Cohorts: Saira Moazzam ’24 MD’28 ScM’28

Saira is from Seattle, but she also spent some of her formative years growing up in Nepal, where her family is from. She graduated from Brown with a double concentration in biochemistry & molecular biology and film & media studies, and stayed for medical school as part of the Program in Liberal Medical Education. She is interested in critical care, immigrant and international health, and the intersection of faith and medicine, which is reflected in some of her research.

What first brought you to Brown?

I originally thought I was going to film school, but after a lot of thought, I decided to go the medicine route which I felt offered the chance to dive into patient care while still thinking about them as human beings. For me, practicing medicine involves both thinking through the fascinating science behind health and illness, as well as hearing and sharing people’s stories. Hence, I joined PLME as an undergraduate because it emphasized the humanistic side of medicine which I greatly value. To be part of a program for eight years that I could build myself up in and preserve an artistic perspective within a scientific field was important to me.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I am part of the Longitudinal Integrated Curriculum for the PCPM program, so each day is unique. For example, one day I am scrubbed into gallbladder removal surgeries, and the next I am performing wellness exams for newborns, the following day I am adjusting seizure medications in epilepsy clinic, and so on. The benefit of this structure is getting to care for patients over time and develop a relationship with them. You also learn how various different medical specialties interconnect with one another, as well as the interreliance of the clinic and hospital settings which together form a spectrum of healthcare across my patients’ various states of wellbeing.

What sort of research or projects do you have going on right now?

Lately I am finishing my thesis, which is focused on how critical care physicians in Rhode Island interact with Muslim patients in the ICU. It’s a near-and-dear project to me as RI has seen an increasing number of Muslim immigrants, but there is currently no literature that investigates how our ICU providers interact with this population. For many patients, spirituality is a cornerstone to making sense of illness, healing, and building communities of support. In this way, I believe a crucial part of healthcare involves addressing our patients’ spiritual needs, which informs many of the decisions we make in the ICU like what treatments are appropriate or how to discuss prognosis. I have seen this play out in my own time at the hospital with my first ever patient, who was a Muslim that passed away in front of my very eyes. Being part of their end-of-life and postmortem care was a privilege I will never forget, and reminds me every day of how we as physicians walk with our patients during their most vulnerable times. I hope with my thesis to better understand the questions our critical care physicians should ask when we have other patients in similar situations. As a follow-up to my thesis, I am also trying to start a patient visitation program at The Miriam Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital. This initiative seeks to invite volunteers from local spiritual centers to speak with patients one-on-one regarding their spiritual needs, help bridge communications with family and medical staff, or simply provide a listening ear. 

Last year, I completed a study—”Spirituality and medicine: revamping first-year medical education on spiritual history-taking and hospital chaplaincy services"—that was a passion project for me and a friend. During one of our Doctoring sessions on spirituality and caring for patients, both of us felt we wanted something more out of it. We designed a three-part curriculum redesign for first-year medical students that included 1) a panel with hospital chaplains, 2) small-group discussion exploring our personal perspectives towards spirituality and how it influences our engagement with spiritual and non-spiritual patients, and 3) roleplay cases of spiritual history-taking with faculty facilitators.

Our research investigated how students felt before and after the session in terms of their competency working with spiritual patients, and if they had a better idea of support systems that are available for both them and their patients. Overall, we did see an increase in self-reported confidence regarding spiritual history-taking and greater understanding of how to collaborate with hospital chaplaincy services. The most exciting thing for me was seeing students who were initially hesitant to participate in these discussions now becoming very eager to engage. I recall several participants who emailed me asking to be excused from our session, as they were not comfortable with the topics discussed; after the session, every one emailed me back about how they learned so much. Each said they were starting to think deeply about how they engage with their own belief systems and how that impacts they way they perceive their patients. That is what makes our work feel so meaningful, seeing the impact of integrating spiritual competencies into medical education.

What do you enjoy doing outside of your work at Brown?

I spend a lot of my time in a film-adjacent realm. I love seeing new movies that come out, and I spend a lot of time with my housemates checking out what’s new at the cinema, debating fan theories, or critiquing new shows. Recently I am getting into the horror genre, even though I spook easily and have shied away from it all my life. One of my housemates is into horror and introduced me to some lighter movies, which I came to appreciate from the film-studies analytical side, and now I have built up a bit of tolerance and find myself actively seeking out the latest scary releases in theatres.