On June 25, Professor Mohamed Jawad Khalife (His Excellency the Minister of Health for Lebanon), will become a Fellow of the prestigious Royal College of Physicians of London (RCP), the oldest medical college for physicians in the United Kingdom.
Professor Khalife has served as Lebanon’s Minister of Public Health since 2004, while maintaining a successful clinical and academic career. Under his terms as Minister of Health, Lebanon launched its first ever public health services, and to date, there are over 20 public hospitals in the country several of which are affiliated with universities and other educational institutions. Professor Khalife has also played a role in setting up a new registry for quality and pricing of pharmaceuticals in Lebanon under a major reform plan. Another considerable achievement has been the adoption by the Lebanese government of a health reform plan that guarantees a mandatory public national health insurance system to every citizen.
After training in surgery in the UK, Professor Khalife returned to Lebanon in 1998, where he was awarded a distinction for developing liver transplantation from the President of the Republic, the Lebanese Ministry of Health, and the Lebanese Order of Physicians. In 2001, the President of the Republic bestowed upon him the National Order of the Cedar in the grade of officer. Professor Khalife is also a member of several boards, including that of the American College of Surgeons. He is also currently a member of the executive board of the WHO in EMRO.
Professor Khalife is Associate Professor of Surgery and Director of Liver Transplantation & HPB Unit at the American University of Beirut’s School of Medicine.
Commenting on his fellowship, Professor Khalife said:
It is a great honour for me to join the RCP and I am deeply touched with the warm welcome which has made me feel I am back home. I do acknowledge that my experience in the UK was of tremendous help both in academic and clinical work. It has also enhanced my administrative performance as the Minister of Public Health for Lebanon. May I take this opportunity to carry our relationship forward at all levels (academic, training exchange programs and research).
Commenting, Professor Sir Ian Gilmore said:
We are honoured that Professor Khalife is becoming a fellow of the RCP. Through his efforts and leadership, the quality of medicine in Lebanon has been improved and therapies rendered much more cost-effective. I look forward to the opportunities this opens up for collaboration on future projects and hope that this can be the first step in building a strong relationship between the RCP and health services in Lebanon.
- The RCP was established in 1518 by King Henry VIII to grant licenses to those qualified to practice medicine and to punish unqualified practitioners and those engaging in malpractice. It now represents 25,000 physicians around the world and works to improve the quality of patient care by continually raising medical standards.
- The RCP’s concern for public health and preventive medicine has been in evidence since its earliest days. A report on the hazards of industrial work was published in 1627 and another on the dangers of excessive gin-drinking in 1726. The College opened the first public dispensary in England in 1698, providing medicine free of charge to the poor (although this move was controversial amongst the College’s own members).
- More recently, RCP support was crucial to the establishment of the National Health Service in 1945. The landmark report Smoking and Health of 1962 was a turning point in post-war health policy and heralded a new era of public engagement for the College.