New Doc ‘American Doctor’ Tells Story Of Healthcare Workers On The Frontlines In Gaza

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This WBEZ podcast is supported by Chicago Humanities, presenting Pilsen Day 2026
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**Sasha-Ann Simons** (0:40)
Be sure to listen all the way through the podcast for a breakdown of the day's top local stories. But first, when three American physicians of diverse backgrounds decide to take their expertise to Gaza and provide medical aid during the conflict, it's worth documenting. Israel's war on Gaza has turned neighborhoods to rubble and pushed an already battered health care system to the brink. That storyline is also the premise behind American Doctor, a new film directed by Malaysian-American filmmaker Pohsi Tang. The documentary debuted earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, and a Chicago-based production company recently brought it here to the US.
Now, a note as we get into this episode of the pod. You'll hear our guests use the word genocide, referring to the intentional destruction in whole or in part of a protected group. A UN commission concluded last September that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Israel rejects that finding, and the UN's International Court of Justice is currently hearing a case on the matter.
Now, let's hear more about the documentary from a Chicago doctor who's featured in the film, and a producer behind the scenes. At the table with me, Hamza Ali, president of MPI Media Group, co-founder of Watermelon Pictures, and executive producer of the American Doctor documentary, and Dr. Thaer Ahmad, emergency physician on the South Side of Chicago, and humanitarian who has worked in conflict zones, including Gaza, Syria and Kenya. I started the interview by asking Dr. Ahmad to tell us more about what he saw on the ground in Gaza. Here he is.

**Dr. Thaer Ahmad** (2:07)
I mean, it was apocalyptic. This is something that I don't think many physicians like myself who work in global health settings, we are prepared for, we're trained for something that we typically see.
So walking in to any hospital in Gaza was absolute nightmare, whether it was patients on the floor, whether it was the lack of supplies, whether it was the bombing that was too close to the hospital premises.
And on top of all of that, somebody who's been to Gaza many times before in different parts of Palestine, it was unrecognizable and that was really hard to reconcile.

**Hamza Ali** (2:42)
Yeah.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (2:43)
What drew you to this project, Hamza?

**Hamza Ali** (2:45)
What drew me to the project was this, you know, Trojan Horse approach, kind of confronting our own complicity as Americans and three American doctors, different backgrounds, English language. So I think that was really what kind of elevated on my end. And the director approached approached us, you know, before before Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered. And she pitched me on this concept, showed me some, you know, very harrowing footage. Of course, the genocide was very raw.
You know, it resonated with me very deeply. And we immediately knew that this was special. There's a lot of projects and they're all important. But we could sense that the filmmaking on this particular project was going to be very elevated.

**Dr. Thaer Ahmad** (3:30)
And you know, the one thing I will say is, especially with the crew in Palestine, in Gaza, what we asked them to do, or what PO asked them to do, we knew that it accompanied a significant risk to them. When you have more than 200 journalists be killed in the last three years, when you see how even doctors and nurses and first responders are being targeted, asking them to just follow around, you know, doctors in a hospital, and knowing that this message was going to be carried out in the United States, we knew that that carried a significant risk on them. So it was a tough decision. It was a big ask, but they were, they really wanted to come through. They really wanted to get the message across. They felt like things were being siloed, censored, restricted, and so that was a big deal.

**Hamza Ali** (4:13)
You know, just to tack on to that as well, I mean, just a common theme that we hear across all documentary projects that are shot on the ground, you know, these filmmakers, they want the world to see what's happening, and it's almost impossible to keep them in their homes. They run towards, you know, the chaos.

**Sasha-Ann Simons** (4:32)
I mean, we see it in the film. I mean, there's so much destruction. We've talked about it in Thaer. You've been on the show before. The images in the film are devastating to see all over again. So, I mean, how do you make decisions in post about what to show and maybe what would be too brutal for a viewing audience?