Aug 18, 2026 · 42 min · 11 segments
Fazlur Rahman, a retired oncologist, is the author of The Temple Road, a richly evocative memoir about growing up in what was then East Pakistan, before it became Bangladesh. His second book, Our…
When I told my colleagues I was going to San Angelo, they first asked me where the place was.
Hearing that it was in West Texas, a few said, why do you want to go to the boondocks? There's nothing there except oil fields and roughnecks.
The kind of intimacy that I developed with my patients and their loved ones would have been difficult in big cities.
My family and I became part of the community, and its people became a part of me.
I believe that all this, in addition to my own suffering, in my growing up years, made me a better doctor.
And then later you say, upon my retirement in 2011, this is decades later, the San Angelo Standard Times ran a front page story about me headlined, Doctor Retires with Love and Respect.
If I was awarded love and respect, what more reward could I ask for? It was the simplicity and generosity of the rural small town people that bestowed me with these sentiments despite my failings.
Sure, I had to deal with my share of individuals who didn't care for black or brown-skinned persons, doctor or not, but they were overshadowed by the vast number of good-hearted souls.
Now, first of all, I have to tell you, reading about your life and your work in this community, I felt some envy.
I've had the other side of the coin, the academic urban experience, but quite honestly, the life that you led for many years, the solo oncologist, caring for people in the community, giving them your home phone number.
You would jump in your car and rush to the hospital or in some cases go to their home.
How their life was intertwined with theirs, how you would be the one to go put their blood on a slide and look at it, and how all the other doctors in the community came to rely on you to care for their cancer patients.
No, I don't think it's possible because, you know, there was a survey, I think two or three years ago said 72% of the people are unhappy with their doctors because they don't pay attention.
When I told my colleagues I was going to San Angelo, they first asked me where the place was.
Hearing that it was in West Texas, a few said, why do you want to go to the boondocks? There's nothing there except oil fields and roughnecks.
The kind of intimacy that I developed with my patients and their loved ones would have been difficult in big cities.
My family and I became part of the community, and its people became a part of me.
I believe that all this, in addition to my own suffering, in my growing up years, made me a better doctor.
And then later you say, upon my retirement in 2011, this is decades later, the San Angelo Standard Times ran a front page story about me headlined, Doctor Retires with Love and Respect.
If I was awarded love and respect, what more reward could I ask for? It was the simplicity and generosity of the rural small town people that bestowed me with these sentiments despite my failings.
Sure, I had to deal with my share of individuals who didn't care for black or brown-skinned persons, doctor or not, but they were overshadowed by the vast number of good-hearted souls.
Now, first of all, I have to tell you, reading about your life and your work in this community, I felt some envy.
I've had the other side of the coin, the academic urban experience, but quite honestly, the life that you led for many years, the solo oncologist, caring for people in the community, giving them your home phone number.
You would jump in your car and rush to the hospital or in some cases go to their home.
How their life was intertwined with theirs, how you would be the one to go put their blood on a slide and look at it, and how all the other doctors in the community came to rely on you to care for their cancer patients.
No, I don't think it's possible because, you know, there was a survey, I think two or three years ago said 72% of the people are unhappy with their doctors because they don't pay attention.
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