A vedis Donabedian was born in Beirut, Lebanon on 7 January 1919. As a child he moved to a small town near Jerusalem in Palestine (now Israel) after his family fled the Armenian holocaust. However, in Palestine he experienced the social turmoil of that region. Although a Christian, he had Jewish, Arab, and Christian friends as he was growing up in Palestine. At the interpersonal level he was ab...

Lebanon is a small country located in the Middle East region which is undergoing rapid demographic transition. Among Arabic countries Lebanon has the fastest growing elderly population, and by the year 2025, older adults above 65 years are expected to represent more than 10% of the population. Nutrition is a key factor during the aging process and may help to prevent age-related diseases. Howev...

BACKGROUND Communication skills are widely taught in US medical schools, but in Lebanon, such teaching is in its infancy. METHODS At the American University of Beirut, we piloted a communication skills teaching package using video scenarios in Arabic. A total of 150 second-year medical students addressed eight communication issues in a 3-hour multi-method workshop that included watching and d...

Osteoporosis is an important health problem with serious consequences. Evaluation of osteoporosis scientific output from Arab countries has not been explored and there are few internationally published reports on research activity about osteoporosis. The main objectives of this study were to analyze the research output originating from Arab countries and 3 Middle Eastern non-Arab countries, par...

BACKGROUND Early detection of common mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety, among children and adolescents requires the use of validated, culturally sensitive, and developmentally appropriate screening instruments. The Arab region has a high proportion of youth, yet Arabic-language screening instruments for mental disorders among this age group are virtually absent. METHODS We carr...

Few studies have thus far been carried out on Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) and obesity in Arab-speaking countries, an issue that we therefore set out to investigate in this study. HRQoL was assessed by the validated Arabic version of the ORWELL 97 questionnaire in 129 treatment-seeking individuals with obesity referred to the Nutritional and Weight Management Outpatient Clinic at the ...

Shortly after the discovery of X-rays by the German physicist Wilhelm C. Roentgen in November 1895, the first X-ray apparatus was installed in 1898 in Beirut at the Prussian Hospital affiliated since 1887 with the Medical School of the Syrian Protestant College founded in 1867 (later American University of Beirut in 1920). The first chest radiographs were produced after a long exposure time in ...

Lebanon is distinguished by its strategic geographical location among the Arab countries. Beirut, as capital city and major commercial cultural centre of country, a point interest for migrants. The region has witnessed many changes since end World War II, which have resulted in internal external conflicts, migrations, centralization country’s economy, etc. Furthermore, periods urbanization, des...

1 Department of Pediatrics, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Lebanon. 2 School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 3 Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon. 4 Department of Family Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, Beirut, Leba...