A tribute to Dr Awad

This post will be different.

This post will be to honour the life of a very special doctor; a person that is very dear to my heart: Dr Awad.

I can only speak about the medical aspect of his life because that's the aspect I knew, I'm sure other people may be able to better portray the personal and social parts of his life. Dr Awad was married with three children, the youngest in kindergarten. I tried writing this last Friday, on the day we sadly lost him, but the pain was too raw.

I met Dr Awad in the first week I started working in Amiri, back in 2011. I remember watching him doing a round in ward 10. Ward 10 used to be one of the female wards in the old Amiri building. Dr Awad used to be part of unit D under the care of Dr Boby; our beloved retired Indian doctor that left Amiri several years ago. He was rounding with the rest of the unit D team and they were all discussing the plan for the patient whilst working together in perfect harmony. He had a group of 3 female doctors with him and they all seemed happy to be following his lead. The team dynamics intrigued me, he didn't look like a senior with the junior team following him, it seems like an effortless conversation amongst a group of friends.

Dr Awad was a happy person, you rarely saw him without a smile. He was always dressed professionally in a shirt and tie. He was extremely polite and was kind to everyone. Dr Awad was loved by all: doctors, nurses, all hospital staff and patients and their relatives. Patients loved him and would come to the hospital for him personally. Even if they followed with another doctor they would find excuses to see him instead. He would give his number to the patients and their relatives and he would follow them up by phone. He would also add extra patients to his clinic if they wanted to see him, even if it meant that he stayed longer.

Dr Awad was an intelligent clinician but he was very humble. He had the biggest heart and cared for his patients as well as his juniors. He would always offer medical advice to the junior doctors. The trainee doctors and medical students enjoyed his rounds tremendously. He would always put his arms around the male juniors in an embrace and offer words of wisdom and comfort them if they were ever yelled at by the consultants. Dr Awad always joked around. He would always joke around and playfully wrestle with his best friend Dr F, every morning; we called them "Tom & Jerry" because of how inseparable they were. They would even take their yearly vacations during the same time.

Throughout the years, he has always been a constant at Amiri Hospital, he'd been working in Kuwait for nearly 2 decades. I worked with him during my medical board years. In 2015, I was an assistant and he was my registrar. He would sit in the office and do some teaching in between seeing the patients. He enjoyed gatherings and celebrations, sweets and cake; he had a sweet tooth. During these gatherings he would speak about old Amiri, the previous doctors and all his funny encounters with patients and their relatives. In 2017, I was a registrar and he was my senior. I would call him at 4 am in the morning just to let him know I was shifting a patient to the ICU. I hated calling seniors during the night but I knew he needed to know these things. He would always thank me in the morning for letting him sleep during the night, if the on calls were uneventful and I didn't call him. In 2019, I was in my final year of my boards and was an acting senior; we covered alongside each other in perfect harmony. I remember helping him choose new sneakers for his daughter and telling him where to get them from. I have been blessed to work with Dr Awad and I envy those that worked longer with him and learnt more from his medical, and more importantly, life experiences.

After boards, I became a senior in a different unit. We would have long conversations after rounds, in corridors and on the stairs sometimes. He always had a funny story to share or words of wisdom to bestow. I would fight with him on the phone over cases and then see him after and we would start laughing. We might have had conflicts at work or when we decided who the patent belonged (unit D oncall was right after ours so there was always an issue of when exactly did the patent come, was it before or after 7 am) but when we saw each other that didn't matter. Work was work and what we had was a friendship that I had hoped would continue for years to come. He was a genuine guy; a character. If you met Dr Awad, you would never forget him. He had that about him.

When the COVID era started, everyone else needed convincing to volunteer or go help out in quarantine areas. Everyone else, apart from Dr Awad. Doctors were needed at the airport, new quarantine areas and hotels and the newly formed field hospitals. He called me and said to sign him up. We needed a senior doctor to go help out in Jaber Hospital and he was the only one to willingly volunteer to go to "Corona Central". Most of the other doctors didn't know what to expect, it was a new disease, we still didn't know much about and didn't know how serious it would get, however he wasn't even the slightest bit scared. He went to Jaber Hospital willingly in March 2020.

During the time he was there, he would always keep us updated with the new COVID-19 protocols that were being updated nearly on a daily basis. During that time, all COVID cases were at Jaber Hospital only and other hospitals hadn't started dealing with them yet. He would keep us updated in our main Amiri medical WhatsApp group. Then COVID teams were created all over Kuwait and we started shifting patients to Jaber, Mishref field hospital and the many newly developed quarantine areas. Dr Awad would always send us little anecdotes in the group to make sure we didn't forget him, things like:

"ما تنسو الدكاتره الاطباء المنتدبه خارج الاميري."

During April, I was hospitalised in Jaber Hospital and he was one of the first doctors to call and text me. He kept telling me to call him if I needed anything. He was very kind and reassured me that I would be out in no time. On the day I was discharged, he sent me the following message:

"الحمدلله على سلامتك. و انشاءالله تنوري UNIT C و الاميري و الكويت كلها."

Looking back at that message now makes me so emotional. Sometimes you don't really know the true nature of people until you go through a rough patch and find out if they truly care or not. Looking back through the messages on my phone and in our hospital WhatsApp groups, he would always send prayers for anyone that was sick or if a life was sadly lost. Dr Awad was a person you could depend on. He was dependable and he truly cared.

A month after my own hospital admission, on May 13th, Dr Awad was diagnosed with COVID-19 and was admitted to hospital. We were all shocked and prayed for him day and night. We called and texted him and sent him our prayers and blessings. Five days later, we were told he was admitted to the ICU. Everyone was shocked; he was only 51 years old and only had hypertension. Everyone prayed for him. Donation links were sent and a the money for a couple of mosques and wells was completed within hours. Everyone prayed for Dr Awad, those that knew him and those that didn't. He became a trend on social media. Everyone started mentioning his name and praying for his wellbeing. Random people on twitter started asking me about his condition; some of them were patients that he had treated, another was from a daughter of his deceased patient that remembered him and wanted to offer her prayers. Everyone prayed for him.

A couple of days later he was intubated and connected to ECMO. We would ask for his medical updates and wanted to know how he was doing. We waited for the daily message from Dr F telling us the updates. We continued to pray and hope that he would survive.

He would improve very slowly. COVID-19 patients, especially those on ECMO require a long time to recover. Nearly a month later, we finally got the message that he was extubated and doing well. Everyone was so happy. He improved. He finally woke up. We had nearly lost hope during the time he was on ECMO, but he proved us wrong and he was better. He was discharged from the hospital mid June; he'd been hospitalized for 6 weeks. But he'd survived. On the 14th of June, the big Amiri group was blessed with the following message from Dr Awad:

"Hi."

It was the smallest word but it gave us all so much hope. I personally started crying when I read it. Dr Awad had come back to life. Dr Awad was discharged from the hospital. Dr Awad was improving and would soon come back to us. It was the most beautiful message I had seen in a very long time. During the COVID era we were so used to getting bad news that it was so refreshing to hear something good. I immediately responded with:

الف الحمدلله عالسلامه دكتور عواد

ولهنا عليك وايد وايد

كل يوم ندعيلك

مرضاك يدعولك

الكويت كلها تدعيلك

الله يقومك بالسلامه و ترجع بيتك و ترجعلنا الأميري

يالله ارجع عشان نضحك و تتناجر على الcases انا معاك

الله يشافيك يا رب

We couldn't believe he would be back so soon. It was a wonderful image, having him amongst us again, roaming through the corridors and teasing each other again. It was the beginning of normalcy for us. Things would get better soon, we will survive this. We knew he would require a long recovery time, he was intubated for a long time and would definitely need a few months to recuperate.

During this time Dr Awad called me to help with his discharge papers. I volunteered to take them to Nuzha because I had to take my papers too. He kindly reminded me of some papers that I had forgotten. I then saw him a couple of times later as was completing his leave papers. It was a joy to see him walking around and talking, even though his voice was hoarse and he had difficulty breathing. At least he was alive and with us.

COVID is a nasty disease. Patients seem to get complications months after they recover. Unfortunately, this is not predictable. Some patients do well, others don't. With some patients, it's related to their general health and co-morbid conditions and with others, there aren't any associated co-morbid conditions and they do really badly. I've seen healthy young patients die and elderly patients above 90 survive and do really well.

Nearly a month later Dr Awad was admitted to Amiri with a COVID complication and a few weeks later he died in his sleep from another COVID complication.

Friday 14 August @ 06:49

البقاء و الدوام لله دكتور عواد في ذمة الله

I cannot begin to explain my emotions when I got that message. I had just walked out of the elevator; we were on call that day. I froze in my step and kept looking at my phone. It couldn't be true. I had seen him 5 days ago on the sixth floor. I didn't know that it was the last time I'd be seeing him. How could it be true? He'd called one of my friends three days ago and I heard his voice through the speaker phone. How could he be gone? What happened? What happened to Dr Awad? I stayed in mid-step for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do next. I went to my office and started crying. I spoke to my colleagues who all had tearful eyes. We were all very upset. I cried in the middle of rounds. The nursing staff in my ward found out and looked at me in disbelief. I had no words. I later cried on the way home and during my shift that night. We had lost Dr Awad.

Since his untimely death, so many people have donated thousands to build mosques in his name and prayed for him. He was loved by all. Dr Awad may have died, but his place in our hearts will never die. He will always be remembered.

Amiri had lost one of its great doctors that day.

We didn't just lose a doctor; we lost a real genuine human being.

His blood family had lost him.

His Amiri family had lost him.

Kuwait had lost him.

Our hearts were broken, we had lost one of our men.

Amiri Hospital's heart was broken.

دكتور عواد عبدالحميد عواد:

مكانك فاضي دكتور عواد

اهلك فاقدينك

احنا بالاميري فاقدينك

الكويت كلها فاقدتك

الله يرحمك دكتور عواد

الله يصبر قلوب اهلك

الله يصبرنا على فراقك

الله يرحمك