San Angelo Oncologist to Share Stories of Cancer Patients in Rural Texas at ASU Event

SAN ANGELO, TX - The Angelo State University Friends of the Library and West Texas Collection will host a special guest presentation by oncologist and author Dr. Fazlur Rahman on Tuesday, March 4, at 4 p.m. in ASU's Porter Henderson Library, 2025 S. Johnson St.

Also an adjunct professor in the ASU Department of Biology, Rahman will speak about his latest book, "Our Connected Lives: Caring for Cancer Patients in Rural Texas," that was published in October 2024 through Texas Tech University Press. His presentation will take place in the Information Literacy Corner on the first floor of the library and is free and open to the public.

A question-and-answer session, book signing and reception will follow Rahman's presentation, and copies of his book will be available for purchase. For interested parties who cannot attend the event, a live-stream option will also be available. Registration for the live stream can be found on the ASU event website.

"Our Connected Lives" is based on Rahman's experiences through 35 years as a respected oncologist in San Angelo. It is filled with compassionate tales that are a blend of storytelling, cancer science, and Rahman's personal reflections and struggles on making medical decisions that treat a patient as a whole person, not just as a person with a disease.

With the grace of a born storyteller, Rahman narrates the instructive stories of five cancer patients: surviving against all odds; walking a long path with cancer and still making a daily life; bearing the crushing burdens of the exorbitant costs of cancer drugs; navigating the vagaries of old age and coping with malignancy; and patients' desire for dignity.

A native of what is now Bangladesh, Rahman completed his medical education in Dhaka, New York and Houston before moving to San Angelo to practice cancer medicine. In addition to his faculty role teaching medical humanities and ethics at ASU, he is a senior trustee of Austin College and a member of the Advisory Council for the Charles E. Cheever Jr. Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He is also a diplomate of the American Board of Medical Oncology, American Board of Hematology and American Board of Internal Medicine.

"Our Connected Lives" is Rahman's second book, following "The Temple Road: A Doctor's Journey" in 2016. He has also contributed editorial pieces and other articles on medical, ethical, social and scientific issues to numerous prestigious publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian Weekly, Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Review, The Lancet, Newsweek and Short Story International. More details are available on his website at fazlurrahmanmd.com.