Meet Dr. Ali

By Artina Dozier-Gage

Dr. Ali Abdallah, also known as Dr. Ali, has joined Authority Health as the Family Medicine Attending Physician at the Hope Family Health Center located inside Hope Academy in the Nardin Park community. To say that his appointment at the center has brought about a sense of excitement to not only the clinical staff at Hope, but also to our team here at New Center One is a bit of an understatement.

The surrounding synergy is not just simply a result of the fact that important position of Family Medicine Attending has been filled; it also has a great deal to do with the energy and enthusiasm that Dr. Ali has for his new role and for the patients, both current and future, and for the larger Nardin Park community; a community in which he not only looks to serve, but looks forward to actually becoming a part of as their very own community physician, right there in the neighborhood.

Our excitement for Dr. Ali doesn’t stop at the fact that he’s a highly qualified Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine. It is has to do with his experience and training while as a resident at a Teaching Health Center. The training and experiences gained by resident physicians at Teaching Health Centers, we believe, are critical, playing a key role in rectifying the primary care physician shortage within vulnerable populations. Teaching Health Centers also help with ensuring that physicians have the right mindset or perspective and a certain level of understanding of the culture and community members in which they’ll be serving. Dr. Ali later went on to serve as a physician at a Federally Qualified Health Center at Family Health Centers of San Diego further demonstrating his commitment to community medicine and to providing quality healthcare to underserved communities.

Dr. Ali’s interesting background doesn’t stop here and nor does our excitement and appreciation for it. He’s also an artist. Earning a B.F.A. in Expanded Media, Dr. Ali used his artistic inclination and skillset to create pieces that spoke to the plight and devastation of populations that were affected by war in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan; his work with these populations also reveal an extraordinary humanitarian impulse that further distinguishes him as a physician.

We feel assured that Dr. Ali’s more personal and unique story and background, as a first generation Arab-American immigrant, who was raised in greater Detroit allows him to have a more nuanced understanding of both the plight and insecurities of underserved communities as well as the strength, resilience, and wisdom that they possess, which will undoubtedly allow him to provide more equitable and people-centered care to his patients.

With his experience working at an emergency care hospital in Detroit he “saw disparities first hand,” drawing from those experiences the idea that, “ Everyone deserves the best medical care.”