Name: Gaza Doctor (Aziz Rahman, MD) | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #602
Uploaded: 2025-08-12T03:49:26.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Gaza Doctor (Aziz Rahman, MD) | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #602' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Gaza Doctor (Aziz Rahman, MD) | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #602' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2025-08-12. Transcript available.

Gaza Doctor (Aziz Rahman, MD) | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #602

Today's guest is a doctor from Wisconsin who recently returned from a two-week
medical mission
trip in Gaza where he provided aid at one of the last functioning hospitals
there.
We're going to talk about all of it, the tragedy, the ups, the downs, the diabolicalness,
the hope. I am very grateful for his time. This episode can get a bit intense
or a bit graphic
at times, so if that's not for you, then this may not be for you. Today's guest
is Dr. Aziz Rahman.
Dr. Rahman, thanks for joining me today, man.
Thanks for having me, especially on short notice.
Yeah, I appreciate it, man. We'll just get right into it. You did a service in,
you're a doctor?
Yes.
Okay, and you just did a service in Gaza, and how did they say it there?
They say Gaza, but you can say Gaza. I was saying Gaza when I was there.
Yeah?
Yeah, it worked out.
Cool.
I came back.
What hospital were you stationed at over there?
So Nasser Hospital.
Okay.
You probably heard on the news that it's the last functioning hospital in Gaza,
and it truly is. There's other smaller hospitals, but they're really not
functioning at a scale of a hospital.
And how do you get chosen to go there? You live in Milwaukee, and you doctor
out of Milwaukee currently?
That's right, yeah.
So you go through your own hospital to do it?
No, this has nothing to do with my hospital. In fact, I didn't even tell my
hospital I was going.
You didn't.
I just told one of my colleagues. He helped me with my schedule, and I reached
out to one of these organizations, and then they reached out back to me when
there was a spot available.
And they told me, hey, we got this spot available in two months. Are you
willing to go?
And when I got that invitation from them, I was on a plane back to my family,
and I was like, man, how am I going to tell my wife, my kids, my mom, my dad?
And so that's all I was thinking, you know? And yeah, I landed. The kids were
put to sleep, went to my wife, and I was like, hey, let's go have some cup of
coffee.
And I was like, hey, I have this opportunity. She's like, it's Gaza. And I was
like, God, how'd you know?
She knew, huh?
She knew because, you know, this has been going on for so long, you know?
And I've been talking about it at work. I've been talking about it with my
friends, what I would call, and many would call a genocide, even though it hasn't
legally been defined.
I mean, it hurts, man. I found myself coming home from work, you know, after a
good day's work, but just unhappy, you know?
I was just like, man, like, there's kids dying out there, you know?
I'm taking care of these adults, you know, with alcoholic cirrhosis, you know?
They made these decisions to their liver, for example, you know?
But these kids, they are innocent, right?
And so, and then I come home and see my children running up to me, asking me to
play video games with them, watch TV, have some snacks.
I'm sorry, this dichotomy is so hard to, like, reconcile.
And so when I got this invitation, it was almost like this opportunity to, like,
decompress, if that makes any sense, in the war zone.
And it's weird, right? It's like a paradox.
Like, why the hell would you decompress in a war zone?
But I almost needed to do something with my hands.
And, you know, I'm a proceduralist as a background in medicine, so I like to do
things with my hand, right?
What does proceduralist mean?
Yeah, so I'm an interventional radiologist.
I actually was the first interventional radiologist to go to Gaza in the world.
And it's one of the newest specialties in medicine where we use image guidance
to do basically, like, minimally invasive procedures.
Okay.
So, like, for example, historically, if you have a big, you know, infection in
your stomach, they would incise your, you know, your abdomen open and take, you
know, drain the infection.
So, now we could just take a CAT scan and put a drain right through your skin
into it.
So, instead of a one-hour procedure, it's five minutes.
Okay.
You know, and you don't have to stay in the hospital.
You don't have to get sutures.
And there's, you know, you can basically take clots out of the arteries of the
legs for diabetics.
And it's a whole different specialty.
It's actually the newest specialty in medicine.
I think it was officially credentialed, I think, in 2013 when I was graduating
medical school.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, you have to tell your wife.
She signs off.
How long after that are you on a plane to go to Gaza?
Two months later, I'm on a plane to Amman, Jordan.
So, you're still not, even though I got permission from my family, I have not
gotten permission from the authorities that be.
And you might ask who that is.
So, that's Israel.
Israel makes all final decisions about who comes in and who comes out.
As you know, international journalists are not allowed in.
In fact, doctors are pretty much, healthcare workers are essentially the only
people allowed in.
And even that is extremely scrutinized.
So, we had 22 applicants for this two-week medical mission that we were on.
And only six of us got in.
So, you had 22 applicants.
What do you mean?
That just had applied for it?
Yeah.
22 physicians across the world for this two weeks were intending to come.
And the organization I went with was Rahmah Worldwide.
They're based in Michigan.
And they basically over-accept people knowing that there's about a 75%
rejection rate.
So, after all that rejection, like some people flew in from the UK, some people
flew in from Egypt, and they just flew right back after they got the denial
letter.
In Jordan, you mean?
In Jordan.
So, you have to be there because you find out if you're in or out 12 hours
before we go in.
So, 7 a.m., for example, on a Thursday morning where the bus is waiting for us
in front of the hotel, well, you have to be there by 10 p.m.
And that's when we get the Excel document that shows us for in or out, you know?
And so, some of you staff don't know until right there in Jordan if you're
getting approved or not, like if you made the team.
Yeah, that's every physician.
Got it.
Yeah.
So, you have to go all the way there, all that, and then you still might not
make it?
Yeah.
Even after you get accepted, you still might not make it because now you have
to go through Jordanian checkpoint, then you have to go through the Israeli
checkpoint, and then after you get through the Israeli checkpoint, then there's
a Gaza checkpoint.
And so, what would be a three-hour journey if there was no checkpoints, it
takes about 14 to 16 hours.
Okay.
Yeah.
Wow.
And does Palestine have a say in who it lets in?
Like, is there a Palestinian authority also that you go through?
There's no border crossing that you have to go through through Palestinian
governance that determines if you can go in and out.
It's all Israeli and Jordanian.
Okay, got it.
Yeah.
Jordanian just gets you through into the Israeli side, and then Israeli
authorities basically, you know, check your bags,
and, you know, do all your background checks, check your passport, and then
they give you a little document saying you can go.
So, take me through, like, your first day arriving at the hospital.
So, we left at 7 a.m. Amman, and we got to a safe house, like 11 p.m. or
something along those lines,
and they fed us some pita bread and hummus, and they apologized for not having
any real food, like meat and whatnot.
So, we didn't actually get to the hospital until the following morning, so
Friday morning.
Okay.
So, about 24 hours after we left Amman, Jordan.
And is there, like, are, like, hopes high?
Is there, like, excitement?
Like, what are some of the energy going on at that point?
Are you guys just exhausted?
Yeah, so the six of us, this was our first time going to Gaza.
Some people have been multiple times.
Oh, we were excited, man.
We were like, we're going to save Gaza.
We are going to do it.
And it was a fun group.
We were all there for the same mission, for the same intentions.
I had a five-month-old baby that I left behind.
One of the guys had a six-month-old baby, and the other guy one-upped us and
had, like, a two-week-old baby.
And I'm like, dude, what's wrong with you, man?
Dude, you got to see.
It's a little soon to be leaving.
It is, right?
Yeah.
But somehow, our wives all let us go, right?
So we kind of bonded over that, too.
Got it.
But the energy was high.
The energy was high.
And how many doctors are at the hospital that you're working at?
Oh, man, that's tough to answer.
Hundreds, okay?
The reason for that is because there's another hospital, a major hospital in Kanyun,
it's called European General Hospital.
Okay.
And that just got blown to smithereens kind of before June, before we went.
And, you know, they were saying there's a Hamas operative in the tunnel.
So they basically dropped the bunker buster in front of the European General
Hospital and basically shut that down.
So all those doctors, all those nurses, essentially got shunted to Nasser
Hospital.
So now there's an overabundance of some doctors at Nasser Hospital.
But, you know, as we can get into, there is a systemic targeting of specialized
physicians in Gaza.
So, for example, there's only two neurosurgeons, you know?
And so there are some specialties that are lacking.
And what do you mean a systemic targeting?
So if you look at UN data, about 500 physicians and nurses have been killed.
A thousand have been injured.
I think 300 are still in custody.
There's one of the hospital directors.
He's a pediatrician, Abu Safiya, Hussam Abu Safiya.
He's been in jail since December.
No charges against him.
In America?
No, no, in Gaza.
In Gaza.
Yeah, yeah.
He's an amazing individual.
And I think one of the most iconic pictures of him being arrested is he's the
last person to leave his hospital because he just wouldn't leave the incubated
babies behind.
And once they left, then Israel basically said, come walk to the tanks.
So he's in his white coat in this, like, debris-filled Gaza picture.
And there's two tanks there.
And he gets arrested.
And he's never seen since then.
It's pretty wild, man.
The United Nations Human Rights Office issued a statement on July 16, 2025,
providing data and details regarding the killing of medical professionals in
Gaza.
Look at it since 2023.
Gaza's Ministry of Health reports that at least 15, 1,581 health workers have
been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023.
Oh, my God.
I mean, you know, health care workers in America are probably, like, the most
sacred specialty in society, right?
Like, I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal, but I respect my physician.
Right.
Like, my primary care doctor is taking care of me.
I'm going to respect that guy, you know?
So this was a risky choice for you to make to go.
It was.
And, you know, I actually wrote some letters to my kids before I left.
I mean, I was like, I don't know if I'm coming back.
I had the hope I would come back.
But, you know, anything could have happened.
Yeah.
I mean, look at those numbers.
Yeah.
I mean, that's.
I mean, realistically, they're targeting Gazan doctors, Palestinian doctors.
I don't think they would want to target an international, especially American
physician that's just such a PR nightmare.
But has it happened before?
Absolutely.
You know, look in the West Bank.
They just killed an American kid from Florida on vacation there.
Another was the Al Jazeera reporter.
They, you know, they sniped and she died on the spot.
Well, Israel's whole country is a PR nightmare right now, it seems like.
So I wouldn't put anything past them right now, I don't think.
But I just feel like it's very brave of you to go.
Are you guys sleeping at the hospital or what's like?
Yeah.
So there's an international doctor's lounge basically on the top floor.
And all the doctors from the different NGOs kind of sleep in this one area,
whether you're from, you know, America or UK or Australia, whatever.
So, you know, the men have their own call room and then the females have their
own call room.
But then there's this joint space where the local Gazans