SHE restored the dignity of life to so many of her patients. It is tragic that Dr Naseem Salahuddin should have suffered the cruel indignity of death. Dr Naseem had gone to attend a WHO meeting in Morocco. She and her husband Dr Iftikhar Salahuddin were in a car accident, in which she died.

Both were well-known professionally. Dr Iftikhar, an ENT surgeon, is also a skilled photographer turned author. His sumptuous illustrated publications included Jerusalem: A Journey Back in Time (2013), If Stones Could Speak: Echoes from the Past (2016), and Persia: Land of Emperors and Kings (2023).

Dr Naseem’s own book — Among My Own: The Untold Stories of My People (2022) — is modest by comparison, more intimate. Its 260 pages covered 56 case studies out of the countless patients she had treated during her long career as an infectious disease specialist. At another level, her book read like a social commentary on contemporary Pakistan — its class divisions, the foibles of the hypochondriac rich, the helpless poor trapped between crushing poverty and brittle conventions.

Dr Naseem’s inspiration the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov (also a physician), wrote: “Each life lives again in me.” Each of the cases she described yielded a parable........

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