Dr Md Tanvirul Islam is a medical doctor who is currently working in the NHS. He possesses genuine perspectives and relevant clinical insights in the context of immigrations of ethnic populations. The expertise has primarily stemmed from his frontline clinical experience in Bangladesh. In addition to his clinical competencies, he has a deep understanding of psychosocial and socioeconomic factors affecting the health and wellbeing of the people of Bangladeshi ethnicity.
Dr Md Tanvirul Islam was born in Bangladesh and studied medicine at Cox’s Bazar Medical College. After practicing as a registered medical doctor for couple of years in Bangladesh, he migrated to the UK. He is currently affiliated with a mental health NHS trust in the UK as a Resident Doctor.
His academic training in the clinical field has made him a capable and compassionate doctor. He witnessed one of the biggest and cruellest forced displacements of an ethnic population in the human history that took place against the Myanmar’s Rohingya population, forcing them in Bangladesh in 2017. At then, his medical college served a dominant frontline role in delivering healthcare to the migrants. He volunteered in medical camps and co-ordinated many general aid projects to fight the men-made humanitarian crisis.
His personal interest in different religious and social groups functioning in Bangladesh is also worth noting. He actively engaged with Tablighi Jamat, a non-political social Islamic group, which shaped his understanding of Islam as a religion. He also has current in-depth knowledge on different socio-political establishments running in Bangladesh.
In the last decade, he witnessed and experienced the highly controversial ruling of Sheikh Hasina and her party, Bangladesh Awami League, in Bangladesh. He closely observed the activities of Bangladesh Students League, also known as Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of Hasina’s ruling party, throughout his years in medical school. Recently, Hasina’s tenure in Bangladesh was criticised heavily in global media for allegations of violating human rights.
As a doctor, Dr Md Tanvirul Islam has a solid grip of both physical and mental health issues. His capability of holistic thinking as a clinician shaped mostly because of his active role as a Medical Officer in a rural hospital in Bangladesh. This also enabled him being a direct witness of life in rural and sub-urban Bangladesh. His direct involvement as an aid worker during the mass migration of Rohingya population in 2017, his active engagement with non-political religious groups in Bangladesh, and being born and having lived in a migrant-predominant district in Bangladesh – all of these further added perspectives in his mind to have a genuine understanding of physical and mental health particularly in contexts of migration, family dynamics, religion, politics and other social factors.
In consultations and medical encounters, doctors receive pieces of information from each patient, which enables them to understand complex social issues, to gauge macro to micro changes in society and to spot factors influencing those changes. The constant exposure to ethno-psycho-social issues sparked his interest in exploring and researching social, religious, and political factors that have impacts on people's health. Out of his interest and curiosity, he maintains a wide reading on these psychosocial and socioeconomic factors and therefore he can produce expert opinions.
One of the most notable expert opinions given by Dr Islam was commenting on a patient who was struggling to meet the basic requirement of English language skills for joining their family in the UK. He evaluated the patient and identified their learning disability. He also spotted adversities during their early childhood which further complicated their learning disability. He provided an expert opinion based on their circumstances, which helped the patient obtain an exemption from the mandatory English language requirement.