Rachel Hajar

Rachel Hajar is a Doctor of Medicine and a cardiologist in Qatar. She was born in the Philippines where she obtained a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Santo Tomas and Doctor of Medicine from the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Medical School.

She continued her postgraduate medical training in the United States where she specialized in cardiology and met her husband, a Qatari cardiologist, the former Minister of Health in Qatar. She is currently Director of Non-Invasive Cardiology at Hamad Medical Corporation in Doha, Qatar and editor-in-chief of Heart Views, the cardiovascular journal of the Gulf Heart Association. She is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. She has authored and co-authored numerous scientific publications.

She is the author of My Life in Doha: Between Dream and Reality, a memoir of her remarkable life in the heart of Arab Islamic culture and society. Raised a Catholic, she left behind her Western ways, plunging into a new world of faith, manners and traditions unlike anything she had ever experienced. In her memoir she describes her exposure to these customs and tells of her first encounter with the black veil and meeting her in-laws. As well, she takes fascinating side trips into the history and literature surrounding incense, the Islamic call to prayer, the marketplace, and compares and contrasts Christian and islamic festivals.With a physician’s eye for detail, she weaves a fascinating tale of how her love story transcended cultural and social habits in a traditionally patriarchal Arab Islamic culture.

Her first book, Echoes from the Past, is an amusing tale of travel with her children in an attempt to introduce them to ancient civilizations.