The Inspiring Journey of Osama Shobokshi: Overcoming Challenges to Become a Doctor

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In the port of Hijaz, which the Rightly-Guided Caliph Othman bin Affan, may God be pleased with him, made it a port for Makkah, and a gateway to the ancient house, in Jeddah, specifically, in one of its historical lanes, “Al-Mazloum Alley.” , corresponding to Friday, December 5, 1944.
Among the alleys of Jeddah, Osama grew up, in a city of great diversity, rich in human beings, in a middle-income family, the head of which works as a government employee, who soon rose to the chief of police in the city.

So that ironing is not the first treatment… the journey of the disease
He was a quiet, skinny boy, always exposed to ill health, remembering in his childhood the journey with his maternal uncles, the Linjawi family, to Medina, which he enjoyed its spirituality, and visited its lush gardens, but he slipped in a pool of water in one of its gardens, and after being rescued, he had a severe cough, which required him to call. The folk doctors on him, so they treated him with cauterization! Not once, not two, but thirty-six times, he counted it with a burning sensation, remembering the day the “popular doctor” who supervised him decided to add to the cauterization the medicine (isolation), and nothing saved him from this physical and psychological torment, except that his father traveled with him to Lebanon To deposit him in a tuberculosis clinic in Brummana, where he was treated for what was discovered to be just pneumonia! This tragic experience had a psychological impact that nurtured in him the desire to become a doctor, leading his patient to treatment easily, without cauterization.

To the monks’ schools in Khartoum… and Choueifat in Lebanon, then Victoria in Alexandria!
At the age of six, his uncle sent him to Sudan, accompanied by his cousin Hisham Salih Shabashki, where they will study at Comboni College in Khartoum, in a missionary boarding school, where he lives with the monks and priests, so that his knees were swollen from kneeling with the priests!
Then he went to Lebanon to seek knowledge, in the Choueifat School, and the boy from Khartoum was admitted to a section with girls, which aroused his reservations, and he recalls that he lived in a dormitory with three female students from the honorable homes of the homeland, who were sympathetic to him and his cousin, and they watched to nurse him from measles !
Lebanon’s life was joyful and rich, as he was allowed to go out every three weeks, and the “wimdom of Sheikh Muhammad al-Taweel”, who resides in Beirut, would send them a car to drive them to the cinema, so he would watch movies, including the movie Samson and Delilah, which he remembers with pleasure!
He was not, in his wanderings, separated from the homeland, so he recalled, with sorrow, how he received in that year, in Lebanon in 1953, the news of the death of the founder, King Abdulaziz, with sadness and sorrow, knowing the fate of the great man.
Then he went to Victoria College, in Alexandria, to join his older brother, Fawzi Abdel-Meguid, and learned there, in addition to his school lessons, the basics of sports, and won the running competitions for a short distance. Ali Abdul Halim Hafez, and the teachers of the generation. He returned after a year, to join the Seven Palaces Schools, accompanied by his father, the Jeddah Police Director.

Challenges and the path to scholarship passes through gaps and hardships
In my teenage years, the family experienced a deep shock, so the father was excluded from his work, and he left with his wife to Cairo, and with them Osama, who was at the end of the preparatory period, and when he joined the second year of secondary school, he was destined to return to the Kingdom to enroll in Al-Thaghar Model School, hoping that he would receive a scholarship study, and in this toil, he used to repeat:
It is the world that says with fullness in it, beware, beware of my tyranny and lethality
Osama fluctuates between loneliness and tears, which have become, as al-Mutanabbi says, “a characteristic of the departed.” His grief over the separation of his parents tears his heart, which was reflected in a decrease in his grades in high school, which deprived him of the opportunity to study abroad, and Osama Shobokshi was not , the first to prevent circumstances, between him and what he aspires to. As he cites:
And he who has not tasted the sweetness of time and its bitterness is nothing but a reckless, rebellious pulp
In an interview with colleague Abd al-Rahman al-Mansur, twenty years ago, in Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, Osama Shobokshi says:
“My result in high school was weak, which did not qualify me for scholarships, and I was the one who sought it. I tried in every way and did not succeed, and for this purpose my father, may God have mercy on him, came from his residence in Egypt, so we came to Riyadh in the trunk of a lorry belonging to the post office. In a blazing summer, my father was confident in the help of one of his friends, a former minister, we arrived in Riyadh in a miserable state of thirst and hunger, and dust covered our faces, and as soon as we arrived at the door of the house of whom my father believed to be his friend, to perform the duty of hospitality, and then We offered him our need, until the guard of his residence initiated the question, and before he returned to us again, we would hear the “father’s friend” rebuking his servant, and ordering him not to allow us to enter the house under the pretext of his non-existence. I suffered and regretted when my father was disappointed in who he said was his friend. The funny thing is that his father’s friend, the same minister, will visit Dr. Osama is the dean of the Faculty of Medicine, to serve, but after years, it is true that he will not find from Osama anything but nobility and help, but the lesson he has is that the days are coming!
Osama Shobokshi tells colleague Mufeed Al-Nuwaisir, in the “From Zero” program, how his father tried to borrow the amount necessary for his son’s education from relatives and friends, and he did not succeed in obtaining any relief, so he took out his golden watch, which was the last of the debris he owned. the world, and he said to Osama with a smile: “I study with it, but it whitens my face!” Osama swears, between himself, that he will go to Germany, and return as a doctor, or a corpse in a coffin!

To Germany as a student… Diligence is the dowry of his father’s face
Osama traveled to Germany, and re-studyed high school, so that he would be able to enter the Faculty of Medicine with a high score, and there, where there is a difference in language, religion, environment, and climate, and where living is hard, Osama shares with a Turkish colleague, living in a cramped, cold room, eating bread with sugar and butter, and they took turns, day after day, to drink soup in the university cafeteria!
Whenever the opportunity arose, Osama used to work, with whatever hard work he could, as he had a persistent determination, as he studied medicine, and what is difficult is a study that drains thinking and time, then he works, to earn his living, as a tractor driver in a farm, and a sharp iron can carrier in a factory Biscuits again, an ice cream seller when summer comes, a worker in a submarine factory, and the loud sounds of equipment damaged his left ear, which completely lost its effectiveness. His colleagues in the biscuit factory would throw some cans on the ground, because the system dictates that what falls from them is not returned to the production line, so they used to collect it for him at the end of the “working hours”, so that he would eat from it and benefit from the work wages that came to him for his needs. He cites the tongue as saying to himself:
You want to manage your highness cheap and it is necessary without the witness of bee’s needles
The difficulties of studying in Germany were not able to discourage Osama Shobokshi, who was accepted to study medicine out of four thousand, only 180 of whom succeeded. Students, for a physics exam, we expected that we would enter a lecture hall with hundreds of students, so I found myself alone in the face of the subject examiner, my other colleagues withdrew from behind me after they knew him, and it turned out to me later that the one who examined me was Professor Otohan, who received an award Nobel Prize in Physics, and it was one of the most difficult exams, but God decreed for me to come up with the correct answers and I got an excellent grade with honors in that exam.
The hard way, Osama Shobokshi studied, so that his classmates used to adjust their watches to the times of lighting his room, then he was patient.
And he says:
To make the difficulty easier or realize the desire, hopes were not saved except for Saber
Tarfa tells that in the bachelor exams at the level of the state of Bavaria, the dean announced at that time that a German woman from the eastern part, her name was OSSANA SAOBOKSHI, had obtained the best score at the state level. .

Sweet harvest leaves.. and return to sowing for a sweeter harvest
Then Dr. Osama returned to the country with his head held high, and entered his father in the “Bakhashab” building, and with him the German attaché, who translated the bachelor’s degree for Sheikh Abdul Majeed.
Sheikh Hassan bin Abdullah Al Al-Sheikh insisted on Osama to return to specialize in internal diseases, so he returned to Germany, toiling with unlimited ambition, working in its hospitals, and completing the requirements for applying for doctoral exams, at the University of Erlangen, after he trained at Leonberg Teaching Hospital, He describes it as one of the most beautiful days of his life, but despite that he refused tempting offers to stay in Germany, naturalize and work there for a long time, and commented on that, saying:
And how to enjoy life or recover from sleep
Whose body is in a country and his heart is in a country

At King Abdulaziz University, as a lecturer, teaching assistant, deputy director
He returned to his country in 1976, equipped with a high-end education, both a doctor and a philosopher, to work at King Abdulaziz University, after he dealt with the problem of non-recognition of the German specialty, and spent about 18 months dealing with the issue, then Dr. Osama Shobokshi began a long career in public service, A university professor, then a dean of the university’s College of Medical Sciences, a supervisor of the university hospital, and a vice-president of the university for postgraduate studies and scientific research, before King Fahd issued a royal order to appoint him as the director of King Abdulaziz University. The eyes of the man, who has become remarkable, travels with ministers, in delegations, and gets acquainted with officials in his purely academic and professional capacity, and he did not think in his mind that he would have more than the gains for his university and the Faculty of Medicine, and after 18 years of work, Dr. Osama was broadcast as Minister of Health, After he qualified for the Royal Trust, which placed him at the head of one of the most difficult ministries, the Ministry of Health, in 1995!

The Ministry has the genius of dealing with indebtedness
In the ministry, Dr. Osama Shobokshi takes a firm course with himself and with the workers under his supervision, starting with the undersecretaries of the ministry, passing through all the administrative and technical staff, and not ending with the nurses. Explaining his firm behavior, Shobokshi says: “I repeat that I am entrusted with the health of the rulers. Citizens and residents of the country, so from the absolute meaning of trust, I pursue every small and large with the officials in the ministry, and I record daily notes on papers that I carry with me wherever I go, and I follow them up carefully with the officials or those assigned to the subject.
The accumulated problems were standing in front of him, as the ministry needed renewal, and he could not change its structure suddenly, so he resorted to attracting academic competencies, so he requested the loan of elite doctors from Saudi universities: King Saud University, King Faisal University, and King Abdulaziz University, and housing them in jobs and committees as a solution to the problem of lack of There are vacant leadership positions. He also sought to solve the ministry’s billion-dollar indebtedness, which exceeded the ministry’s budget, so he led a graceful and intelligent plan, which ended with the ministry’s debts being paid, and workers’ arrears paid, within only four years. He was not satisfied with that, but sought to improve the environment, salaries and incentives, saying:
The teacher and the doctor are both not advised if they are not honored
So be patient with your illness, if you become unwell, his physician, and be patient with your ignorance, if you become unwell, a teacher
Dr. Osama Shobokshi spent eight years as Minister of Health, during which the ministry captured his thinking and attention, as he used to spend the clouds of his day, and return home exhausted, to rest, in preparation for a new stressful day. Rather, in the dead of the night, he makes inspection tours of hospitals and medical centers, unarmed, without a headband, and without a driver, but in a taxi.
Throughout his years of service as Minister of Health, Dr. Shobokshi has been keen to maintain his fitness, as a practicing physician, who receives his patients in his clinic, in the Riyadh Medical Complex, on certain days of the week. After eight years, in the ministry chair, Dr. Osama Shobokshi leaves the minister seat. But he does not leave the doctor’s chair!

After the ministry.. to medicine again
After completing his work in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Osama Shobokshi returns as a physician at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Jeddah, receiving his patients three days a week. In a gesture, many “Excellences” loathe to initiate it. Shobokshi understood that ministry is not a profession, but rather an assignment, and assignment does not cancel the profession, and does not make its owner inferior to others, as the value of a person is what he improves.
It does not take much time before Dr. Osama Shobokshi is appointed ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Germany, so he returns to the country he went to before as a student, and he spends eleven years representing his country in the best way.
Then Dr. Osama asks the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques to allow him the opportunity to rest, after tens of years, in public service, in the various locations in which he served the country, and left his distinctive mark on his students, patients, and subordinates.
On March 31, 2023, and following the deterioration of his health condition, Dr. Shobokshi surrendered his soul to its owner, so tongues prayed for him and raised palms to ask God for mercy for him.
Karim, beautiful in manners, manners, and praise
Hamid al-Sajaya, the keeper of cordiality and covenant
On his happy face, a thousand greetings
From God you bring peace and hail

The great man… the role model
Osama Shobokshi wrote his book “Standons and Testimonies” in Berlin in 2015, and issued it in the dedication saying: “Memories I write that may be of help to young people so that they know that there is no despair with life.” And whoever reads his testimony realizes that Dr. Osama Shobokshi, the skilled doctor and the resolute minister, The polite ambassador, the educated philosopher, and the brilliant academic is a great man. He makes us reflect on the features of the men of Saudi Arabia, who deserve to be praised by the pens of writers, and to be covered by the lenses of satellite channels. Those who are ascending are guided by them on the rises of public service, and are nourished by walking in their footsteps, so that they may come home from the remembrance of these great men, with a plug, or find guidance in the wake of their steps.
The Saudi ambassador to the UAE

2023-08-12 18:45:00

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