Shawki Zuabi

64, Laguna Niguel

In the emergency room at Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, where he worked, Dr. Shawki Zuabi was the rock that everyone — patients and staff alike — depended on to get through the tough times.

Even when Zuabi was hospitalized after contracting the coronavirus, he was the one who would comfort the doctors and nurses who arrived to offer him support.

“They called him the father of the emergency room department, because that was how he treated everyone there — like they were his second family,” said his wife of nearly 40 years, Vincenza.

Colleagues said you always heard Zuabi coming before you saw him because of his rich, deep voice, which patients found encouraging and soothing.

In the days that the emergency room received a seemingly endless stream of COVID-19 patients, Zuabi never wavered, his wife said.

“He stood up for the underdog, and I think that was his ultimate strength,” she said. “He would help anyone that needed it.”

Zuabi died Jan. 8, a month after he was hospitalized. He was initially cared for at Orange Coast, then was transferred to UC Irvine Medical Center, a larger hospital.

There, he was looked after by one of his four daughters, Nadia, a medical school resident in UCI’s emergency room who took time off from work to be with her father. Day or night, “she hardly ever left his side,” Vincenza said.

The family said they believe Zuabi contracted the virus while at work.

Zuabi was a Palestinian born in Nazareth, the eldest of seven brothers and sisters.

He spoke five languages and was a talented painter and avid fisherman. His multiple talents led colleagues to joke that he was the embodiment of the Dos Equis beer commercial — “the most interesting man in the world.”

When Vincenza brought her parents to Orange Coast for vaccinations, she gained a deeper sense of what her husband meant to the people there. He was not just a doctor; he was friend and mentor to many.

Several times, she said, “someone would come up to me and tell me a story about how he was there for them when they had a problem with their families, with relationships, with work; he was telling them that they can handle this, that they can take care of this, and they’re going to be OK.”

He met Vincenza Pantano when she was 21. They met in Italy, while he was attending medical school at the University of Padua and she was studying abroad as a UC San Diego student. “We were together ever since.” Zuabi is survived by his wife and their daughters, Vanessa, Rena, Nadia and Adriana.