12
portraits
» AMARILLO ISD
he operating room doesn’t sound exactly the way Dina Saleem thought
it would. Of course there’s the expected beeping of machinery and
clanking of surgical tools. But there’s also the music. “They put on
really nice music. Most of the time it’s country,” laughs Dina.
Neither does the internal anatomy of a person look exactly the way
Dina imagined. “It’s beautiful,” she says of the human heart. “Much
better than the pictures.”
None of Dina’s experiences in the operating room match what she imagined. But
then, Dina, a Tascosa High School and Amarillo Area Center for Advanced Learning
(AACAL) senior, never thought she’d fi nd herself in an OR as a high school student,
witnessing major surgeries. “The surgeries are long, but they are amazing,” she says,
the profoundness of the experience not lost on her. “The surgeons are like God in the
OR. They stop the heart and then put it back to working again. That’s godly.”
Dina exudes confi dence as she talks about her own divine dreams. “I want to do
big surgeries. My dream is to do a heart transplant.” She’s so at ease with her plans
for the future, it would seem nothing is out of reach. It is because of where she’s been
and what she has overcome that Dina is so fearless about where she’s headed.
“I came to America three years ago at the age of 16,” she says. After witnessing
their once beautiful Syria destroyed by warring religious and political extremists,
Dina’s family emigrated in search of safety and a better life. In America, Dina says
Heartbroken
over the
destruction of her
homeland, Dina fi nds
safety in America and
an internship she hopes
puts her on the path to
one day repairing truly
broken hearts.
Dina Saleem and Dr. Anthony Agostini