Pakistani doctor battles lahore’s deadly smog crisis on the medical front lines

Dr. Farah Waseem doesn’t need air quality monitors to know when Lahore’s smog season arrives—she feels it burning her throat and eyes the moment she steps outside. The thick, murky air that blankets Pakistan’s second-largest city each winter brings with it a familiar cocktail of dust, smoke, and chemical pollutants that triggers her persistent dry cough and affects her parents as well.

But for Dr. Waseem, this isn’t just a personal health challenge—it’s a climate crisis playing out in her examination rooms every day. As a young physician who has championed climate awareness since childhood, she now witnesses firsthand how air pollution transforms from an environmental issue into a life-and-death medical emergency for her patients. The seasonal smog that engulfs Lahore represents one of the world’s most severe air quality disasters, with pollution levels regularly soaring to hazardous levels that far exceed World Health Organization safety standards.

Dr. Waseem’s generation of medical professionals faces an unprecedented challenge: treating patients for illnesses directly caused by climate change and environmental degradation. Her advocacy work, which began as a childhood passion for environmental protection, has evolved into an urgent medical mission as she treats respiratory infections, asthma attacks, and other pollution-related conditions that spike dramatically during smog season.

The young doctor’s experience illustrates how climate change is reshaping healthcare in developing nations, where environmental disasters increasingly drive medical crises and force healthcare workers to become both healers and climate advocates.