The missing patient file: Kurdish health in the US

In 1996, I took my first steps in a U.S. safe haven in Guam, where Kurdish refugees were temporarily housed after fleeing a violent regime in Başûr (the northern region of Iraq). A few decades later, I walked across a stage to accept my white coat, made an oath and began my training in medicine.

In between those milestones, I navigated the U.S. healthcare system as a patient, as a translator for my parents, a researcher and an advocate. Those roles shaped my understanding of one truth—we need better education on Kurdish health and refugee health.

Before starting medical school, I often witnessed how difficult it was for Kurdish patients to access care. A doctor’s visit rarely ended in the clinic; it often continued with a stop at the corner store for an international phone card, followed by a call back home to Kurdistan to reach a doctor who spoke the same language.

It was a last attempt to understand a diagnosis or treatment plan that had been lost in translation. This experience is not unique to my family; it is a familiar story to Kurds and other refugee communities across the United States.

These workarounds are not just personal anecdotes; they reflect systemic gaps. Many hospitals lack interpreter services for Kurdish languages, leaving children to translate for their parents in medical settings where no interpreters are available. Children should not have to carry the responsibility of interpreting complex medical conversations, where accuracy, privacy and informed decision-making are essential.

This unfamiliarity can lead to small, subtle differences in care, like how doctors explain diagnoses or discuss treatment options, affecting understanding, comfort and trust, even when both patient and clinician have the best intentions.

For some Kurdish patients, experiences with migration, displacement or interrupted access to healthcare may also shape how they interact with the healthcare system, yet these parts of a patient’s history can be easy to overlook in routine care.

Improving quality of care

As a future osteopathic physician, I believe we can do better. A healthcare system that serves Kurdish and refugee patients begins with visibility. We need data collection that recognizes Kurds as a distinct group, expanded interpreter services and medical curricula that include refugee health and cultural humility. We must also lean into the osteopathic commitment to whole-person care, recognizing that health is shaped not only by disease, but by language, family, culture and community.

Visibility begins with asking the right questions. Health systems can move beyond broad racial and ethnic categories by giving patients more specific options to identify their ethnicity and preferred language.

For Kurdish patients, being counted as Kurdish rather than being absorbed into a broader racial category could help reveal health needs that currently remain hidden. Institutions can offer more inclusive demographic fields so that a patient’s language and cultural background are not lost within broader categories.

Language access is another practical place to start. Kurdish-speaking patients should have access to qualified medical interpreters when they need them, rather than having to rely on family members to communicate important medical information. Physicians can recognize when a language barrier is affecting care and use the interpreter resources available to them, while health systems can work toward including Kurdish among the languages they support.

Medical education can also prepare future physicians to care for refugee and immigrant patients. Educators can coach trainees on when to ask about a patient’s background, barriers to care or experiences that may shape how they interact with the healthcare system.

Expanding the number of Kurdish physicians in the U.S. is another important step. Many Kurdish patients go their entire lives without encountering a clinician who speaks their language or understands their cultural background.

Greater representation can help reduce miscommunication, strengthen trust and create more opportunities for culturally responsive care. Training and supporting more Kurdish medical students isn’t just about representation—it’s about building a workforce that can meet patients where they are, reduce dependence on improvised solutions and create care spaces where Kurdish patients feel safe and understood.

Finally, whole-person care requires understanding that patients do not leave their lives at the exam room door. Language, family, culture and past experiences with healthcare can all influence how someone understands their health and makes medical decisions.

We do not need to know everything about a patient’s background to care for them well. We simply need to be willing to ask when it matters, listen to the answer and allow that context to inform the care we provide. This is the kind of whole-person approach that drew many of us to osteopathic medicine in the first place.

A community defined by its strength

There are hopeful signs that we are seeing within the Kurdish American community and through growing Kurdish medical student and professional networks. Supported by these networks, more Kurdish American students are entering the healthcare professions.

Community organizations are creating health education materials in Kurdish. Clinics that partner with trusted community leaders are beginning to bridge longstanding gaps in trust. These meaningful actions are the first steps in making the U.S. healthcare system more welcoming to Kurdish patients.

As I continue through my medical training, I carry more than my own white coat. I carry the stories of Kurdish parents navigating a system that often doesn’t see or understand them, and of Kurdish families whose resilience has carried them through displacement, migration and the challenge of rebuilding their lives in a new country.

The Kurdish community has always been defined by its strength, reflected in close family ties, multilingual generations and a deep tradition of mutual support. Healthcare systems should complement that resilience rather than depend on it. My hope is that Kurdish patients, and others like them, will enter clinics where they are fully seen, fully understood and fully cared for.

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