We remember Dr. ASM Mizanur Rahman

Dr. ASM Mizanur Rahman departed this world on 27 March 2006 after suffering for several years from heart failure. ICDDR,B alumni and staff members will remember him as a very dedicated, soft spoken physician, scientist, and close friend who dedicated his career to saving lives and teaching others to do the same. A memorial service involving his many friends from CRL/ICDDR,B was held on 31 March.
 
Mizan completed his medical doctor’s training and joined the PAK-SEATO Cholera Research Lab in the earlier 1960s. By 1966 he took a bold decision to be based in Matlab with his family, sacrificing amenities of Dhaka city life. He became the key physician in the Matlab Cholera Hospital and participated in the 1968 trials for field use of oral rehydration treatment. He developed close friendships with the young American doctors who worked in Matlab. Dr. Rahman was very much loved by the staff and people of Matlab and he passed on this confidence to the younger doctors on his team who worked equally hard to combat cholera and perform needed research. Dr. SK Roy recalls that once a patient was brought into the Matlab treatment centre with severe dehydration and death throes of rasping breathing. An attendant ran to the Rahman’s quarters where Dr. Mizan was eating lunch. He rose from the table immediately, tightening his lungi as he ran to the ward. Mizanur gave cardiac resuscitation to the dying patient, worked long minutes to restore normal breathing and saved the patients’ life.
 
In early 1980s he obtained the M.Sc in Community Health in Developing Countries degree from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. During the mid 1980s Mizanur went with the ICDDR,B team to Saudi Arabia to set up the diarrhoeal treatment wards and laboratories. After his return, he joined the new ICDDR,B Training Branch in offering international courses on diarrhoeal disease control in Dhaka and traveling to South America during the cholera epidemics in Ecuador. Dr. Rahman finally retired from his position as Training Coordinator in 1994. During his career as a doctor, researcher, and teacher, Mizan helped many people obtain their own education. He gave advice, financing, and admissions assistance to students beyond his own family. He developed a very simple lifestyle in eating and home life, believing that frugality could help in sharing more of his income with others.
 
After his retirement from the Centre in 1994, Mizan spent the next ten years in social work. He began a rural clinic in his home area of Brahminbaria and often went there as a doctor to the ultra poor patients. He confided in Dr. SK Roy that having “people coming to me and needing my help keeps me alive.” In 2005 the Boston-based NOVA television interviewed Dr. Rahman for a series on health interventions around the world, “RX for Survival: A Global Health Challenge.” Colleagues at ICDDR,B believe that Dr. Rahman treated more cholera patients in his lifetime than any other doctor in the world.
 
In 2004 Dr. Mizan suffered his first heart attack and underwent bypass surgery. Later heart problems resulted in his March hospitalization in Dhaka and eventual death. He is survived by his loving wife, four sons and two daughters (one daughter lives in the USA) and many friends and family members who will recall his kindness, sincere work as a caring physician, his research, his mentoring, and his simple enjoyment of life.

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