A Passion for Healing: The Life and Work of Dr. Kamal Mansour

By Rob Suggs

Dr. Kamal Mansour, surgeon, teacher, traveller, collector, Christian, and human being par excellence, has packed several lifetimes into one, and his adventures will inspire even those who know little about cardiothoracic surgery, Dr. Mansour's specialty. Readers will laugh, catch their breath with surprise, and shed a tear or two as they follow his adventures across the globe and into regions of human experience and emotion few people ever see.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 25, 2015
• ISBN: 9781496968449

Rob Suggs

Rob Suggs is a writer who devotes most of his work to the Christian market. He has collaborated with Bruce Wilkinson, David Jeremiah, Bill Bright, Lee Strobel, Les Steckel, and others. Suggs specializes in finding the speaker's voice in prose, as well as communicating that personality's heart and soul in a manner that touches the reader's emotions. Suggs originally made his mark as a cartoonist whose work can be seen in It Came from Beneath the Pew and Preacher from the Black Lagoon. He is also the author of The Ten Commandments, Christian Community and The Suggs Book of Family Tales. He served for three years as a senior editor at Walk Through the Bible Ministries and is a graduate of Furman University.

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2015 Rob Suggs. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  02/19/2015

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6845-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6846-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-6844-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015901957

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

1 Beginnings

2 Coming of Age in Spirit and Truth

3 Early Practice

4 Coming to America

5 Finding a Field

6 A Surgeon’s Life

7 Teacher and Mentor

8 Homecoming

9 In Pursuit of Life’s Masterpieces

10 The Soul of a Surgeon

A Message from Dr. Mansour

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

Appendix F

Appendix G

The greatest mistake

in the treatment of diseases

is that there are physicians

for the body and

physicians for the soul,

although the two

cannot be separated.

Plato

Foreword

It is with great joy that I have read A Passion for Healing: The Life and Mission of Kamal A. Mansour, MD by A. S. Kaldas and Rob Suggs. My tenacity in advocating for this brain transplant on paper has paid off. All humans can now learn from the wonderful pathway of life taken by a Christian Egyptian who became a prominent surgeon, innovator, and professor in the United States. His path of life has taken him on a journey where he has helped people of all religions, whether rich or poor.

Even after retirement in the U. S. A., he continues his passion, intermittently performing surgery in the Middle East when he is desperately needed. My wish is that all seven billion humans on earth will be inspired by Dr. Mansour’s path of life. Ideally, this tale of his life will become infectious and will spread throughout the planet, motivating all of us to help one another. He did not pursue this career for notoriety, considering that he even donates time as a chauffeur at weddings.

It is the joy of serving which inspires Dr. Mansour.

Neil Shulman, MD

Author and Associate Producer, Doc Hollywood

Associate Professor, Emory University School of Medicine

Preface

Kamal A. Mansour served a long and distinguished career as a cardiothoracic surgeon and a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at the Emory University Hospital and School of Medicine. While he was cited as one of the top ten Egyptian doctors in the world, his true impact will never be properly measured, for there is no way to quantify such traits as love, compassion, and humanity.

If each of our lives creates a ripple, touching those around us, the ripples of Dr. Mansour’s influence have spread far beyond either of his two nations, or even of his generation. He has touched the lives of patients, of doctors and other medical personnel, of countless students, of people in his community, and of people in far-flung communities who may never hear his name and know whom to thank. To write about any such remarkable life is to learn far more about the basic human experience than about simply one career, in medicine or anything else. Dr. Mansour’s story will influence future generations of doctors, but it should also bring an impactful challenge to people of any other profession. It should cause each of us to reconsider what can be done with these few decades of life we’re given among our fellow human beings.

Yet those who know the surgeon may not associate him with such profundities. Instead, they will smile upon hearing his name, for perhaps above all, Dr. Mansour is a man of joy and ready humor. The best human beings are those who seem happier and quicker to laugh, the older they grow. Like all good things, they ripen with age. In the Middle East, where his personality was formed, names suggest destinies. Kamal Mansour, whose first name means perfection, may fall short of that mark—he’s only human, after all—but he is perfect in many respects: perfectly warm, perfectly caring, perfectly hilarious; a perfect gentleman.

His last name, however, hits the mark, for it means triumphant. Our hope and prayer for you, the reader, is that you’ll see a picture of triumph as you read this book—true triumph, not measured in fame or dollars or any other superficial human statistic, but in the victory of character itself. And may we all redouble our efforts to give ourselves compassionately, kindly, and ambitiously to the betterment of the human race.

Rob Suggs

Atlanta, GA

1

Beginnings

The infant given the name of Kamal Mansour found his cradle in the very cradle of civilization.

He was born into the oldest of nations—the land of Moses and the Pharaohs—yet a country in the midst of modern tumult and change. In 1929, Egypt was an ancient culture but an infant republic. He cavorted in the streets and fields like any child, unconscious of the history being forged all around him. The world of those who cared for him was a multicultural one, a place of clashing languages and ideas and sometimes wills. Kamal Mansour’s destiny was an international one, and his mission was one of humanity, compassion, and faith.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Egypt had been under the yoke of the hated Turks for nearly three centuries. In 1798, Napoleon’s French forces briefly took charge. But the Ottoman Turks would rule, at least nominally, until their empire faded and the day of the British came. The Suez Canal was a strategic prize that made Egypt a goal worth contention. But among the people, each new generation expressed a deeper weariness with foreign controllers. Everyone knew the proud history of this nation—why must one foreign force after another intrude on Egypt and its freedom? Why should Europe decide the affairs of Africa?

In 1879, the first Egyptian nationalist groups began to organize. They spread their ideas of opposition to European interference, and their numbers grew. In 1919, as the world sought to recover itself from the First World War, Egypt’s first modern revolution finally ensured a new day. The British, equally weary of the struggle, issued a full declaration of Egyptian independence in 1922.

It was into such a climate of international tension and transition that Kamal Mansour was born, in the seventh year of independence. His birthplace was Cairo, the nation’s capital. His countrymen were proud and liberated, though the British presence and influence was still all around them, and not always unwelcome.

Young Kamal was a bright and eager child, but an ordinary one. At the age of five he made his entrance into the world of learning at Tewfik Primary School and Tewfik Secondary School, not far from home.

Cairo, as the largest city in the Middle East, was a traditional seat of culture and ancient wisdom. So essential is this capital city that Egyptians often refer to Cairo as Maşr, the Arabic name for Egypt itself. Yet Cairo’s own name means defeater or vanquisher, suggesting the pride and confidence of the ancient civilization. Echoes of this self-regard would be found in Kamal’s two names, meaning perfection and triumphant. He began life as a positive child with a ravenous appetite for learning and a determined destiny, if not any real love of school itself.

To observe the accomplishments of this doctor, one would think he embraced his schooling with tremendous affection. Instead, he liked a day in the classroom no more than any little boy. I was a naughty fellow, he would recall with a smile.

There were nice memories, however. In that part of the world, it was customary to have a doorkeeper at every entrance. Kamal would recall riding on the broad shoulders of the doorkeeper to his classroom many mornings. He was a child who felt the love and endearments of the adults in his world. The classroom may have been stifling and limiting to an energetic boy, but the world was a wonderful place, filled with surprises. All the while, he was learning and growing more than he knew. The foundations for his character and accomplishments were being laid slowly but surely.

At home, he was pampered and indulged, though not to the detriment of his training. He could sense that his parents thought him the brightest light among his siblings, and they treated him accordingly. So he was accustomed to getting what he wanted.

Kamal was curious, fun-loving, and strong-willed, by nature and by nurture. At a