EP 53: Belonging, Sparkplug & Purpose with Dr. Nasrien E. Ibrahim

Parallax by Ankur Kalra

“It was this sense of finally belonging somewhere that sparked my journey to self-love.” -Nasrien E. Ibrahim, Sparkplug Being an advanced heart failure and transplant specialist compelled Dr. Ibrahim to look at life from a different perspective: “With transplants you are seeing the extremes of life and death.” Dr Ankur Kalra’s guest is Dr Nasrien Ezzeldin Ibrahim, Director of Heart Failure Clinical Research at Inova Heart and Vascular Institute and the writer of SPARKPLUG: The Roadmap to Confidently Ignite and Navigate Your Career Without Compromising Your Dreams. Dr Nasrien E. Ibrahim left Saudi Arabia and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio at age 15, because her expatriate parents wanted to provide the best educational opportunities for their four Sudanese-Egyptian children. The move was heart-breaking for Nasrien, and it took years for her to feel a sense of belonging. In this candid episode of Parallax, Nasrien and Ankur open up about their experiences of being an immigrant. Ankur asks Nasrien about her journey to medicine. Nasrien shares the lessons she took away from her years under the mentorship of Dr JoAnn Lindenfeld and later, Dr. James Januzzi. Finally, Nasrien shares her recent experience of writing Sparkplug and how she embraced life with its imperfections and found her purpose. What were the formative experiences of Dr Nasrien E. Ibrahim? What does she think about charity? And what is her message to our listeners? Questions and comments can be sent to “[e-mail]” and may be answered by Ankur in the next episode. Guest @DrNasrien, hosted by @AnkurKalraMD. Produced by @RadcliffeCARDIO. Brought to you by Edwards: www.edwardstavr.com