Graduate aims to serve military, helps patients maintain vision

Graduate profile: Rafael Hamawi, D.O.

Graduate aims to serve military, helps patients maintain vision

Rafael Hamawi, D.O., of WVSOM’s Class of 2024, has two goals he hopes to achieve in his medical career: He plans to pursue flight medicine, helping members of the U.S. military maintain their health, and he would like to specialize in ophthalmology.

He was drawn to medicine after seeing members of his family experience difficulties communicating with health care professionals. Hamawi’s father, a factory worker, and his mother, who operated a child care center, both emigrated from Lebanon and spoke English as a second language. When his grandmother became sick with cancer, it fell upon Hamawi to help the family grasp what physicians were saying.

“My grandmother didn’t speak English at all,” the Waterbury, Conn., native said. “Seeing her struggle with the health care system and being at her side to make sure she understood what was happening played a pivotal role for me. Doctors sometimes use big language and don’t know their audience, and I wanted to break down those barriers and help put things in terms people could understand. When you speak patients’ language, they’re appreciative because they feel they can trust you and they know your decisions are made with the best intentions. That’s what sparked my interest in medicine.”

Hamawi attended Assumption University in Massachusetts, where he majored in biology and minored in Spanish. Between his undergraduate degree and medical school, he spent two years working as a pharmacy technician and as a formulation chemist in the personal care and hygiene industry, designing lotions, creams, detergents and other products and showing corporate clients how to incorporate his company’s cleansing agents into their own products.

In his medical school search, Hamawi only applied to osteopathic schools.

“I was interested in the osteopathic philosophy and wanted to learn hands-on medicine,” he said. “I know that in flight medicine I’ll be able to assess patients physically because I’ve learned how to feel for changes in muscles or tissue structures. The osteopathic approach has traveled with me throughout my clinical years, and it will translate well into practicing flight medicine.”

It was WVSOM’s sense of community that brought him to the school. He said his initial interview and subsequent acceptance call made it clear that WVSOM would provide a welcoming environment where students are the top priority.

“I fell in love with the school on interview day. The campus was beautiful, and we were treated with so much respect. Then, when I received the call telling me I was accepted, they said, ‘Welcome to the family.’ And that’s what I’ve felt ever since coming to WVSOM, that it’s like a family where everyone looks out for each other, academically and personally. This is an institution that cares about its students,” Hamawi said.

His interest in flight medicine led him to enlist in the U.S. Air Force. Hamawi recently entered a transitional year at San Antonio Military Medical Center, in Texas, which is home to the Air Force’s only residency program designed for aspiring ophthalmologists. There, he hopes to prove his commitment to ophthalmology while also preparing for a flight medicine residency.

Physicians who specialize in flight medicine make critical care decisions for patients inside an aircraft and serve as a primary care physician for pilots and crew members. These specialists also can become pilots or paratroopers. Hamawi has already begun taking flight lessons.

“I flew for the first time in March,” he said. “It was a quick introductory course for medical students and physicians, and they said, ‘We know none of you know how to fly a plane, but we’re going to just go with it.’ It was an amazing experience.”

While at WVSOM, Hamawi served as secretary of the Class of 2024, a position that allowed him to advocate for his fellow medical students in the areas of academic and student affairs, and, during his third and fourth years, to act as a liaison between the school’s administration and students across the seven regions of WVSOM’s Statewide Campus.

He also participated in research while at WVSOM and, in 2023, was recognized in a poster competition sponsored by Mountain State Osteopathic Postdoctoral Training Institutions and Mon Health for his poster “Inherited Retinal Eye Disorders: A Case of Choroideremia,” which examined a condition that causes loss of vision due to degeneration of cell layers in the retina.

Earlier this year, he received the Statewide Campus Outstanding Student Award for the Northern Region and was recognized for his military service during graduation.

Hamawi, whose flight medicine residency could take him to any part of the world where the Air Force believes he is needed, said he is eager to serve those who have served the U.S. as members of the military.

“America has done so much for my family. It’s given me opportunities to get an education and to be successful, and I want to make sure other people have the same opportunities. I want to help our military personnel and give back to those who have sacrificed for us. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have the freedoms this country gives its people.”

When you speak patients’ language, they’re appreciative because they feel they can trust you and they know your decisions are made with the best intentions.