One Doctor's Unusual Show of Support

By Dilshad D. Ali

It was business as usual during St. Luke and Roosevelt Hospital Centers' daily noon conference in Manhattan last week - until the Residency Program Director Ethan Fried walked in sporting a new scruffy beard. Normally a clean-shaven man, Fried's appearance surprised the residents a bit, but his announcement astonished them more.

"Don't think I've forgotten to shave," he told the residents. "There's a reason for this."

Fried has grown his beard to show his support for Muslims, to make a statement that he would not tolerate anti-Muslim or anti-Arab sentiments. His physical statement echoes a small, but growing trend nationwide of Americans growing beards or wearing scarves to show support for Muslims.

Many hospitals in New York City, especially those in Lower Manhattan, are taking similar stances by making public statements to show support for Muslim doctors. The message is always the same: Anti-Muslim actions will not be tolerated. And at St.Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Centers, Fried has taken that message a step further.

Following the September 11th World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Fried and his colleagues discussed how they could show support for their Muslim residents. "I was concerned about the backlash, concerned about the well-being and work environment for my residents," Fried says. Nearly a dozen of the 142 residents in the program are Muslim, he adds. Some of the staff suggested advising Muslim or Middle-Eastern doctors to shave their beards

"But I didn't think that was fair," says Fried. Then his wife suggested he grow a beard himself.

It's not making any real difference, Fried says, but rather it is a show of support. "People had gotten used to the way I look - clean shaven. [Growing a beard] is a very visual thing, very striking. It's sort of equivalent to the American tradition of a football coach shaving his head to show support for his team."

Azeem Saeed, a first-year resident at St. Luke's/Roosevelt Hospital Centers, says more than anything Fried's statement shows how important the Muslim residents are. "There's a sense of assurance that he is behind us, that we're not second class," he says. There might not be a major change in people's attitudes by these gestures, but it will help cool down angry sentiments, he adds.

Saeed, who also sports a beard, says he is not scared of any anti-Muslim backlash though he experienced subtle racism immediately following the attacks. One nurse asked him where he was from. "I said Pakistan." She said, 'We would have fixed you, but you're a doctor.' In my thinking, it was just out of initial anger, so I didn't report it. Why escalate it?"

Fried says he also heard of anti-Muslim comments from patients and people in the streets after the attacks. He says the hospital discussed how to address anti-Muslim sentiments every day following the incident. "The first day one of my Egyptian residents mentioned he had had some comments from a patient. Some of them mentioned getting shouted at [on their way to the hospital]," he says.

Muhammad Faisal, another first-year resident, says one of his patients asked if he was with Osama Bin Laden. Faisal said no. "Then the patient said to me, 'But you are Muslim ...' Like he meant that my being Muslim was bad enough."

Fried says he will not tolerate such behavior from the hospital staff. But patients are a whole other issue. "If it comes from the patients, it's an upsetting thing. The best we can do is if it really becomes a problem is to educate the patient," he says. "We have people on staff, people in patient relations, who go in and try to educate patients if they have a problem with their doctor."

More than anything, a unified front in support of Muslim doctors by the hospitals is most important, Fried says. And his new beard is just a small way to show such support. Faisal says Fried's gesture is another example of his commitment to the well being of his residents. In the days following the attacks, "Dr. Fried came to all of us saying we could page him at any time, even 2 a.m., if we had any trouble," Faisal says. "I like such people who are expressive."