WCM-Q alumnus made chief resident at elite Alabama teaching hospital

An alumnus of Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) has scored a double success by being appointed chief resident of his residency training programme and winning the programme’s student teacher award.Dr Awab Ali Ibrahim, who graduated from WCM-Q in 2012, was made chief resident following his successful completion of the three-year Paediatric Residency Training Programme at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine in Mobile, Alabama, US.The position of chief resident carries great responsibility and demands exceptional clinical skills as well as superior leadership and organisational ability.In this new position, Dr Ibrahim will now remain at the University of South Alabama for a further year and will be leading a group of doctors on the paediatric residency programme, overseeing their progress, serving as their mentor and advocate, and ensuring that the programme’s high standards are met.Dr Ibrahim said: “I’m extremely proud and happy to have been made chief resident — it’s really an exciting start to the next phase of my career. I love my residency programme, the community here in Alabama and the children we work with; so I am absolutely delighted to be staying for another year.“We serve a lot of children who come from less privileged backgrounds and I am very pleased that I will be staying so that I can continue to try to give something back to Alabama, which has given me so much.”On the student teaching award, Dr Ibrahim said: “Teaching is one of my passions. I love it, it’s so rewarding and fun, so I feel very fortunate to be honoured like this for doing something that brings me so much pleasure. I aim to go into academic medicine, so I hope I can continue to develop as an educator.” Originally from Sudan, Dr Ibrahim arrived in Qatar in 1996 and hails from a medical family.“I’m a simple person and wanted to take all this complex information and understand it in simple terms. To me, that’s what medicine is about.Making complex things simple so that we can understand them and take action. I think that’s an important process for patients, too.”Following his graduation, Dr Ibrahim, a keen researcher, joined the lab of WCM-Q’s associate director of research, Dr Khaled Machaca.He then moved to the Harvard laboratory of Dr Alessio Fasano, one of the world’s leading experts on celiac disease research.Looking to the future, Dr Ibrahim hopes to take a fellowship in paediatric gastroenterology and pursue research in this field.He added: “Obesity and diabetes are emerging as two of the biggest healthcare challenges facing children today. As such, I would like to spend a big part of the rest of my career conducting research and making innovations to improve children’s health and healthcare, with a particular focus on gastroenterology, the microbiome and the role of diet.”Dr Thurayya Arayssi, senior associate dean for medical education at WCM-Q, said: “Being made chief resident is an absolutely fantastic achievement and we are very proud of Dr Ibrahim. It is extremely gratifying to see him making such a positive difference to the lives of his patients and to the young doctors he is now guiding.”