Dr. Hassan Tetteh will speak to members of the National Medical Association on “Innovation in Cardiac Care” at its Region 1 Conference on Saturday at the Marriott’s Frenchman’s Reef Beach Resort, but his message is about more than innovation in medicine and improvements in patient care.
Tetteh integrates all of his various experiences as a physician, surgeon, veteran, educator and author into all areas of his professional life. During this regional conference of the oldest society of African American doctors, Tetteh said he will touch on the benefits of “heartfelt living” on the patient-provider experience, as well as his recently published first novel, Gifts of the Heart.
Tetteh completed his medical degre at the State University of New York in 1998, later completing his masters in public administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and his masters in business administration in medical services management at the Carey School of Business at Johns Hopkins University.
He served in the U.S. Navy both as surgeon and director of surgical services in 2005 aboard the USS Carl Vinson and, in 2011, as a trauma surgeon deployed in the Helmand and Nimroz provinces of Afghanistan.
In addition to actively practicing as a board-certified surgeon specializing in heart and lung transplants, Tetteh holds an academic appointment as an assistant professor of surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. Today, he lives with his wife, their son and daughter in the Washington, D.C., area.
Tetteh published his first novel, Gifts of the Heart, in August 2013. The plot follows a young protagonist strikingly similar to Tetteh himself – although he is quick to clarify that the novel is not an autobiography. The main character is a young doctor and surgeon, Dr. Kareem Afram, who joins the Navy to serve his country post-9/ll.
Afram is soon deployed to Afghanistan, where he is faced with human suffering and physical injury unlike any he had encountered in his civilian career as a heart surgeon. Afram navigates the difficulties of life as a military doctor physically, mentally and spiritually throughout the novel, echoing Tetteh’s holistic view of the person: mind, body, spirit.
The story is one of self-discovery for the first-generation American protagonist, although it does not attempt to be political, despite its politically charged setting and plot.
Tetteh said he drew upon his own experiences working as a trauma surgeon while deployed in Afghanistan, where he served as a member of the II Marine Expeditionary Forces medical team in 2011, to compose the book using his handwritten journals.
Although his own deployment informed the action and details of the novel, Tetteh said, "I knew I didn’t want it to be nonfiction." He reflected that given his experience in the Navy, he would have faced special difficulty writing the story as anything but fiction.
Additionally Tetteh remarked that authors can "say in fiction what can’t be said in nonfiction," often finding greater "truth in fiction" than in reality.
Although the novel engages readers in a storyline full of adventure and drama, it is also riddled with introspection and deep questions about life. Through the protagonist’s experiences in the novel, Tetteh ultimately poses a question: “What are you doing to serve others?”
And for Tetteh, the question is not rhetorical. Upon his return from his 2012 tour in Afghanistan, he said, he focused his energies on health care and giving back to his community. The novel is one medium through which Tetteh hopes to affect others, although he recognizes that "we still need to experience truth for ourselves."
Keeping with his revelations from his time in Afghanistan, Tetteh encourages his patients to "never sacrifice the gift" of life each day. One way in which he seeks to better serve all patients is by educating health care providers on the most up-to-date practices and procedures available. He believes in a holistic approach to health care, treating patients’ minds, bodies and spirits as equally important aspects in the healing process.
Tetteh applies this three-pronged holistic approach to more than medical practice, adding that he hopes it affects "patients, policy, speaking" and helping others along the way "to discovery."
While Gifts of the Heart is Tetteh’s first foray into fiction, he expressed his intent to write at least a second, if not also a third book. Tentatively, the second book will be a continuation of Afram’s crisis, Tetteh said, but its call to action and underlying inspirational bent will ultimately be different. He admitted that the rush to complete and publish his first manuscript took a toll on his own mind, body and spirit balance, indicating that as he matures, he is working on his own "focus" – possibly a lesson he will incorporate into his next manuscript.
