Meet Neurologist Ifrah Zawar, MD

Ifrah Zawar, MD, is a neurologist who specializes in epilepsy. The early experience of watching a relative suffer dementia spurred her to pursue a career in neurology. Her passion is caring for those who struggle with epileptic seizures and helping to alleviate their suffering.

My name is Ifrah Zawar. I'm a staff physician at the department of neurology at UVA Health. My subspecialty within the department of neurology is epilepsy. I'm a part of the Epilepsy Center. My interests include surgical epilepsy, autoimmune epilepsy, and adult ketogenic diet.

As a child, I saw one of my uncles develop dementia and memory loss, and he lost his life to it. As I saw him suffer through this medical condition, going back and forth to the hospital and doctors, I decided I wanted to pursue medicine and, more specifically, neurology as my sub-specialty.

The thing that I enjoy the most about medicine is the ability to be able to help people. A lot of patients with seizures suffer from epilepsy their entire lives. It's a huge struggle. If there's something that I can do to alleviate their suffering or help them in any way, I like to do that. So that's one thing that I really enjoy about medicine.

UVA is one of the best medical centers in the country and the best medical center in the state of Virginia. The people who work here are extremely competent, but at the same time, they are very kind, helpful, and compassionate, and that is probably the thing that attracted me the most to UVA.