“My goal in life is to be able to leave the world a better place than it was when I entered it, and everything I do tends to revolve around that belief.”
Ibrahim Adnan Saadi, nicknamed Abie, was born July 23rd 1982 in Jerusalem to Dr Adnan & Khawla Saadi, youngest brother to Abir & Rasha.
At the age of 11, he was one of six children selected by the National Film Board of Canada to appear in the series “Children of Jerusalem”. The aim of this series was to illustrate the various realities in which children from different religious and ethnical backgrounds experience while growing up in Jerusalem. In the same year, he participated as a member of the delegation of Israeli and Palestinian children at the Oslo Peace Accord.
Abie was raised in a multi-cultural, multi-religious environment which had great impact on his decision to pursue medicine professionally. To fulfill this vision, he moved to the USA in 2004 where he attended the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, in Iowa City.
Prior to becoming a medical student he practiced as a pharmacist at Walgreens and, while attending medical school, Abie was a volunteer with the Mobile Clinic, which provides care to underserved Iowans. Ibrahim was Vice President of American Medical Students Association and was a member of Doctors Without Borders. He was planning to fulfill his commitment to serve people in a way that would help eliminate health disparities by specializing in internal medicine.
Abie grew up in a loving family that was supportive throughout his life. He knew how to return this love and recognition to his parents, sisters, nephew and nieces. He had become engaged to his girlfriend Stephanie Johnson days before his death, with the intent of getting married upon completion of his studies in 2009.
Abie’s passions were not only expressed through the seriousness of science and research; he loved sports, especially soccer which he played throughout his life. While studying medicine in the USA, he still found the time to help establish an amateur soccer team.
He also possessed a multi-lingual agility: Arabic, Hebrew, English, Spanish and French.
The compassion and wisdom Abie possessed were reflected in a quote from his student profile where he stated: “If I could change one thing in the world in general, and the world of medicine specifically, it would be ensuring equality to all people regarding race, religion, creed or financial capability”. The path he was paving for himself was rich with examples of this belief. Two examples illustrate this devotion:
While working in one of the pharmacies in Jerusalem, a man approached Abie and related to him that his son had a rare disease and, although medicine for his son’s condition did exist, it was very hard to come by and expensive. He was feeling desperate as he was unable to find a refill anywhere for his son’s medicine. Abie asked the father for the name of the medicine, carefully studied its pharmaceutical make-up and was able to reconstruct a similar blend. He told the father, “The blended medicine will not be harmful as it is produced from natural herbs, I sincerely hope it will help your son.” The medicine did indeed help the son and its price was significantly lower than the commercial brand.
The second example was while working at a pharmacy in the United States. A gentleman who had recently undergone an open heart surgery presented a prescription, upon discovering the cost; he apologized for being unable to afford the price and turned to leave the pharmacy. In turn, Abie explained how critical this medicine was for the customer’s recovery. He asked the man to wait while he called around in search of samples of this medication. When Abie could not find any free samples, he pulled out his credit card and personally paid for the gentleman’s medicine as his life could have otherwise been jeopardized.
His life was abruptly ended in a tragic event, months before becoming a doctor. The dreams and aspirations were ended, leaving grieving loved ones hoping to continue Abie’s humane and spiritual legacy through the foundation established in his name.