Spring 2025 Alumni Awardees

We celebrate the exceptional achievements of four future alumni who are on the cusp of making significant contributions to medicine. Taha Hatab, MD received the Graduate Level-One Award, Chineme Onwubueke, MD, received the Alfred and Norma Stoller Award for Virtue-Based Leadership in Medical School, Sara Rahman, MD received the Dr. Satoru and Grace Nakamoto Award, and Evan O'Malley, DO received the Alfred and Norma Stoller Award for Virtue-Based Leadership in Graduate Medical Education.

Taha Hatab, MD, is 2025 GL-1 Award Honoree

Taha Hatab, MD, has received the 2025 Alumni Association Graduate Level-One Award for outstanding first-year performance. The award recognizes excellence in clinical practice, interpersonal communication and character, as well as unique accomplishments.

“This is a huge honor,” Dr. Hatab says. “This award means so much in terms of character, clinical skills and interpersonal communication, and I owe it to everyone around me. I’m always inspired by fellow interns in my class. I owe this award to my friends, my co-interns, my seniors, chiefs, leadership and program director.”

Asad Rauf, MD, a Cleveland Clinic Resident Physician, says Dr. Hatab embodies what it means to be a healer and an advocate. “What sets Taha apart is his ability to seamlessly blend medical excellence with humanity,” he says. “His diagnostic reasoning is exceptional and his clinical decision-making is always patient-centered.”

Dr. Hatab’s empathetic nature and his “healing hands” demeanor have informed his approach in practice and in life. During medical school, he oversaw a medical humanism fund dedicated to ensuring access to tests and procedures for patients in need. The fund collects donations from American University of Beirut Medical Center staff, residents and fellows. Patients can apply for funding to help cover medical bills. “Many of our patients back home can’t afford a simple blood test,” Dr. Hatab relates. “Through the support of this fund and efforts by my friends and mentors, we helped hundreds of patients.”

Now transitioning into his second year of residency, Dr. Hatab is embracing rigorous internal medicine rounds, cardiac research opportunities – and Cleveland as his new home. Upon completion of his residency at Cleveland Clinic, he hopes to complete a cardiology fellowship here and continue into practice.

“Everything I’ve experienced and accomplished, I owe it all to my family and especially my mom,” Dr. Hatab says.

Dr. Sara Rahman Receives the Dr. Satoru and Grace Nakamoto Award

Sara Rahman, MD, is an avid advocate for underserved populations and inspired educator whose grassroots experiences called her to medicine, and specifically urogynecology. Now she will use a $5,000 award honoring a longtime Cleveland Clinic physician and his wife, to launch a project to ensure that underserved populations in the Cleveland area have better access to the kind of care she provides.

“The motto ‘patients first’ means everything to me,” Dr. Rahman says. She nicknamed her project “U-CUP,” short for urogynecology care for underserved populations. The grant from the award will fund targeted outreach and education.

While earning her undergraduate degree, Dr. Rahman founded the Committee for the Advancement of Muslim Culture, establishing the first Muslim cultural center on campus. While earning her medical degree she started a Random Acts of Kindness committee to provide encouragement to students during exams. During a 2016 trip to the Ritsona Syrian refugee camp in Greece, Dr. Rahman managed the distribution of food, clothing and sanitary items.

“My entire training was advocating for undocumented, marginalized individuals,” relates Dr. Rahman, who spent time as an HIV tester and counselor in the Bronx in New York City. “The common thread throughout my life has been advocacy.”

Today Dr. Rahman is a fellow in Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery, pursuing research including a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) feasibility study to determine if PRP injections during uterosacral ligament suspension surgery for prolapse will prevent the condition’s relapse and future surgeries.

“The Dr. Satoru and Grace Nakamoto Award provides an opportunity to support Dr. Rahman in further developing her leadership and humanitarian activities,” says Shannon L. Wallace, MD (Staff’20), Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery Fellowship Director.

“I do a lot of reflecting,” she says. “If I died today, what would I want people to remember about me? I want people to know me as someone who actually practices the morals I teach. Instead of saying, ‘We need to engage in the community,’ I’m taking steps in the community.”

Chineme Onwubueke, MD Receives Alfred and Norma Stoller CCLCM Award

With a dual passion for global and local health, graduating medical student Chineme Onwubueke, MD (CCLCM'25) has put her pediatric and internal medicine studies to work in the community — and earned a prestigious honor for addressing vital concerns such as maternal education, infant mortality and access to care.

The Alfred and Normal Stoller Award for Virtue-Based Leadership in Medical School, which includes a $500 prize, recognizes an accomplishment during medical school at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine that exemplifies one or more of seven classic virtues: trust, compassion, hope, justice, wisdom, temperance and courage.

“Something I really appreciate about CCLCM is the opportunity to engage in humanities,” says Onwubueke. “It has allowed me to process my research and clinical studies in a deeper way and to develop professionally,” she says. Additionally, she has fulfilled CCLCM leadership roles including serving as a student interviewer on the Admissions Committee and she cofounded the global health interest group at CCLCM.

“With her leadership, this group went on to help fund and organize a global health conference, and she organized other events including connecting students as volunteer mentors with the Catholic Charities Diocese of Cleveland’s refugee services and organizing a student panel to share the global health experiences that are available at Case Western and CCLCM,” says Christine Warren, MD, MS (CCLCM'09), Associate Dean of Admissions and Student Affairs at CCLCM.

Onwubueke studied biochemistry and psychology at Northeastern University in Boston. During medical school, she has also been pursuing a master’s in public health. After learning of her residency match on March 21, she is headed to Brown University for a combined residency in internal medicine and pediatrics.

Onwubueke’s care approach is informed by her nonprofit experience, research interests and medical studies. “One of the major take-aways I’ve gained is the importance of presence,” she says. “Working in the community, I see the way social determinants of health impact well-being and outcomes beyond the textbook. Yes, people struggling need solutions and resources. We need to run tests to find out what’s going on. But above all, patients need you to listen and connect with them.”

Evan O'Malley, DO, Receives Alfred and Norma Stoller GME Award

Three years after creating a monthly medical clinic at a shelter for homeless, disadvantaged and recovering people in Akron, Evan O’Malley, DO, a family medicine resident at Cleveland Clinic Akron General has received a leadership award and a grant of $2,000 to expand the services provided there.

At Haven of Rest, he started an initiative to obtain funding for medical supplies and an ad hoc clinical setup to serve about 30 men per monthly visit. The Alfred and Norma Stoller Award for Virtue-Based Leadership in Graduate Medical Education was created in 2023 to recognize clinical trainees like Dr. O’Malley who support healthcare projects that demonstrate virtues including trust, compassion, hope, justice, wisdom, temperance and courage.

“Making a difference in the community is why I pursued family medicine,” Dr. O’Malley says. “The TCC program and all it encapsulates taught me to not just be a doctor giving care on a daily basis, but to go beyond that and get involved in the community.”

Douglas W. Harley, DO, FACOFP, FAAFP (Staff'09), acknowledges Dr. O’Malley’s above-and-beyond commitment to sharing his medical talents to care for those in need. “Dr. O’Malley is a hard-working, compassionate and dedicated physician,” he says. “His passion toward the homeless population has led him to engaging the residency program in a new venture in our local community with Haven of Rest. Evan goes beyond his residency duties by providing dedicated care to this community on a regular basis.”

Dr. O’Malley will start a sports medicine fellowship at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, while continuing pursuing his passion for community medicine and person-centered care.
He expresses gratitude for the award and grant for the ways it will support and sustain the shelter initiative he will continue to steward as Healthcare and Haven.