Professor Ijaz Ahsan was not only my teacher and mentor during my medical education and my brief House Job in the West Surgical Ward in 1986, but I had been calling him Mamoon (maternal uncle) Ijaz since my early childhood as his parents and my maternal grandparents were very close friends.
He was defined by his brilliance, industry, passion and humility, a rare combination of traits that made him the special human being that he was. That is how he managed to be a great surgeon, educator, author, leader, administrator, clear thinker and a consummate family man. In his personal life, he enjoyed photography, music and tennis and had a great sense of humor. I will recount just three anecdotes to give you a glimpse of who he was.
He really cared about his junior physicians’ career development and was the only professor who had a policy to give time off to anyone preparing for a post-graduate examination. I was a beneficiary and took the first three weeks (out of a total commitment of 4 months) of my House Job off, to prepare for my exams to come to the United States. I would not have managed to pass without his policy.
He was known for his fairness and his ability to resist any external pressures to be influenced to alter the admissions process to King Edward. A prominent politician in power once called asking him to admit his niece and said I know you have done such favors for others. When he declined, the nonplussed politician tried another tactic, pleading that the applicant’s parents were his father’s old time friends and hold him in very high esteem. He gave his reply slowly and deliberately, and said ‘I am sorry they lied to you; if that were really true, they would have called me directly and referred to that friendship and not bothered you with this request, because they would know that my reverence for you and your high office cannot exceed my love and regard for my father!
He not only loved telling jokes and having a good laugh, but was excellent at recalling a relevant joke to make a point. I was still in my Fellowship training when a senior Pakistani American physician invited me to give a lecture at Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rawalpindi during King Edward Alumni Association of North America’s annual joint Symposium in 1992. I called Mamoon and told him I was nervous about it. He laughed and opined “you should relax, you have no reason to be nervous; it’s the guy who invited you who should be really nervous as he will face the music if you do a terrible job.” Then he went on to narrate a joke about a Punjabi singer who was invited to sing at a wedding in KPK but stopped singing when he saw an angry man with a rifle pacing the back of the tent, at which point the angry man begged him to continue, and said ‘please continue to sing as you are our guest; I am looking for the guy who brought you from Punjab”!
That was Mamoon Ijaz. Rest In Peace!
