MUJTABA A. QAZI, MD

Introduction

Dear APPNA colleagues,

I am honored and humbled to be nominated for the APPNA Board of Directors 2025-2026.

For those of you who are just getting to know me, I was born in Pakistan and grew up in New York City. All of my education has been in the US, from kindergarten on up.

My family and I were part of a vibrant Pakistani-American community in the 70’s and 80’s, focusing on maintaining our language and cultural heritage while struggling to advance in American society. My sisters and I rode the float at the 1st Pakistani-American parade in NYC, wearing our traditional clothes and waving our American and Pakistani flags. We learned the words to the national anthem and “Dil Dil Pakistan….”

Education was the cornerstone of our childhood. I went to prestigious Stuyvesant High School in NYC, then entered New York University, where I was a Near Eastern Language and Literature major. My colleagues and I started a Pakistani Club in high school and re-established the Islamic Center at NYU in college, of which I served as president for both.

At New York University School of Medicine, I learned I had an interest and talent for micro-surgery with Ophthalmology. I completed Ophtho residency at Boston University and matched for a Cornea & Refractive Surgery Fellowship in Saint Louis, Missouri.

After fellowship, I joined Pepose Vision Institute in St. Louis as a Cornea Transplant and LASIK specialist. I became Director of the Clinical Research Department and the Cornea Fellowship Program, then rose to become Partner.

My wife, Erum (Dow ’95), and I raised our three children in St. Louis, making life-long friends, travel buddies, and fellow activists. Saint Louis had a dynamic APPNA community, which I quickly became immersed in, first with social events, then with service projects, then in the leadership. I have served as an APPNA Greater St. Louis Chapter officer, President, and Board of Trustee member.

Over the years, my APPNA colleagues and I have spearheaded health screenings, vaccination programs, blood donation drives, and civic engagement programs. Erum and I have been active in a series of philanthropic organizations in the US and Pakistan focused on education and health care delivery.

My introduction to APPNA national began by attending the Summer Convention. Our kids roamed around with their friends, while we did the same with ours. I had the privilege of joining Erum’s Dow classmates as they rehashed their experiences at Civil Hospital amid bouts of laughter. I am especially proud of my wife, who single-handedly raised our children while I was pursuing my academic career, passed her USMLE exams, completed adult psychiatry residency at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and then joined a private practice group in St. Louis. Her experience gave me insight into the unique struggle of the International Medical Graduate and how a little support can go a long way. My first committee in APPNA was the SWDRC under the Chair of Dr. Aisha Zafar. For the SWDRC team, service to the people of Pakistan was a heavy responsibility and obsession. Everything had to be done that could be done. Everything had to be done right. This was no more apparent than when APPNA mobilized to address the Kashmir earthquake of 1995. That experience helped me realize the power and potential of APPNA and its members.

Since then, I have served on the National Health Care Day (NHCD) Committee and APPNA Medical Corps (AMC), as a member and Chairperson for both. The NHCD epitomizes what APPNA can do here in the US. As a US medical school graduate, it is critical the APPNA maintains a footprint in the US, as an organization that advocates for students and IMGs, as a resource for health care services, and as a voice for health care policies.

Once the world came out of its COVID shell in 2022, AMC mobilized, under the leadership of Dr. Mubasher Rana, past-president of APPNA, and Dr. Minal Ahson, a University of Miami School of Medicine graduate, for a mission trip to Midland Doctors Hospital Muzaffarabad, Kashmir and to the flood zone in KPK. Our team included a mix of Pakistan- and US-based physicians, including several US medical school graduates and pre-med students. As part of the AMC team, I staffed the eye clinic and performed cataract surgery, including on patients who had travelled to Muzaffarabad from the LOC. The love, duas, and reward each member of the AMC team received from staff and patients was indescribable and priceless. I would encourage each of you and your children to join APPNA mission trips, which provide multi-specialty expertise and care to truly disadvantaged patients.

I am currently serving my second year on the APPNA CABL committee. I was selected for this committee because my Council Member colleagues and I worked with Dr. Rizwan Khalid, as the then APPNA President, and Dr. Zia Moiz Ahmad, as the CABL Committee Chair, in revising the CABL and bringing it to the membership for approval. As you are all aware, this was a tedious and meticulous process to bring a consensus of ideas and understanding of a new governing structure, introducing the Board of Director election into APPNA. The CABL committee continues to review the current Bylaws for further clarification. Any suggestions you have for modification of the CABL will be greatly appreciated and should be forwarded to the Committee.

As APPNA leadership learned that I was a US medical school graduate, they encouraged me to become involved in NAMA, the North American Medical Alumni of APPNA. Surprisingly, NAMA had been decertified because there was not continuity of leadership within our members and proper documents for alumni certification were not submitted. With the help of Drs. Naseem Shekhani (President) and Naheed Usmani (President-Elect), my NAMA colleagues and I set out to officially re-form the North American Medical Alumni and achieved our goal, with a new CABL and 501c3 tax id and approval by the APPNA Council in 2019. I am proud to have served as President of the North American Alumni of APPNA from 2019 through 2023. During this time we expanded NAMA and Caribbean alumni membership, broadened our social networking, established regular professional development programs at APPNA meeting, and integrated NAMA graduates into APPNA committees and leadership. Dr. Tayyib Rana, a founding member of the re-certified NAMA, was elected to the APPNA BOD in 2021 and completed his term last year. We have energetic leadership in NAMA, led by Drs. Shamail Tariq (University of Missouri-KC School of Medicine, President 2024) and Drs. Neelam Khan (Georgetown University School of Medicine, President-Elect 2024). You will get a chance to meet the entire NAMA leadership at the APPNA Summer Convention. During my term as President of NAMA, I met many parents whose children used to attend APPNA meetings and have now grown to become accomplished physicians, graduating from US, Canadian, Caribbean, or other international medical schools. Many are academicians, researchers, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. They are mentoring students, trainees, and young physicians. They are untapped resources for observerships, research projects, CME, skills transfer courses, mission trips, and advocacy. My main objective is to build their interest in APPNA by transforming APPNA into a source of professional development and personal friendships for them.

Thanks to the guidance of APPNA President Dr. Asif Mohiuddin, my NAMA and Caribbean colleagues, Drs. Tayyib Rana (West Virginia University School of Medicine) a Nadeem Ahmed (Ross University School of Medicine), and I organized the 2024 Strategic Meeting retreat. We focused on the hot topics of the day: APPNA finances, membership, elections, and education. I oversaw the education section, where our expert panelists discussed integrating the Chairs of Merit, RESA, and Young Physicians Committees under an APPNA College of Medicine, so that these committees could better coordinate their activities. We also analyzed the underutilization of social media platforms and strategies to expand APPNA’s communication footprint. After attending several strategy meetings as an audience member, it was a valuable experience to be on the other side of managing a major APPNA meeting where member input and participation was paramount. We worked to keep commentary to the point and asked to participants to finalize a list action items, some of which have been implemented and some are still being organized.

As you can see, my personal and professional career has been marked by organizing and implementing new ideas and new approaches. One of the best methods to develop novel approaches is work with professional and NGOs outside the scope of APPNA. As such, I am currently serving on the Boards of several local and national organizations. I have learned the importance of dialogue in order to build consensus. I have also witnessed how the number and quality of the administrative staff can impact the success or failure of an organization’s mission and activities. As an APPNA BOD, I will focus on bolstering the infrastructure of APPNA, so that we can deliver our message and achieve our goals more efficiently. In my private practice at Pepose Vision Institute, we are transitioning through the retirement of our founding senior partner while integrating new doctors. This has thrust me into managing the practice with the administrative director and overseeing hiring, training, product launches, SOPs, and finances. These same skills and experiences will be useful while working on a Board of a multi-million dollar corporation such as APPNA.

With your support, my goal as an APPNA Board of Director would be to raise the standards of professionalism and accountability within the Board. I have listed my key objectives below. I encourage each of you to reach out to me to discuss a future of APPNA that brings our children who are health professionals into the fold of APPNA.

ACADEMICS

• Medical Staff, Emeritus, Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences – Washington University School of Medicine

• Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Missouri – St. Louis College of Optometry

• Member: American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO), American Society of Cataract & Refractive Surgery (ASCRS), International Society of Refractive Surgery (ISRS)

• Observership mentor for high school, pre-med college, medical, and optometry students

 

• Leadership & Service