years. During his visits to the country of his birth he delivers numerous lectures at various medical colleges and hospitals, and teaches the doctors of those institutions in new techniques of treating kidney diseases. He also sees hundreds of patients, especially the poor who cannot afford to see a specialist. This year he will visit Bangladesh in December. Hopefully one day he will build a kidney hospital for the people of the country of his birth, Bangladesh.

Dr. Rabb married Nausheen, daughter of Dr. Manzur-i-Khuda and Mrs. Khaleda Manzur-i-Khuda, and grand-daughter to the pioneer scientist and educationist of the Indian subcontinent Dr. Kudrat-i-Khuda. Dr. Manzur-i-Khuda, an eminent scientist, retired from his position of the director of the Jute Research Laboratories, Chittagong; and his wife Mrs. Khaleda Manzur-i-Khuda (formerly Khaleda Fancy Khanom) is the author of several books and well-known singer of Tagore songs on the Radio in the late 1950's and 1960's.

Dr. Rabb and his family now live in Ellicott City which is close to Washington DC. They have three sons, two of whom are now preparing to go to medical school. Dr. Rabb's parents, sister and her family live on the island of Montreal, Canada. His father Dr. Abdur Rabb, originally from Barisal and a former professor of Philosophy at the University of Dhaka, is a retired professor of Muslim Theology and Sufism, and a businessman as well. His mother Mrs. Aishah Forhat Rabb is a specialist in Bangla literature; and his sister Shirin Rabb and her husband Mr. Ali Hossain Khan are successful business people in Montreal. Mrs. Shirin Rabb and her husband live with their three children in Westmount, Quebec, Canada.

(Avik Sengupta is a freelance writer based in Canada and a student of Biochemistry at McGill University, Montreal, Canada)