Friday, December 11, 2020
Within hours of the August 4 explosion in the Beirut port, Dr. Samir M. Fakhry (BS ‘77, MD ‘81) was thinking about what he – and HCA Healthcare, where he has worked since July 2019 – could do to help. “HCA Healthcare is one of the leading providers of healthcare in North America,” explains Fakhry, “so I wondered, ‘is there a possibility that HCA Healthcare could do something to help AUBMC and Lebanon?’” He didn’t have to wonder for very long!
“The response from HCA Healthcare was immediate and very generous,” remembers Fakhry. The first person he contacted after receiving the AUBMC Disaster Response Fund appeal was Joanne Pulles, who is the president of the HCA Healthcare Foundation and VP for community engagement. “She was very supportive and put me in touch with Joe Flynn, assistant VP for community engagement, who was able to work with the supply chain to secure some of the supplies that I knew AUBMC needed,” says Fakhry. HCA Healthcare worked closely with PROJECT C.U.R.E., to get the supplies from Nashville to Beirut, and with Anera, to clear the supplies through customs in Beirut.
HCA Healthcare also made a generous donation to the AUBMC Disaster Response Fund. “I am deeply grateful to everyone,” says Fakhry, “including and especially Chief Executive Officer Samuel N. Hazen who took a special interest in this project because of the large number of medical staff with educational connections to AUB and his personal connections to Lebanon.”
A former president of the AUB Surgical Alumni Association of North America (SAANA), Fakhry has stayed in close touch with his alma mater, especially the Department of Surgery, since he returned to the US in 1982. He has felt an especially close connection since his former classmate, Dr. Jamal Hoballah (MD ’81), returned to Lebanon to become chair of the Department of Surgery. “I don’t get back to Lebanon as often as I would like,” says Fakhry, “but like so many AUB medical alumni in North America, my ties to my alma mater and Lebanon are still very strong.”