A Matter of Trust with Geriatric Medicine Physician Nadia Mujahid
One of this year's Top Doctors, geriatric medicine physician Nadia Mujahid, who is also on the cover of the May 2025 issue, shares her experience in the field.
Dr. Nadia Mujahid. Photo by Alex Gagne
Our May 2025 Top Doctors cover star shares her journey into geriatric medicine.
What inspired you to specialize in geriatrics?
I am trained in family medicine, but later decided to go into geriatric medicine. I remember vividly a night when I was a senior resident helping an expecting mom deliver; there were lots of people
and lots of happiness in the room. A thought suddenly came to me: There’s so much happiness surrounding the birth, but there are not as many people and family around when someone dies. That triggered the inspiration. I did electives in geriatric medicine and loved it so much that I wanted to go right ahead into the specialty.
What’s the most important thing to consider when choosing a doctor for geriatrics?
There’s so many different things — from bedside manners to knowing somebody who would be able to communicate well with patients and their family members when things are not going well. It’s very different when things are going in a straight path compared to when things are going to go south — when your loved ones come to the hospital with polytrauma [multiple traumatic injuries], or you have to make those life-changing decisions. It has to be somebody who is able to listen, walk you through and help guide you to make those decisions. That’s more toward the end of life, but it’s so many things, from medical knowledge and availability to communication and trust.
Trust is definitely an important element — it goes hand-in-hand with communication in the event you have to deliver news to the family; it’ll feel more personal if there’s trust.
Absolutely, and it’s not easy to gain trust. It’s not like when a physician says something, it has to be done. From a physician’s standpoint, we should be able to ask questions so that the families are able to think. From a family’s perspective, they should have an open mind to listen to those difficult questions and figure out what mom or dad would have wanted, or what would be the best thing for them in this current situation.
