For Dr. Achraf Zakaria, Tisdale’s newest family doctor, his favourite part of the job is interacting with the patients.
“I love this profession because it makes me closer to the people and the social aspect of medicine attracts me a lot.”
Originally from Cairo, Egypt, Zakaria said it took him a while to become interested in medicine.
“Until high school, I didn’t think about being a doctor. My main interest was to be a filmmaker – I liked movies, I liked cinema at that time.”
Yet he became interested in becoming a doctor because he wanted to help people. So when he graduated high school, he took family medicine at Ain Shams University and then his post-graduate training at Ain Shams University Teaching Hospital and the el-Sahel Teaching Hospital. All of those institutions are based out of Cairo.
Zakaria said the first two years of his education were tough, with lots of studying. He was thinking seriously about quitting before something changed in his third year.
“In the third year, I started to see the patients and started the clinical aspect of medicine and at that time, I felt that I got an epiphany, so I fell in love with this job because of that social aspect of this profession.”
He found he really liked the interpersonal aspect of the job, helping people of all ages deal with their medical problems.
“After that, I spent some time training in France and in France I learned to not evaluate my patient from a purely medical view, but from a humanitarian and a global view – as a human being, not just a patient, to address their social, spiritual and emotional needs rather than just the medical needs.”
Zakaria then returned to Egypt to work as a family doctor.
“In 2003, I decided to move to Canada with my family as an immigrant,” he said. “I applied for immigration but the process of the application takes a long time, so at that time I moved to work in Saudi Arabia as a family doctor.”
During his eight years there, he focused on reproductive health, obstetrics, maternity care and pre-natal care.
In 2011, he and his family moved to Canada permanently, residing in Ottawa.
“I was done with my Canadian equivalent exam in 2012 and in 2013 I joined the University of Ottawa to graduate with a diploma in population health assessment and management and after that I worked as a stenographer in Ottawa, waiting to find any opening in the Canadian healthcare system as a physician.”
In 2015, Zakaria applied to take the Saskatchewan International Physician Practice Assessment, which assesses the readiness of physicians with foreign degrees to practise in Saskatchewan. In June 2017, it was accepted. He did a practicum in a small community as part of that assessment. Kelsey Trail Health Region then hired him as a family doctor in Tisdale. He’s been here since Oct. 2.
“I’m happy being in Tisdale. I’m happy being amongst the people here and I find that people are really nice,” he said.
Having only just arrived, Zakaria hasn’t been able to venture too much into the community yet, as he’s been busy relocating and getting used to the patients and the electronic medical recording system. He’s started to attend the Alliance Church. During his spare time, the doctor likes biking, canoeing, tennis and volleyball.
“I see myself in maybe two or three years knowing my patients very well and able to help them better because I know their previous history and knowing everything about my patients. Social-wise, I hope that I can be more integrated in Tisdale society and even in the community.”
