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Aysha Akhtar, M.D.

Biography

Aysha Akhtar, M.D.

Aysha Akhtar, M.D. is a double Board-Certified in both Neurology and Preventive Medicine and has a Master’s Degree in Public Health. She serves as Medical Officer for the Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats of the Food and Drug Administration, for which she has Top Secret Security Clearance. She is an Officer (Lieutenant Commander) in the U.S. Public Health Services, in which she deploys to assist with national public health emergencies. She is also a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and is a Consultant Editor for the Journal of Animal Ethics. She is the author of two books --- OUR SYMPHONY WITH ANIMALS and ANIMALS AND PUBLIC HEALTH --- and lives in Maryland.

Aysha Akhtar, M.D.

Books by Aysha Akhtar, M.D.

Our Symphony with Animals: On Health, Empathy, and Our Shared Destinies
by Aysha Akhtar, M.D. - History, Medicine, Nonfiction

OUR SYMPHONY WITH ANIMALS is the first book by a physician to show how deeply the well-being of humans and animals are entwined. Interwoven throughout is Dr. Aysha Akhtar’s own story of being a young girl who was bullied in school and sexually abused by her uncle. Feeling abandoned by humanity, it was only when she met Sylvester, a dog who also had been abused, that she found strength for both of them. Against the backdrop of her inspiring story, Dr. Akhtar asks: What do we gain when we recognize our kinship with animals? She travels around the country to tell the stories of a varied cast of characters --- including a former mobster, an industrial chicken farmer and a Marine veteran --- and comes face to face with a serial killer.