After husband's death, she found a way to keep his OKC rheumatology clinic open

Nyla Khan found herself with weighty questions on her hands last year.

Her husband of 26 years, rheumatologist Dr. Mohammad Khan, died in a hunting accident in October 2021. What would become of the Midtown rheumatology clinic he founded? And as the clinic’s only physician, who would care for his patients?

Though she was grieving his sudden death, Nyla Khan couldn’t put the questions on the backburner.

Khan is a humanities professor at Oklahoma City Community College, an author of several books, a frequent public speaker, an accomplished community leader and an advocate against human trafficking. Still, she didn't have a health care background, so the prospect of running a clinic was daunting.

But she ultimately chose to keep the doors open at 1015 N Shartel Ave., which meant stability for her husband’s patients and staff, many of whom had been with the clinic for years.

“I had the choice to either close the practice or keep it going,” she said. “And I chose not just out of respect to him, his passion for his work, but also out of my respect for the underserved population that he had been serving.”

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‘Like family to all of us’

The Khans came to Oklahoma from Kashmir in 1998 on vacation to visit a relative. Oklahoma, which started as a temporary place to visit, eventually became their permanent home — Nyla Khan took the GRE test during the trip and got into a master’s program at OU, and her husband got a research position at the OU Health Sciences Center.

From there, Nyla Khan went on to get her doctorate, and Mohammad Khan got his medical degree.

Mohammad Khan founded the Rheumatic Diseases Clinic of Oklahoma in 2015, where he treated patients with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune diseases.

Today, the clinic’s office on Shartel Avenue has a plaque dedicated to its founder on the wall of the waiting room, adorned with a photo of him, smiling in a pinstripe suit with a red tie and matching pocket square.

Khan was a compassionate physician, a doting, devoted father — and an immaculate dresser, his wife said.

“He treated every single patient as if they were the only person that existed,” said Artia Williams, the clinic’s lead medical assistant.

The doctor gave out his cell phone number to patients, and even fostered friendships with them — going hunting together on weekends or visiting their homes, she said. He cared for his staff and their families, too.

“He was like family to all of us,” Williams said.

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‘This was my home’

In the wake of her family’s tragedy, friends and loved ones in Oklahoma stepped up, checking in on her and her daughter, offering kind words and encouragement, Nyla Khan said.

“Not for a second did I feel that I was a transplant in Oklahoma,” she said. “This was my home.”

The medical community lent support too: Three rheumatologists — Dr. William Schnitz, Dr. Linda Zacharias and Dr. Keshav Panday — stepped in to supervise staff and serve patients at the clinic.

“There were times when I thought, ‘What in the world have I taken on?’ This was an enormous challenge, because this was a field that I wasn’t familiar with,” Nyla Khan said.

Steeped in a family that values public service — her father was a physician, and her mother is an academic — she found connection between the work and research she’d devoted much of her life to and the world of health care she’d been thrust into.

“As a person who writes books on history, politics, traumas, healing traumas and conflict zones, to jump into running a rheumatology clinic has been incredibly interesting for me,” she said. “But what I’ve realized is that it’s all about respecting the rights of people to lead lives of dignity … being able to extend a helping hand to those in need.”

In spite of the challenges, the patients have made the work worthwhile, she said.

“All of them have been incredibly kind,” she said. “They hold my hand, thank me for keeping the doors of this practice open. They tell me how grateful they are that they can still come here to be treated.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC rheumatology clinic stays open after founding physician's death