DR. FRANK SKILLING’S INTRODUCTION OF DR. FAISAL MUNASIFI, RECIPIENT OF THE 2023 I.B. HARRISON, M.D. HUMANITARIAN AWARD

Managing Editor’s Note: These are Dr. Skilling’s notes and not a formal write-up. Please excuse spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.

Over fifty years ago, I was introduced to the medical wisdom of Dr. Harrison. No, not I.B. Harrison, but Dr. Tinsley Harrison, who was Professor of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Medicine and the editor of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, a text that is still in use today. The book cover and frontispiece from the original 1950 edition is projected above. Dr. Harrison was one of the most revered physicians of his era, and his lineage dated back to Dr. William Osler, one of the founders of modern internal medicine. The quote you see was widely used at my medical school, and it’s enshrined at the entrance to the Harrison Research Building at UAB. [“No greater opportunity, responsibility, or obligation can fall to the lot of a human being than to become a physician. In the case of suffering he needs technical skill, scientific knowledge, and human understanding. He who uses these with courage, humility, and wisdom will provide a unique service for his fellowman, and will build an enduring edifice of character within himself. The physician should ask of his destiny no more than this, he should be content with no less!”]

When I came to Tallahassee in 1978, I was told that I had to have a personal interview with another Dr. Harrison: Dr. I.B. Harrison. During my interview for acceptance on the medical staff at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital, Dr. Harrison made it clear that I was expected to uphold the bylaws of the medical staff, be available for emergency calls and practice impeccable ophthalmology. I didn’t feel intimidated, but I knew that he set a high bar for practicing medicine in Tallahassee.

Dr. Ira Barnett Harrison, universally known as “Bud,” was one of the first cardiologists in Tallahassee, but in the mid1970s he transitioned into a role that was new to medical practice here: Medical Director at TMH. While this was a position that bridged the hospital administration and the medical community, he was also involved in supervising the residents of the new Family Medicine Practice Program. Some members of the audience tonight probably had him as an attending physician. Dr. Harrison was always interested in the medical problems of the hospitalized patients, but he was even more interested in HOW they were treated by the physicians and residents under his supervision.

Dr. Harrison was a Medical Humanist in the tradition of William Osler and Tinsley Harrison, and he was ultimately concerned with the humanity of each patient, and not the disease process by itself.

After he retired, Capital Health Plan initiated an honor that was dedicated to his compassionate goals and named for him: The I.B. Harrison Humanitarian Award. This was to be given annually to the physician who most clearly represented that ideal in our medical community. Dr. Harrison was the first recipient of this prestigious recognition. The Capital Medical Society is now in charge of awarding this honor.

Tonight, we are gathered to recognize a member of our medical community who has exhibited those concepts of humanism that make the practice of medicine such a noble calling: Dr. Faisal Munasifi. The Capital Medical Society is proud to recognize him for his service and dedication, and, above all, his compassion in trying to alleviate the mental and emotional sufferings that plague our species. In his chosen field of psychiatry, he has been a leader in treating conditions that were once thought to be intractable. He is certified in classical psychoanalysis and is recognized as a leader in the field of psychopharmacology. For the last several years he has been using the latest treatment, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, TMS, of the brain.

He has served as a mentor to residents, medical students, nurses and social workers in the field of mental health. He is recognized as a mentor who always places the interests of the patients above his own.

Tonight, he will be honored for his lifelong commitment to helping patients in the field of mental health, but I’m here to give you a glimpse of Dr. Munasifi that will not be in his biographical summary.

It’s truly my privilege to introduce him to you. His wife Nola and his three daughters, Dina, Nadia, and Sana are with him tonight.

I first met Dr. Munasifi in 1982 in the old doctors’ lounge at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. This was right before Easter, and, on impulse, I invited him and his family to our annual spring luncheon and Easter Egg Hunt. He brought Nola and his two older daughters. I’m sure they had never been to a garden party like the one that my wife Karen puts on. We had an outdoor lunch followed by the egg hunt, and then a piñata for the children. After fifteen kids took a swing at the piñata, there was candy everywhere. I’m sure the Munasifis were shocked.

The Munasifis lived near us, and their children were the same age as ours. They all went to Faith Presbyterian Preschool together. Over the years our daughters joined the Pas de Vie Ballet School and became students and performers of dance. The girls were in each other’s weddings, and they remain friends even today.

Along with Jonette and Paul Sawyer’s family we often shared meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. Although we knew that he was raised in Iraq, he never discussed how he came to the USA. It was only after the capture of Saddam Hussein in December 2003 that he and Nola felt free to reveal how they escaped. Their stories are terrifying and could be the subject of a mini-series on TV, but they are too long to relate tonight. However, the Cap Scan will publish them in upcoming issues online.

I consider myself a good judge of character, and I thought that I knew Dr. Munasifi well. When our families got together, he was always polite, but a bit reserved. He was quiet and even taciturn at times. He had an outlook on medicine and world events that showed a unique perspective. He helped me understand the politics of the Middle East. But it wasn’t until many years later when we started traveling in a group that I found out what it took to get him to open up: SCOTCH WHISKEY!

When he was away from the worries of his psychiatric practice, and had time to relax, he would engage with conversations that were light and insightful, but when he had a bit a scotch, he became downright friendly, funny and even a bit flirtatious. While we were on a cruise on the Aegean Sea, we were entertained by a belly dancer who invited the guests up to dance with her. Dr. Munasifi, perhaps because of his middle Eastern heritage, was the only man who could keep up with her, and indeed, he taught the young woman a few new moves. Scotch was the lubricant that he needed to unleash his inner Patrick Swayze.

Another facet of his personality is his absorption, some might say obsession, with fashion. Faisal Munasifi is always well dressed. He knows quality in styles and fabrics, and he’s often able to give salespeople lessons in haute couture. When I once asked Nola how he got to be so knowledgeable, she said it was because of his mother, Diba Ansari, who was a young, fashion-conscious matron living in Baghdad when it was still open to Western culture and clothing trends. She literally went shopping downtown every afternoon, and because Faisal was the eldest, she took him along as her escort. He became addicted to high fashion. Once, when we were traveling as a group in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Faisal skipped out on visiting an art museum to go shopping with some of the women, including my wife, Karen. They visited the fashionable Recoleta district’s shops. When I caught up with them at the end of the afternoon, I found that each of the women had purchased an exclusive designer purse. Faisal had purchased five! He explained that he had to get one for each of his female family members as a souvenir. Even now he has a closet full of suits and designer shirts, including some he has yet to wear.

Besides being a fashion maven, he is also a connoisseur of Middle Eastern cuisine. Although he doesn’t cook himself, he’s selective in what he eats, and he’s always ready to share culinary insights. Over the years we’ve talked about going to Beirut, where he was born, to try the food, but for obvious reasons we’ve not made the trip yet. When we were in Paris last year, he found a Lebanese Restaurant and took our group there for lunch. Walking inside for him was like going back to Beirut in the 1960s. He spoke to the owner and the waiters in Arabic and French. After consulting them, he told us not to order off the menu because he would take care of selecting the meal himself. We had at least five courses of ten or twelve different types of food. By the time we finished lunch, it was three and a half hours later, and we could barely fit into the cab to get back to our hotel. He was ecstatic that we’d finally had a true Lebanese meal. If there’s such a thing as reincarnation, I’m positive he would make a great maître d in another life.

One of the questions that I asked myself as Dr. Munasifi and I became friends was what in our backgrounds allowed us to connect so well. I grew up in a stable home environment in Miami, but his family lived under an unstable, brutal, totalitarian regime in Baghdad. Over the years I found out that we’d both had similar educational backgrounds in that we were instructed by the Society of Jesus, better known as the Jesuits. The foundation for Jesuit education is the concept of developing the whole person: mind, body, and spirit. With the goal of producing men and women in service to others, academics for the Jesuits stress values, ethics and the development of moral character.

As I’ve shown you in the examples of the two Dr. Harrisons, the practice of medicine is not merely an exercise in diagnosis or analysis. It is not simply a way of having a financially comfortable life. It is a vocation that demands a lifetime commitment to keeping up with the scientific changes while never losing sight that the patients are the ultimate beneficiaries of our knowledge and efforts. I know that Dr. Faisal Munasifi continues to fulfill this calling every day in his practice of medicine. I’m proud to call him my friend and brother.