For 38 years, Dr Yusuf K Dawood won for himself a large loyal followers for his prolific Surgeon’s Diary column on Sunday Nation newspaper, and on Sunday, fans condoled with his family and friends after news of demise spread.
He was born in India on September 13, 1928 in a family of five brothers and a sister. This was before the bloody separation of of 1947 that saw creation of Pakistan that saw his family divided right in the middle by a senseless international border. He came to Kenya in 1961 where he launched his surgery career at the Aga Khan Hospital. In 1975, he was appointed the hospital’s executive director.
His work, experience and unique writing skill enabled his fans to interact closely with him through his articles, treating his readers to a ‘medical sermon’ every Sunday.
Dr Dawood was a committed member of Rotary, and was once the president of all Rotary clubs in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia.
In one of his articles, Dr Dawood told an interviewer that he had four wives: surgery, Rotary, writing and Marie Dawood. However, the order in which he mentioned the ‘four wives’ in his response nearly got him in trouble with Marie, he added.
“I thought I had been smart in the response… until I got home and found to my horror that Marie had watched the live interview. She met me at the door and confronted me. ‘I don’t mind being one of your four wives because the other three are inanimate, but I do object to your pecking order!’”
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