Mir Akbar Ali and Sahebzadi Faizunissa received a phone call from Prof. Mir Arshad Ali, their younger son, informing them that his older brother Dr. Ather Ali’s health condition was deteriorating rapidly and has reached the critical stage, requesting them to talk to Dr. Ather on Face Time. The distance of three thousand miles was reached within a minute from Los Angeles to New Haven City, Connecticut. The parents saw Ather’s face on the phone. He looked at his parent’s face and in very few chosen words said, “Mom and Dad, I would like to thank you both for protecting me and raising me; I love you very much.” Before he could add anything further, he slipped into deep coma and in a permanent slumbering phase. Prof. Arshad Ali and other doctors who had gathered around Ather’s bed sensed that his soul has left the body.
On October 26, 2017 at the Yale New Heaven Hospital, a world renowned, young and handsome doctor, Dr. Ather Ali’s lamp of life extinguished permanently. Several months ago, he started coughing that pushed the irritation to a new stage, and within a month cancer was detected in his throat. Chemotherapy and other modern treatment methods were rejected by his body. An Oncologist, a personal friend of Dr. Ather, took over the treatment process that did not help, resulting in his death.
Dr. Mir Athar Ali was serving as the programme director for Integrative Medicine at Yale New Haven Smilow Cancer Hospital at the time of his death. He was a courageous, bold and principled man who never learned to accept defeat or setback, but rather used his overwhelming ability to make others understand his point of view by repeating it over and over again until the person was able to think at his high level of thinking.
Dr. Mir Ather Ali’s work for the multiple integrative medicine initiatives was very challenging and hard. It involved convincing the intelligentsia in the medical field about his work. For the recognition and wider use of integrative medicine at the national level Dr. Ather Ali prepared a detailed proposal and submitted it to the National Institute of Health for approval. This was his first task. The NIH rejected the proposal. He made changes by making amendments in certain processes and resubmitted it. That proposal was again rejected. During the fifth attempt after incorporating extensive changes the results were positive. The NIH accepted and approved the proposal. Dr. Ather Ali proved that by using consistently persistent efforts to convince those who understand various aspects of medicine could bring results. This NIH approval made Dr. Mir Athar Ali leader of the integrative medicine.
Integrative medicine involves naturopathic doctor using therapies to strengthen human body’s self-healing and curative abilities. This involves identifying causes of illness and removing obstacles that led to disease such as poor diet, digestive problems, inappropriate and chronic stress levels, individual disharmony and personal problems. Naturopathic doctor develops personalised treatment plan based on the symptoms of the patient. In essence, naturopathic medicine’s primary objective is to restore health, not to treat cause of disease.
A doctor from the Career Institute of Yale approached Dr. Athar Ali and sought his help in presenting his proposal to the National Institute of Health. Dr Ather Ali examined and studied the proposal very carefully and advised his colleague to make changes in certain areas of his proposal and submit it. This resulted in NIH accepting the proposal, in the first attempt of its submission, and approving the grant for the health care project.
Yale University is ranked three among the top ten universities of the world. Dr. Ather Ali was the first and only naturopathic physician on the staff of the Yale New Haven Hospital and the faculty at the Yale school of medicine. He was a trailblazer and pioneer. His proposal to establish the integrative medicine department was debated fiercely in the senate of the Yale University where pro and con arguments were presented ending finally in the senate approving the proposal. In 2008, at the age of 33, Dr. Ather Ali became the first director of the Integrative Medicine Department. He also made history as the first naturopathic physician to sit on the Steering Committee of the Consortium of 70 medical schools in the United States. John Weeks appreciated Dr. Ather Ali’s determination, confidence, devotion, religious values and persistency in convincing the Yale authorities on his dedication and the development of the plan to improving the health and removing the illness through integrative medicine.
On October 31, 2017, John Weeks, Publisher /Editor of the Integrator Blog News and Reports, wrote: “In Memorium: Yale Integrative medicine leader, Ather Ali, 1975-2017. The magnitude of Ather’s accomplishments begins to come clear when you consider additional pioneering dimensions of his work. He is a naturopathic physician in a conservative, MD-dominant Yale medical culture. No naturopathic physician in the United States has penetrated so deeply into positions of leadership in a conventional academic health center. Notably, Dr. Ali’s work as a point person for multiple integrative medicine initiatives at Yale was within close internet shouting down distance of a Yale medical school faculty member who irresponsibly dismisses naturopathic medicine as “pseudoscience from top to bottom” and used his perch to decry integrative advances for health care as “quackademic medicine.” Then consider this: Ather was practicing Muslim in a frequently challenging US climate, and in a medical leadership populated not infrequently by Jewish physicians. One of these, David Katz, MD, MPH first selected Ather into a Yale residency 15 years ago, Katz, the director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center honored Ather with a powerful blog bosting shortly after he died. Katz sent me a note that stated , in part: “The first and only naturopathic physician on the staff of Yale New Haven Hospital and the faculty at the Yale School of Medicine, Ather was quite literally in a class all its own. I am proud beyond words to have played a small part in nurturing his career, and privileged to have had an intimate view of the extraordinary trail he blazed. I mourn him, and I miss him – but mostly my mind keeps turning to the celebration of him, and the need to preserve and replicate what he built.”
Dr. Ather Ali’s death shocked the Yale New Heaven Hospital staff, Yale School of Medical staff, doctors, family, relatives and friends, many could not hold back tears.
Dr. Mir Ather Ali’s created integrative medicine processes and methods’ popularity reached around the world. Many European and Asian countries expressed their desire to adopt his plan. He travelled to many countries around the world, including Turkey, China and Australia. He went to Turkey for three consecutive years and stayed for more than three months each time working with doctors and professors at the Ataturk University, making sure that his processes are understood and used to the core in treating the patients. He visited China twice and Australia once. He also attended conferences as a speaker in many other countries. Many doctors and medical experts from other countries visited Yale and learned the techniques in use at the Yale Integrative Medicine Clinic.
Dr. Ather Ali was born in Evanston, Chicago vicinity, Illinois and raised in southern California in city of Lomita. He earned a B.S. in Psychology from University of California, Los Angeles in 1997, a Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine (N.D.) from Bastyr University in 2003, a Master of Public Health in Chronic Disease Epidemiology in 2006 and a Master of Health Sciences in Patient Oriented Research in 2014 from Yale University.
Dr. Ather Ali was an active member of the Muslim community at Yale and in New Haven. His life revolved around his wife Sumiyya, son Yasin and daughter Rihaan. He was an inspiring physician-scientist who will be remembered for his Islamic values, contagious smile, gentle and calm presence, gratitude, humility and compassion.
[MOHAMMAD YACOOB, a retired Industrial Engineer and Engineering Proposals Analyst , lives in Los Angeles, California.]