Doctor retiring after 38-plus years
Wendy Alexander/The Madera Tribune
Dr. Mazhar Javaid, right, is joined by his family, from left, Roohi, Nadia and Omair at the 50 year anniversary celebration of Madera Community Hospital on October 15.
For the past two years, Dr. Mazhar Javaid has been preparing for the moment that took place last week — retirement.
Javaid worked his final day in Madera and Madera Community Hospital on Dec. 21 and will head into semi-retirement. He has three clinics, but will just work at one, and that will be on a part-time basis.
“I have been preparing myself for the last couple of years,” Javaid said. “I was getting spread out between my three clinics so I had to make some decisions to when I needed to cut back on my practice. Now, I have decided since we will have a new doctor join us in Madera. He joined us in the Fresno practice. Now it’s time to stop from these two places. I will work part-time in Salinas. That place has some sentimental value for me. We started that clinic from scratch. Now, it’s a big sleep center. I want to continue that for a couple of years.”
Javaid moved from Virginia to start a practice in Madera in June, 1982, almost 39 years ago.
“After I finished my fellowship, I joined a group in Virginia,” he said. “There were two other lung specialists. I didn’t not like where I was.”
Javaid came to California on the advice of a couple of medical school classmates.
“I came here when Madera was a small town,” he said. “I decided to settle here because where I came from in Virginia, there were two hospitals. My practice is more hospital-based. I was running between the two hospitals all day long. I decided if I went to any place, I would go to a place with just one hospital. This was ideal from that kind of view.”
Since moving to Madera, he’s only a 10 minute drive away and it’s convenient to see his patients up to three times a day.
“My work was mostly in the ICU,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to be in one location. Those patients are very sick. Sometimes you have to run to the hospital right away. Now, my office is on the hospital premises. Sometimes, during the day, I will go out the back door, take care of the patient, come back and my patients wouldn’t even know I was gone. That was very rewarding for me now that I don’t have to run.”
One of the things Javaid is most proud of is that he has been able to take care of almost every patient that walks through his door.
“I think I can count on one hand of how many people we had to transfer because we couldn’t take care of the patient,” he said. “I didn’t have the handicap that we can’t take care of the patient. My puliminary practice, we have everything we need to take care of the patients. From that point, it has become very rewarding. We were a part of the community. All of my children were born here and are a part of the community. I cannot thank God enough.”
Although Javaid was getting lured to Fresno, he stood his ground and planted his roots in Madera and his dedication to the town began to grow.
“I came here and wanted to meet other pulminologists in the area,” he said. “There weren’t any here, but there were some in Fresno. I met them and they both told me, ‘What are you doing in Madera?’ One thing I knew, if I started my practice in Fresno, I wold be commuting from St. Agnes and Fresno Community all day long. I just came from that situation. At that time, there wasn’t Highway 41. I told them I wanted to work in Madera for a couple of years. Every time I would see them in a meeting, they asked when I would start in Fresno. Thank God, after a couple of years, the practice was fine. After that, I never thought of moving to any place.”
Javaid said he will miss everything about being a doctor with retirement, however, the thing he will miss the most is the interaction he has with people at the hospital and at his practice.
“I will miss the socialization with the physicians and the staff,” he said. “That’s an important part. My first stop at the hospital is the X-ray department. Many of my patients, they get X-rays quite frequently. I go to them first and talk to them. That will be the part I will be missing. I hope they don’t my hospital badge away from me. I still want to go to the doctor’s lounge and socialize with my colleagues once in a while.”
Javaid said that his practice grew quickly, and he was able to add another doctor 21 years ago. He found a new doctor to take his place, so he wants to ensure his patients that the practice will be fine.
“About 21 years ago, I got a pulminoligist with me,” he said. “We have been practicing together. That was a big decision, also. When you join a new practice, people have a new way of practicing medicine. Thank God, between the two of us, for 21 years, we worked together fine. That has been a blessing. Now, for the past two years, I have been trying to find another doctor if I leave. After quite a bit of struggle, we have gotten a new doctor. He has been a doctor in Fresno for 16 years. He will be joining this practice part-time. Hopefully, they will have full coverage. We will have two doctors at this practice. We are trying to get a nurse practitioner at the office so the office will run fine.”
After 38-plus years in the Madera community, he feels accepted and hopes he has treated people the right way. He points to an outing with his daughter to show how much he was welcomed in Madera.
“This is a very nice community,” he said. “I feel very at home. My daughter, when she was in high school, wanted to do volunteer work at the hospital and they have to have white pants. One morning, we got up and went to different stores to find white pants. We went to a few stores and couldn’t find any. After a while, she wanted to go home. I told her there were more stores or we can go to Fresno. She said, ‘Dad, didn’t you know?’ She said this was the 17th person that said good morning to you and shook hands with you. That means in those four or five stores, there were so many people we knew that they were stopping me and we were talking. This is the type of community that I am a part of. I live here and will continue to live here. You feel at home. People are nice. I haven’t had any problems. I hope I haven’t hurt anybody in in a social manner. If I was rude to anyone, I apologize. What we learn from home, my mom would never want me to be rude to anybody. Same with my children and wife. Sometimes, I would be working at the office and they would say they saw my family. I would come home and know where they were. It has been very gratifying. I am very thankful for the community for treating us well. We are a part of the community here.”
