Rasheed Ahmad was born in Agra, India and moved to Pakistan in 1947 on independence. His father was a station master on the Indian and latterly Pakistani Railways and his mother was a homemaker. He was a pioneer – a physician of remarkable dedication, a force of nature whose energy and compassion left a mark on all who knew him.
He was the third of seven children and took an avid interest in school especially chemistry and physics, so much so that as a teenager he wrote a book on general science, covering the local school curriculum, which was published.
He attended Liaqat Medical College, University of Sindh graduating MB BS in 1966. Rasheed subscribed to a ‘work hard, play hard’ mentality, and when not in the library earning first-class honours in his premedical degree (and ranking third in his year), he was found on the cricket field or exploring the nearby towns on his beloved ex-army World War II era 4.5 HP Norton motorbike.
After early medical experience in Pakistan, he moved to Germany in 1968 having been awarded the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD), a German academic scholarship. Although he had studied German in his spare time as a medical student, he was determined to gain a true grasp of the language, and attended an immersion programme in German at the Goethe Institute in Schwaebisch Hall and Berlin. In 1969 he was awarded the Diploma in Tropical Medicine at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hamburg. It was in Germany that he first became acquainted with nephrology, which was to be his life long passion, in the Department of Medicine, Free University, Berlin and went on to work in the West End Krankenhause. He was determined to contribute to the field of nephrology, and after returning to his homeland to find that it was still too young a speciality to be established within the Pakistani healthcare system, he moved to the UK in 1970.
In the UK, he first worked as a registrar in medicine and nephrology in London at the National Kidney Centre, under the haemodialysis pioneer, Dr Stanley Shaldon, before becoming a Wellcome Research Fellow in clinical pharmacology in Manchester where he graduated MSc (Medicine) with a thesis on renal handling of antibiotics.
In 1973 he became an Associate Specialist in Nephrology & Dialysis at the Liverpool Regional Renal Unit, working with Dr John Goldsmith, where he worked until his retirement in 2005; first at Sefton General Hospital, transferring in the 1980s to the Royal Liverpool Hospital, where in due course he was appointed consultant nephrologist.
He was a committed and innovative clinician and scientist, who regarded his daily work as an honour. He published on many aspects of dialysis and its complications and was strongly focused on optimising long-term haemodialysis care. He invented a dialyser-reuse machine, and a novel single-needle dialysis system, both of which were reliable, robust and widely used. He also designed a portable kidney machine, to enable dialysis patients to travel away from their base dialysis unit. In the hospital, he was committed to supporting his renal team and was known for his ‘fish and chip Fridays’, a weekly lunchtime ritual which involved gathering his entire team on the ward and marching them to the hospital canteen, where they sat together for his favourite greasy treat!
A lifelong learner, he was also a passionate teacher, an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Liverpool. He also lectured on renal medicine in Pakistan as well as in other low and middle income countries in the Middle East and Africa. He also co-chaired the North West Regional Audit Committee for five years.
After retirement, in 2005, he graduated LLM in law, medicine and healthcare, and developed a substantial medicolegal practice.
He spent thirty-five years in Liverpool and was an active member of the community and a proud Liverpudlian. He bled green for his cherished Pakistani cricket team, and red for Liverpool FC.
Rasheed was a dedicated physician, researcher, teacher, sportsman, friend and a treasured colleague, whose energy and compassion left a mark on all who knew him. But above all, he was a family man. He adored bundling first his children, and then his grandchildren, into his car on a sunny summer’s day, and taking them out to enjoy all that life had to offer. He believed that knowing one’s history was the best protector of peace and would demonstrate this on his road trips around the UK and Europe.
After three and a half decades in the North West, Rasheed and his wife Bilquis moved to Buckinghamshire, after her retirement as a general practitioner in Liverpool, to be closer to their children and grandchildren. He continued his medicolegal work and also to advocate for organ donation for kidney transplantation.
Rasheed Ahmed passed away peacefully on 19th January 2022, surrounded by his family. He is survived by his wife, their three children, Inshi, Najeeb and Haseeb, and their six grandchildren, Sanah, Samid, Alayna, Maryam, Alisa and Ayesha.
Haseeb Ahmad, Sanah Ali, John Feehally