Amin Antoine Nabih Kazzi, MD, FAAEM, MAAEM
Dr. Amin Kazzi is a Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine & the Founding Former Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the American University of Beirut (AUB). In 2010, he moved on to serve for 5 years as the Deputy Chief of Staff at the AUB Medical Center. In 2016, he was appointed & served as the official Advisor to the Lebanese Minister of Health his Excellency Wael Abu-Faour. As a Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine, he currently practices full-time at the AUB Emergency Department while serving as Editor-in-Chief for the Mediterranean Journal of Emergency Medicine & Acute Care (MedJEM) and as President for the Mediterranean Academy of Emergency Medicine (MAEM) & for the Lebanese Society of Emergency Medicine (LSEM) in the Lebanese Order of Physicians.
Dr Kazzi completed his education (MD) at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (MD 1988). He completed categorical residency training in Emergency Medicine in Detroit, Michigan (1991), at one of the first, best and largest specialist training programs in the USA. He was selected a chief resident with distinction then as a full-time faculty in the busy Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit for 1 year. Once Board Certified in Emergency Medicine, he moved back to Southern California, where he practiced for 14 years as a faculty in the Emergency Departments of two of the main Level I Trauma & tertiary care centers: the University of California, Irvine. He also practiced part-time in private community facilities such as at West Bloomfield’s Urgent Care (1989-1990), Cottage Hospital in Grosse Pointe Farms (1991-1992) & the Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Beverly Hills (1992-1993).
Dr Kazzi is internationally renowned in the field of Emergency Medicine (EM) for his leadership role conceptualizing, establishing & running for the last 23 years as Executive Chair & co-President the exceptional Mediterranean EM Congress, the premier multinational international conference for the specialty, as well as for his service in a variety of executive, academic and leadership roles in several professional societies.
This included service as President for the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM), for its California Academy of Emergency Medicine (CAL/AAEM) & the Lebanese Society for Emergency Medicine (LSEM). In 2014, he established the Mediterranean Academy of Emergency Medicine (MAEM), a regional multi-national professional platform to advance the field, the specialty, & the specialist in Emergency Medicine.
He authored more than 60 scholarly publications and has given more than 300 invited presentations across the world. He founded and published as Chief Editor two editions of the “Rules of the Road for Medical Students.” He also played a key role as founding Vice Chair for the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, and as founding managing editor for the California Journal of Emergency Medicine (which later became the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine). More recently, he was appointed as a founding Chief Editor for the Mediterranean Journal of Emergency Medicine & Acute Care (Med-JEM) which target the developing nations all globally.
Dr Kazzi earned a number of key international leadership and recognition awards, the principal ones being the 2nd out of 3 recipients of the honorary designation as Master of the Academy of Emergency Medicine (MAAEM), the (European Society of Emergency Medicine) EuSEM & AAEM Founder’s Award, the AAEM International Leadership Award, the Resident Association Special Recognition Award, the Robert McNamara National Academic Achievement Award, & the David Wagner Award for longstanding special national (US) impact in the specialty.
More recently, the INDUSEM-WACEM (World Academic Council of Emergency Medicine) granted him in Mumbai “the 2021 Leader of the Year Honorary Award.”
Most importantly, In September 2015, the American Academy of Emergency Medicine Board of Directors voted unanimously to rename its annual international leadership award “the Amin Kazzi International Emergency Medicine Leadership Award” in appreciation for his longstanding exceptional service and profound contribution to AAEM and to the international development of Emergency Medicine.
In addition to his full-time position at AUBMC, Dr Kazzi established, staffed & managed with his late spouse, Dr Maria Cristina Costin Kazzi, the first licensed Urgent Care Center in Lebanon, along with an ambulatory care center in the underserved region of Damour to attend to the medical needs of a region where such infrastructure was ravaged by the civil war & had not recovered. Providing service to more than 14,000 patients per year, Damour Medical Center (DMC) maintained an affiliation with the American University of Beirut (2015-2021).
As of February 2017, and after Dr Cristina Kazzi unfortunately passed away, Dr Kazzi assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer for DMC & as its Urgent Care Medical Director while still serving full-time as a Professor at the American University of Beirut. DMC provides a “Priority Medical Care “ concierge service to select patients and is equipped as a free-standing emergency department.
More recently, as of October 2023, as an elected President for the Lebanese Society of Emergency Medicine, in the Lebanese Order of Physicians, Dr Kazzi organized and participated a series of seminars as well as co- organized a number of national training initiatives to prepare all 150 hospitals in Lebanon to the high risk of war and mass casualty incidents. He was appointed to represent the Order of Physicians and its Lebanese Society of Emergency Medicine as their physician-representative on the Public Health Emergency Operation Center- PHEOC. He recruited, selected and oversaw the physicians who have been, since then, serving in these training efforts, for the Ministry of Health, the WHO, ICRC, MSF alongside with the Lebanese Orders of Nurses and of Physicians.
As a 1985 recipient of the Lebanese Presidential Bachir Gemayel Honorary Award, he had committed to acquiring knowledge and developing skills unavailable in Lebanon, and to bringing that home. So, he did… Dr Kazzi returned to Beirut in 2006 to establish the specialty of Emergency Medicine in Lebanon and establish the proper standards for excellence in delivering emergency medical care. Working with an exceptional team of stellar faculty he recruited and mentored, Dr Amin Kazzi established an academic department of emergency medicine, the first in the Middle East, and the first out of 4 residency programs that have developed across Lebanon over the last 15 years. The AUBMC residency programs is accredited by the “American Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) International.” This is one of 8 in the world. Nearly 15 years after he moved back to Lebanon, the specialty is now established, recognized by most third-party payers and a recruitment target by all hospitals. The specialty has specialist training programs, national conferences or activities and a medical journal and contributions at the national and regional levels. In 1985, Dr. Kazzi promised. He delivered.
