Thursday, February 5, 2009

In the Land of Invisible Women, A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom

In the Land of Invisible Women  By Qanta A. Ahmed, M.D.        Dr. Ahmed is denied a renewal of her US visa where she has studied and practiced medicine for the past few years. Of Pakistani descent and raised in England, Qanta is quite the woman of the world. This memoir is written about her life at 31, when she accepts an opportunity to work in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The facility is high tech, many of the physicians are U.S. trained and she is looking forward to the exciting adventure of working in this part of the world. Dr. Ahmed is pleased, surprised, apalled and shocked by the many diversities she discovers in this land where one side of the road you may see a camel and the next moment a Porsche zooms on by! She rediscovers her muslim identity and makes a Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, a once in a lifetime dream. She makes many friends from around the world and learns to work in this extreme environment. In the hospital she is an intelligient, outspoken, confident physician saving lives and in the streets she must be covered head to toe and watch very carefully what she says, whom she is with and where she goes. The differences of many worlds clashing together is both a learning process and frustrating experience. Excellent memoir and insight into another country, another world and a brilliant young womans mind.

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