Louisville Medicine Volume 66, Issue 3 | Page 41

MEMBERS Hospital (SSM&H) during his senior residency years for $1.50 per hour; as a foreign doctor, he received one dollar per hour less than his American counterpart who were paid $2.50 per hour! He met his future wife, Deborah at the SSM&H. It was love at first sight. They have been married since 1968. He was invited to stay as a faculty member by Dr. Polk upon conclusion of his resi- dency in December 1971 and worked at the General Hospital and the VA hospital. He passed his surgery board and earned his FACS designation in 1972. He chose to practice general surgery at Floyd Memorial Hospital (FMH) in 1972 while working at UofL. He was invited by Dr. William Garner, a prominent surgeon at the FMH, to work there as a private surgeon, and he continued to teach at the VA hospital for many years. He pioneered the practice of vascular surgery at FMH and became a dedicated full-time vascular surgeon by the late 1980’s, when he gave up general surgery. Waheed has been a health nut and was an avid jogger for many years. At 78-years-old, he looks much younger than his stated age, in part due to his years of regular exercise (he ran 10 marathons including Boston, Chicago and New York and 21 mini-marathons) and possibly (as he would claim) his rather unconventional use of the so-called anti-aging pills and capsules that he consumes daily. In 1996, he started noticing dyspnea and an echocardiogram showed severe aortic regurgitation. He was dignosed to have ascending aorta aneurysm and eventually underwent a valve-sparing artic valve surgery and aortic aneurysm repair performed by Dr. Tyrone David in Toronto in 1999. After his surgery, he was informed that his ascending aorta aneurysm was quite precarious and “close to rupture.” No wonder he has been told by Dr. Polk, his mentor, colleague and friend, that he cheated death twice! Waheed served as the president of the Louisville Surgical So- ciety in 2007 and was instrumental in changing the name of the Yandel Lectureship to the Yandel-Polk Lectureship in honor of his mentor. He is currently treasurer-secretary of the Floyd County Medical Society and was Chief of Staff at FMH. He has performed over 10,000 vascular surgery procedures during his surgical career of almost half a century. Deborah and Waheed have been married for 48 years and have four adult children. They have two lovely grandchilden whom they cherish and love. Their fourth child, Dr. Surriya Ahmad, received her MD degree from UofL and is currently doing her residency in Internal Medicine/Emergency Medicine at the SUNY Downstate University Hospital in New York. Dr. Seyal practices cardiovascular diseases with Floyd Memori al Medical Group-River Cities Cardiology. AUGUST 2018 39