From Egypt to Brentwood Progress of an East County Doctor to the American Dream June 2006

by Dr. Bassem Said
Photos by Russell Byrne

I was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt and grew up surrounded by a large, extended family. My uncle would visit us from time-to-time. He was an obstetrician living and working in the far-away and seemingly mystical realm of Santa Clara, California. His visits would be occasions of joy and celebration, and I came to associate the happiness that surrounded him with the noble work that he was engaged in.

When I was nine years old my family emigrated from Egypt because the society was reverting to a fundamentalism that discouraged the development of free expression and was dimming people’s prospects for the future. In addition, we were Coptic Christians, which is the world’s oldest Christian community, and Muslims were exerting growing pressures on Christians.

Coming of Age in California
We moved to California in 1981. My mom still lives in the house that my folks bought in the Almaden Valley section of South San Jose near my uncle.

I was impressed by the profession that my uncle described to me. He talked about how his services had helped people; his work had made a difference in their lives. The appeal of such service exerted a strong attraction to my 13-year old mind. He filled my young ears with his stories, and I resolved to become a doctor myself.

My folks were part of my success and passed on to me their work ethic. They made me believe that anybody could achieve their dreams if they worked hard. When I turned 18 I naturalized my citizenship because I came to hold in my heart the American Dream, with its ideals of constitutionally supported freedoms. I think I appreciate these things even more than some of my fellow Americans, who don’t know what they have. The opportunities in this country go far beyond financial improvement, involving things like self-determination and choice.

Entering the Worlds of Medicine and Love
When I started pre-med in college, I found myself living, eating, and sleeping in a world dominated by complicated ideas and arcane terminology that opened up worlds of understanding that I hadn’t been able to imagine.

I helped my Professor of Physiology, Dr. Dan Holly, who was working with NASA and Lockheed. The two of us were working with experiments that would be performed on animals aboard the shuttle.

I found that I really enjoyed that research. I discovered that the tasks involved in collecting data, performing experiments, creating diagrams, and making notes for the project seemed to scratch the same itch that my computer programming had. It was a lot of work, but it was satisfying and even fun.

I completed my pre-med education at SJSU (San Jose State University) so I could live at home. I discovered that an SJSU education provides all the opportunities of an ivy league school. I subsequently competed on an equal academic footing with graduates from Stanford and Yale.

While in college I met my wife, Rashmi, who was a second-generation immigrant from India. Rashmi and I met in Botany class. When I saw her on the first day of class I said to myself, “That’s a woman I would love to be with.” Students in the class were divided into pairs. Rashmi was sitting next to the door and I arranged to sit next to her by making up some story about having to leave class early so her partner would trade seats with me.

It was a great situation because we were often sent on assignments to wander through the campus identifying the various plants and trees we were looking at. What it amounted to was going on nice walks in the spring with a beautiful woman looking at flowers and trees together. To make a great situation even better, the class was the last class of the morning, so nothing could be more natural than our having a nice lunch together. My little scheme in switching seats worked out more beautifully than I could have imagined.

In fact, towards the end of the semester I actually broke out singing to Rashmi a Depeche Mode song:

I want somebody to share;
Share the rest of my life;
Share my innermost thoughts;
Know my intimate details…

By the time I got to the second verse Rashmi was laughing. “You’re not going to be a singer, are you?” she asked. She appreciated the sentiment, but I guess I should have quoted the lyrics as a poem rather than try to sing them.

Becoming Dr. Said
Following college I attended Medical School at Loyola in Chicago. I discovered that Chicago has a lot of character. The weather was often snowy and cold, but I loved the downtown. Rashmi completed her Biology degree with a minor in Chemistry and moved to Chicago with me. We married during my second year.

Loyola was a great place to go to school. I made wonderful friends, and got a marvelous education under the leadership of some professors who were at the top in their areas of specialization. I always felt privileged to be there.

We did clinical rotations the second two years of medical school and began to meet patients, obtain histories, and observe surgeries. This is the time when we were to choose a specialty.

I started on my Otolaryngology rotation when I didn’t even know what the word meant. It turned out that the term is composed of the Latin words for “Ear,” “Larynx,” and “study of.” In other words, I was studying Ears, Nose, and Throat. The most amazing thing about that rotation was the variability in the kind of work I was able to do. I worked with specialists who did ear surgery, which involves a completely different anatomy than someone who is performing head and neck surgery. Both of those – plus vocal cord, thyroid, and sinus surgery – fall under the same specialty. Treatments for sleep disorders and cosmetic surgery are also part of that diverse mix.

I also appreciated the fact that people in that specialty are able to see a lot of patients in a clinic situation, as well as perform operations. Not many specialties give you that. Nor are there many specialties where you see babies, older people, and both sexes. After only two weeks in the rotation, I decided that this was the best possible specialty for me to join.

I discovered that Otolaryngology was one of the hardest specialties to get into. It had a residency program of five to seven years, instead of the normal three to four years. There are only 100 programs with about 400 spots available annually. So when a position became available at the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, I snatched the opportunity right away.

Training at the Cleveland Clinic was an amazing experience. We conducted a wider range of clinical and surgical procedures every month than some programs do in four months. The Cleveland Clinic is awesome, but the Cleveland weather is wretched. I knew that we would eventually have to come back to California. Our parents were here; we wanted to rejoin them.

Following graduation I wanted to go to a place where I could make a difference. I wanted to blaze a trail into uncharted territory where I could contribute to people’s healthcare who would not otherwise get the service.

At Home and Work in East County
Sutter Delta, a not-for-profit hospital, saw a need for Otolaryngology services in East County. I was fortunate enough to come upon the opportunity through a recruiter.

Sutter continues to make improvements in their facilities and services. They have opened a new emergency department and birthing services building at their Lone Tree location. They are making investments in their operating rooms and continue to recruit high-quality specialists to the East County.

The hospital and physician community in Brentwood and Antioch were very welcoming. I have operating privileges at both Sutter and John Muir, which enables me to serve the needs of patients regardless of the health insurance they carry. The continuing strength of both institutions provides for a climate of excellent health care in serving the needs of the patients and physicians of East County.

Three years ago there wasn’t much in the East County of either shopping centers or medical facilities. My wife was hesitant about the move because she enjoyed the services and amenities of an urban center. We decided to move here because we were confident that the area would develop. We have been astonished by how fast that development has taken place and are pleased by the access we now have to the comforts of civilization without having to drive over the hill to Walnut Creek or to Dublin.

I’ve adopted as the credo of my medical practice the Cleveland Clinic motto, “World Class Care.” My goal in dealing with patients always centers around the question, “If this was my mother/father/wife, how would I want them to be treated?” Asking that question encourages me to give the best care I can to everyone who comes through my doors.

One of the other reasons that I took up this discipline is because of the technology that was becoming available. After fiber optic scopes were developed in the early 1980s the discipline really took off. These scopes are tiny arrangements of lights and lenses that can take me inside spaces in a person’s head and throat that would otherwise have been difficult to evaluate. I can put a scope the size of a strand of spaghetti into a patient’s nose and directly examine the sinuses and vocal cords. I can evaluate everything with an accuracy that had never been possible before. Such accuracy leads to better treatment since we’re now able to diagnose and treat diseases that had previously gone undetected until the condition was no longer repairable.

Now I can take my own Incredible Journey at the drop of a hat. I can identify a lesion attached to a vocal cord and then remove it in a procedure that causes little discomfort to the patient. There’s nothing equal to the feeling I get when I do that!

I see about 25 patients a day and spend about a quarter of my time in surgery. Often I’m dealing with the biggest problem in my patients’ lives. I listen sympathetically and then am able sometimes to make an intervention that absolutely solves their problem. I watch them walk out the door with great satisfaction that I was able to provide exactly the service they needed.

Five years from now I will certainly be in Brentwood continuing to provide world-class care to patients. I’m going to continue developing the breadth and depth of my services. For example, I’m planning to open a sleep lab in my office so that I can monitor patients and diagnose sleep disorders.

More interesting than the development of my business will be watching the development of my children. We have a 4-year-old daughter named Summer, and a six month old son, Mason. Little Summer knows more Arabic than my wife. My daughter loves to hear stories about my Egyptian youth. Then she uses some of the words with my wife, which really cracks her up.

Rashmi is a documented genius who is a stay-at-home mom. This amazing woman considers nurturing the development of our children to be the greatest possible use of her intellect. After all, children are blank slates that you can write anything on. In the company of a superior person like my wife, our children will develop into high-quality people. What value can you place on such a thing? It is priceless!

My children are changing and developing all the time. The most exciting part of my daily routine is often the experience of having Summer run up to me and give me a hug when I come home. It’s always a wonderful end to an often wonderful day. My home and work are two parts of a life worth living.