{"id":318900,"date":"2025-11-28T16:31:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T16:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/318900\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T16:31:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T16:31:11","slug":"uab-physician-and-ai-innovator-may-leave-us-due-to-parents-immigration-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/318900\/","title":{"rendered":"UAB physician and AI innovator may leave US due to parents\u2019 immigration limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

A UAB physician who used AI to make hospital respirators safer may move abroad because of his parents\u2019 problems with the U.S. immigration system. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re kind of like passively sitting in this limbo state where they can\u2019t refuse us, because if they refuse, I can apply again. But also they\u2019re not accepting us,\u201d said Dr. Abdulhakim Tlimat. <\/p>\n

Tlimat is a critical care physician at UAB with a background in software engineering. Following the COVID-19 pandemic he invented an AI system for hospitals to remotely monitor patients on respirators. Hospitals in other states are interested in using the device, according to Dr. Tlimat. <\/p>\n

He came to the country as a Syrian refugee, with his sister in 2013. In 2019 he became a naturalized citizen. In 2020, he applied to bring his parents to the U.S. through a visa program. <\/p>\n

Yet Tlimat\u2019s parents have been in administrative limbo for years. He is considering moving to Abu Dhabi, where he helped his parents relocate, due to the dangers of staying in Syria, unless he can sort out his parents\u2019 U.S. visas. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were to lose him, this would not only stagnate our current project, but it would drastically impact UAB\u2018s ability to remain at the cutting edge of AI integration into healthcare systems,\u201d said Raymond Wade, a professor of medicine at UAB. He said Tlimat is one of a handful of practicing physicians in the United States who are also experts in artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.Dr. Tlimat’s parents have been waiting since 2020 for U.S. visasDr. Abdulhakim Tlimat<\/p>\n

Mechanical ventilators, like the ones used for people with severe COVID-19, can cause harm to patients, especially if the ventilator settings are not right, said Tlimat. His AI system tracks ventilators for patients to make sure the machines stay within safe parameters for patients\u2019 diaphragm and lung ventilation. <\/p>\n

Tlimat said his life feels like a roller coaster due to his parents\u2019 situation. <\/p>\n

In 2022, Tlimat\u2019s mother had an interview for her visa. Afterwards, he said he could not get an update on her application. The typical wait time for a parent visa for a citizen is 17 months<\/a>, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. <\/p>\n

This September, five years after applying, his father, also a physician, had an interview for his visa. At his father\u2019s interview, Tlimat asked about his mother\u2019s application. An agent told him his mother\u2019s case was \u201cheld up in Washington.\u201d Tlimat contacted his representatives in Congress for help, he said, but nothing happened. <\/p>\n

Tlimat\u2019s father had COVID-19 about 6 months ago, and his lungs are not healing normally. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna just leave everything behind,\u201d said Tlimat, about his work helping patients in the U.S. \u201cWhen my dad has something wrong with him, I can\u2019t even help him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A UAB physician who used AI to make hospital respirators safer may move abroad because of his parents\u2019…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":["post-318900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}