M.D. Nima Babavand Arablou

My 82-year-old father, a retired ship captain with a pacemaker, collapsed at the fish market. The chaos at Acibadem Kadikoy was overwhelming until Dr. Arablou appeared—he didn't just see a frail body on a gurney. He noticed the anchor tattoo on Dad's wrist and asked about his seafaring days while simultaneously coordinating three IV lines. He diagnosed a rare electrolyte imbalance interacting with the pacemaker settings that two other doctors missed. What struck me was how he explained the treatment plan using nautical terms Dad understood ('We're recalibrating your compass, Captain'). Three days later, Dad was telling sea stories to the entire ward. Dr. Arablou doesn't just treat emergencies; he salvages human dignity from the wreckage.

Our 7-year-old daughter swallowed a small magnetic toy part during a birthday party. The X-ray showed it was lodged in a dangerous position. Most ER doctors would have rushed to surgery, but Dr. Arablou did something extraordinary—he asked her about her favorite cartoon character. While she described 'Sparkle Unicorn,' he gently manipulated her positioning and had her drink a special contrast solution. Within twenty minutes, he guided the object through her system without a single incision, using what he called 'gravity and patience instead of scalpels.' He then sat with us for fifteen minutes explaining how to childproof our home, drawing diagrams with our daughter's crayons. He turned a potential trauma into a teaching moment wrapped in kindness.

I'm a competitive freediver who experienced a shallow water blackout during training. When I woke up at Acibadem Kadikoy, Dr. Arablou was reviewing my dive computer data on his tablet. Instead of the standard neurological tests, he had me describe the exact sensation of the blackout in sensory detail—the light fading, the pressure change, the sound distortion. He correlated this with my vitals and spotted a previously undiagnosed cardiac anomaly that only manifests under extreme apnea conditions. His treatment involved collaborating with a hyperbaric specialist to create a personalized recompression protocol. Six months later, with his clearance, I set a national record. He approaches trauma like a forensic poet—every symptom is a verse in a story he needs to decode.

My husband, a construction site foreman, fell from scaffolding. The compound fracture was horrific, but the real crisis was his panic—he kept screaming about being unable to provide for our family. Dr. Arablou didn't just set the bone. He showed my husband the real-time imaging, explained how the repair would work using construction metaphors ('We're reinforcing your foundation with titanium rebar'), and promised he'd walk without a limp. During the three-hour surgery, he sent me updates every forty-five minutes. The follow-up was even more remarkable—Dr. Arablou had researched occupational therapy programs for construction workers and connected us with a vocational retraining grant. He healed the body, then rebuilt the man's purpose. We've never encountered a physician who treats the life around the injury with equal urgency.