Doctor Pays It Forward
by Jason Torreano – KXMB TV
Posted on 2/12/2009
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He grew up half-a-world away in Karachi, Pakistan. He did his residency in the United States – and now, Dr. Hyder, a neurologist at St. Alexius lives here in Bismarck. While you can take the doctor out of his home country – you can’t take Pakistan – or it’s people – out of Dr. Hyder’s mind and his heart.
Dr. Shiraz Hyder: “People still have diseases. People still have pain. They still have need to be provided for. Suffering and pain is the same throughout the world.”
And in the developing world, where Hyder was born, the pain is there – but the medical help we sometimes take for granted often is not.
Dr. Shiraz Hyder: “Stroke, like any other disease is the same throughout the world. Patients suffer the same consequences of stroke in North Dakota as they would in Karachi, Pakistan.” It’s that same-ness, that common ground we all share that Hyder refers back to. And it’s in that spirit that in 2000, Hyder helped set up a stroke center in Karachi modeled after a similar successful one: the Stroke Center at St. A’s.
Dr. Shiraz Hyder: “People came from all over the country, even from other countries in the region to get treated in the stroke center. People would come in trains or in donkey carts, just to get treated in the stroke center.”
Hyder’s no stranger to helping others. He’s been helping to fund Horizons – a school for the developmentally disabled – for years.
Dr. Shiraz Hyder: “The children who had borderline intellectual functioning.They were either being kept at home, because they couldnt function in their regular school; because they didn’t get special education or if they did make it to the regular school,they were treated unfairly.”
He visits to check on things a couple times a year. The doctor pours quite a bit of money and time into these ventures – but he doesn’t talk about that. It’s all about the people.
Dr. Shiraz Hyder: “Every time I go back, I can see it on the faces of patients who have been treated in these centers, or people who are looking after them.”
He’s a cautious optimist – not out to change the world. Just his corner of it.
Dr. Shiraz Hyder: “You can only make a difference one at a time. And I still get e-mails from the children who are going to school there. That makes me feel very good. yes, we are making a difference.”
Dr. Hyder usually spends about 10 days during each of his trips. He’s hoping to get back to Pakistan in a few months.