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In This Issue:
Nawal Nour, MD, MPH
As part of BWH Bulletin’s series on what qualities define a leader, Nawal Nour, MD, MPH, director and founder of the African Women’s Health Center and director of the Obstetric Resident Practice and recipient of the 2005 Thomson Leadership Award, discusses the importance of caring for people.
When approached by a young woman who was humiliated and turned off to Western medicine after a visit to another hospital, Nawal Nour did what she always does. She listened to the patient.
Doctors at that hospital had examined the patient, an immigrant from Somalia, and discovered she had been circumcised. Ignoring the problems that brought her to the hospital, the doctors called in residents and medical students to look at her and learn about circumcision. “All they saw was that she had undergone this ‘barbaric’ procedure, but they never actually addressed why she was seeking treatment,” said Nour, who in 1999 founded at BWH the country’s first health center dedicated to treating African immigrant women.
Nour, a native of Sudan, treated the patient without passing judgment or making her feel uncomfortable about her body.
“Being Sudanese-American enables me to traverse two cultures, to understand the needs of my African patients easily, without judgment or discrimination,” Nour wrote in a 2006 article for The Boston Globe after the paper included her among its prestigious group of Bostonians changing the world. “Being an obstetrician-gynecologist grants me their respect and the freedom to delve into sensitive subjects like circumcision and sexuality.”
She is making progress one patient at a time in the African Women’s Health Center at BWH, where she cares for women with complications from genital cutting and performs reconstructive surgery to improve their lives. She also attempts to stop her patients from circumcising their own daughters, as many plan to do in accordance with cultural tradition. By educating patients about the health risks in a compassionate manner, Nour is able to change many patients’ minds.
“It is our duty as physicians to listen to our patients and cultivate compassionate care,” Nour said. “By doing so, we gain their trust, maintain their access to health care, serve their needs and ultimately improve their quality of life.”