"MY role model? Me, myself." Dr Rashidi Mohamed Pakri Mohamed declares without missing a beat.
Behind his dark-rimmed glasses, his eyes dance with barely concealed mischief as he takes in my surprised expression. It's an unexpected answer from a man whose working life has been devoted to understanding human frailty, helping people confront their struggles and encouraging others to do better.
But perhaps it offers an early glimpse into how he sees the journey he has travelled: not as a life measured against someone else's, but one shaped by the challenges he has faced and the choices he has made along the way.
A striking timepiece glints at his wrist, complementing the crisp white shirt he sports with easy assurance. Seated in the waiting area of DR RAS, his wellness and skin centre at Ampwalk in Kuala Lumpur, Dr Rashidi cuts a decidedly different figure from the boy he once was.
"I grew up in a squatter area around Kampung Pandan, Kuala Lumpur. My father drove a taxi and mum was a housewife," he shares.
There's no attempt to dress up his beginnings as a tale of deprivation, nor does he reflect on his childhood with bitterness. In fact, he remembers it fondly.
"We were a close-knit family and pretty contented. We didn't feel like we grew up in poverty despite our surroundings," recalls the 49-year-old.
The eldest among four siblings, Dr Rashidi grew up alongside three sisters, all of whom have since earned PhDs. Education was non-negotiable in the household, even if the means to pursue it were modest.
He worked to pay for his tuition fees and helped an aunt with her catering business on weekends to save money. The young Rashidi was already learning that a different future would take effort.
"Getting out of poverty was my dream," he confides.
As a boy, Dr Rashidi often escaped into a world of comics and magazines, captivated by glossy glimpses of a life far removed from his own.
"When I saw people in the magazine, the products, etc. I was like, oh, this is how people with money live," he recalls, wondering if that world might one day be within his reach.
Last year, he was named an A-lister by August Man, the kind of magazine he'd once pored over as a boy. The world he'd glimpsed from the outside had, in a quiet full-circle moment, come to include him.
But while those images stirred his imagination, the streets of Kampung Pandan were teaching him a different lesson — one that would help shape the doctor he'd become.
TRUE CALLING
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Four decades ago, gangsterism and drug activities were part of the neighbourhood's reality. Dr Rashidi saw drug pushers and people struggling with addiction at close quarters, long before he understood the "forces" that brought them there.
He remembers building his own bicycle to get to school, only to have it stolen repeatedly by drug addicts. Even locking it up offered little protection. What should have been an ordinary part of childhood became a recurring frustration, until the thefts were so commonplace that he began to regard them as part of life.
One time, a drug dealer broke into his family home and was caught by the police. Only later did Dr Rashidi learn who the man was and what he was involved in.
For a child, these were unsettling encounters with a world he couldn't yet fully understand. But they offered an early, intimate view of how deeply drugs could reach into a community, crossing the threshold of a home, disrupting daily life and shaping what people came to accept as normal.
Entering medical school, Dr Rashidi brought firsthand exposure to the realities of substance use. Working with patients taught him that addiction was more complex than the labels attached to it, often rooted in hardship, psychological distress and attempts to escape circumstances they couldn't manage.
Behind the addiction was a human being, often with a family struggling to cope.
"I felt it was a calling. There must have been a reason why I was surrounded by it from young," he muses.
That calling would shape Dr Rashidi's work as a consultant family medicine specialist and lecturer at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), where he combines clinical practice with teaching and research in addiction, substance use and smoking cessation.
For him, treating addiction means looking beyond the substance to understand what drives it and what might help someone move forward.
"People don't want to become a drug addict. Circumstances made them to become like that," he explains.
Such an approach challenges the stigma that can keep people from seeking help and leave families struggling in silence. Dr Rashidi believes judgment can close the door to intervention before treatment even begins.
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His work, therefore, extends beyond individual consultations to advocating evidence-based approaches that reduce harm, recognising that not everyone is ready or able to stop using a substance completely.
He illustrates the principle with a familiar example: a seat belt may not prevent an accident, but it can reduce the harm when one happens.
For Dr Rashidi, society's response to addiction must prioritise safety, meaningful support and the possibility of change, rather than shutting down discussion because the problem is uncomfortable.
He applies this thinking to nicotine dependence, arguing that people need accessible, evidence-based support to quit rather than an approach that treats smoking as a simple choice between smoking and abstinence.
"If we keep doing what we've been doing for the past 10 or 15 years, we can't expect different results. We have to be disruptive and move forward," he cautions.
This conviction has led him to explore new approaches to care, including virtual smoking cessation consultations, while teaching undergraduate and postgraduate students to strengthen the next generation of healthcare professionals' understanding of addiction and its treatment.
But taking that work further would require another opportunity.
OPPORTUNITY THAT TRAVELS
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In 2016, Dr Rashidi received the Khazanah Scholarship to pursue a PhD in psychological medicine at Universiti Malaya. He became a Khazanah scholar at a point when his commitment to the field was already established.
The scholarship didn't give him his calling; it gave him the means to deepen his knowledge, strengthen his expertise and expand what he could contribute beyond the patients he saw.
Without it, he believes he would still have been a doctor treating patients. The doctoral experience, however, opened up a wider platform for his work, creating opportunities to contribute to research, clinical practice and policy.
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The encouragement he received from Yayasan Khazanah also reinforced the responsibility that came with being given such an opportunity: to make the most of it.
As Yayasan Khazanah marks its 20th anniversary of providing scholarships, Dr Rashidi's journey offers a glimpse of how access to education can help people build on their abilities and extend their contributions.
It's a fitting reflection of the anniversary theme, "Leaders of Purpose, Advancing Malaysia", and of Yayasan Khazanah's place in Khazanah's broader effort to advance the country by opening doors to educational opportunities.
For Dr Rashidi, the scholarship's significance lies not in the qualification alone, but in what it enabled him to do. His childhood had already planted the seeds of his commitment to tackling addiction; the scholarship helped him nurture that commitment, giving him further opportunities to turn personal conviction into knowledge, practice and contributions that could benefit a wider community.
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During his academic journey, Dr Rashidi wrote three books, two of which were published: Remaja Cemerlang Bebas Dari Dadah, which promotes drug awareness among young people, and Alcohol Against the Brain.
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His contributions span research papers, clinical practice guidelines, a national strategic plan and Health Ministry modules, helping shape how addiction is understood and treated. Yet knowledge has its greatest value when it reaches those who need it.
For Dr Rashidi, one of the surest ways to extend its reach is through the people he teaches.
LIVES BEYOND REACH
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Some of his students and mentees have gone on to pursue further studies in addiction, while others have established their own addiction clinics, trained their teams or taken up advocacy around substance use and nicotine dependence.
Their paths may differ from his, but each creates another opportunity to reach people who might otherwise go without the understanding and support they need.
Dr Rashidi is careful not to claim too much credit for his mentees' achievements. He can offer knowledge and guidance, but how they apply what they learn is up to them. As addiction science evolves, he wants them to keep questioning established thinking and remain open to new evidence.
"I want them to become better than me," he declares, adding that he hopes some will advance in addiction medicine, expand the pool of specialists and strengthen a field that still has much work to do.
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The opportunity Dr Rashidi received lives on in what others do with the knowledge and encouragement he passes on. A doctor he mentors may go on to train colleagues, improve services or reach a patient who might otherwise have been dismissed or misunderstood.
This is the wider promise of developing talent: when people are given the chance to flourish, they can open doors for others, setting in motion a ripple effect that reaches far beyond themselves.
Growing up, Dr Rashidi witnessed the toll addiction could take on individuals and families long before he understood the forces behind it. Today, he's helping other doctors see beyond the addiction to the person struggling with it.
As they carry that understanding into their own clinics and communities, the work reaches further still, to patients and families he may never meet. For Dr Rashidi, success isn't primarily about money, status or power. It's about making a difference to someone else's life.
His patients have taught him patience, the value of listening and the importance of resisting quick judgement. Sometimes, he asks those struggling with addiction to bring their families along, whose presence can remind them of what's at stake and the hope that remains.
Behind the person seeking treatment is often someone who's loved, missed and desperately wanted back by those closest to them.
Here, the wider purpose of his work comes into focus. Research and training may seem far removed from a family's struggle to help a loved one recover, yet they can shape the care that person receives. And when doctors pass that knowledge on, its reach extends further still.
UNFOLDING JOURNEY
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For all the seriousness of his work, Dr Rashidi has a playful streak and a taste for the unexpected. A motorsports enthusiast who raced go-karts and counts Lewis Hamilton among his heroes, he's game for experiences well beyond the clinic and lecture hall.
In 2019, he hosted Kami Gang Fit, a 45-episode health programme on Astro, and appeared in advertisements and the film Hantu Musang King: Mana Durian Aku.
As M.A. Sharukh, he's haunted by a ghost at a health clinic after eating a durian from a tree said to have a guardian spirit, a far cry from his work in addiction research and family medicine.
Dr Rashidi laughs at the unlikely turns his life has taken. Such opportunities, he muses, let him learn, meet people and step into unfamiliar worlds.
He has other horizons in mind, including a dream of sailing around the world on his own yacht — one he's yet to acquire. For someone who's learnt to embrace the possibilities that come his way, it's another ambition waiting for its moment.
"Take every opportunity that comes to you, use it wisely and don't let a chance slip," says Dr Rashidi.
The advice resonates when Dr Rashidi recalls the Khazanah Scholarship selection process, with its psychometric tests and interviews and no guarantee of success. He seized his chances, knowing that without trying, he would never discover what was possible.
The scholarship took his work further, its true value unfolding in the knowledge he has built, the doctors he has mentored and the lives they may one day touch.
Perhaps this is where Dr Rashidi's journey converges with Yayasan Khazanah's wider purpose: an opportunity may change one life, but its true impact unfolds over time, as what one person gains opens up possibilities for others.
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One day, a doctor Dr Rashidi has mentored may help a patient he'll never meet reclaim their life, giving a family hope where they once feared loss. He may never know their names or hear their stories, but his influence may have helped make that moment possible.
I find myself returning to his opening declaration: "My role model? Me, myself."
Perhaps Dr Rashidi's words reflect an understanding of how far he's come, and a belief that the true value of an opportunity lies not in what it brings to one person, but in what that person can go on to make possible for others.
That's the butterfly effect at its most human: one life shaped by circumstance, strengthened by opportunity, then reaching into the lives of others in ways its owner may never fully know. Through the doctors he mentors, the patients they care for and the families who may find hope where there was once despair, Dr Rashidi's work will continue long after their paths have parted.
He may never know whose life takes a different turn because of what he chose to pass on. But somewhere, beyond his sight, the next ripple has already begun.
intanm@nst.com.my
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