Having completed all his post-graduate medical education at UAMS, Dr. Basheer Khassawneh is an alumnus of multiple training programs in the Department of Internal Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency in 1997 and then completed a fellowship in pulmonary and critical care medicine in 2000. Afterward, he became UAMS’s first fellow in sleep medicine and completed that training in 2001. He is now the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Jordan University of Science and Technology and still maintains an active clinical practice as a pulmonologist and sleep medicine physician at King Abdullah University Hospital in Jordan. Read on to hear how his extensive training at UAMS prepared him for his current leadership role and a successful career in medicine.
Please describe how you ended up at UAMS for your internal medicine residency.
Dr. Khassawneh: A friend of mine, Giath Mikdadi, now a cardiologist in Hammond, Louisiana, interviewed at UAMS one year ahead of me. I remember when he came back to Jordan, he handed me a UAMS dark blue folder and told me that this is the place to go. Since then, UAMS was on the top of my list. I remember that I called the medicine office from a payphone in New York, and I received the good news that UAMS gave me an interview. The interview went very well. I loved the city and the campus. We had a great dinner at 1920, and people were very nice and especially friendly. I was lucky to be interviewed by Dr. Ackerman and Dr. Susan S. Beland. Moreover, it was very exciting to train under the leadership of Dr. Andreoli, the author of the famous internal medicine textbook Cecil Essentials of Medicine. I then made one of the best decisions in my life and ranked UAMS number one on my list.
Please describe your career path from the end of your training at UAMS to your present role as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST).
Dr. Khassawneh: After completing my training at UAMS, I spent a year moonlighting at Conway Regional until my wife, Samah Abu Rahma, completed her child neurology residency at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. In 2002, I joined the Department of Internal Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at JUST. Then, in 2004, I became Director of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. In 2008, I became chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine. From 2010 to 2016, I served as chief medical officer and then deputy CEO for King Abdullah University Hospital. In 2022, I was promoted to my current role of Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at JUST.
How did your education and training at UAMS prepare you for your leadership role at JUST?
Dr. Khassawneh: My education at UAMS and the VA hospital provided me with the best training in my field and prepared me well to provide unique and advanced care, especially in the field of critical care medicine and sleep medicine. During my first few years at JUST and King Abdullah University Hospital, I was able to establish the division of critical care medicine and the medical ICU as an independent and effective service. I was also the first board-certified sleep physician in Jordan and established the first and only sleep lab and sleep medicine service in the north of Jordan. My research work with Dr. Peter White and successful publication in CHEST sparked in me the love for doing research and publications. At UAMS, I learned how to collaborate and perform data collection and analysis. Working with the faculty there sharpened my manuscript writing skills. Training and working for eight years at a large and expanding academic institution like UAMS provided me with the essential skills for a successful academic career including effective communication skills, networking and collaboration, ethical and professional standards, problem solving, and adaptability. This was achieved through the role I played as a senior resident and team leader and then as a fellow who ran the ICU service. I was given the opportunity to be the attending physician at the ICU in the VA hospital and served on some committees, which was a skill-sharpening experience.
Have you been able to return to UAMS since completing your training?
Dr. Khassawneh: My first-degree cousin lives in Little Rock and works at UAMS (Khaled Khassawneh). It was very exciting for me to visit in June 2021. I woke up early the next day and drove around the city with all the good memories coming back. UAMS has grown significantly. I did visit the medicine office and the pulmonary and critical care division. We had a meeting in the morning report room. But sadly, the people that I knew and worked with were not there. Those are the ones I missed the most.
Have you played a role in recommending the UAMS Internal Medicine residency to any of the recent internal medicine residents who graduated from JUST?
Dr. Khassawneh: Firas and I were the first Jordanian physicians to train at UAMS. Since then, almost every year UAMS Internal Medicine residency accepts JUST graduates, and I am proud of that. I do regularly write recommendation letters for our graduates and recommend UAMS. Moreover, they specifically ask about UAMS and show strong interest in going there. It is a popular and competitive program for JUST graduates. One of our graduates is now a staff in the Division of Endocrinology (Arwa Albashaireh).
Do you have fond memories or stories from your time at UAMS that you would like to share?
Dr. Khassawneh: I arrived at UAMS one month late and missed the orientation. I do remember my first day. They gave me a pager (never seen it before) and a white coat, and I was told I am on call. I stood by the ER door waiting for it to open but did not have the code. The patient was an elderly man from rural Arkansas. He could not understand my Jordanian English, and I for sure did not understand his. It was so funny. I copied his chart from the last admission and survived the experience.
Another time, I was on call in the VA with my student (James Thrasher). Every time I would walk into a medical ward the nurses would kiss me and smile. Later in the night I realized that the students and the interns put a sign on my coat saying, “Kiss me it is my birthday.”
I was lucky to have Dr. Andreoli as my staff in the VA. He would have us climb the stairs to the fifth floor and start asking questions right after that. He then would say “Basheer, you are so out of shape!!!” One day a patient complained to him that I gave him sublingual nitroglycerin the night before and it gave him a headache. Then, Dr. Andreoli told the patient to give me one, and I took it. Boy, I had the worst headache of my life during rounds.
Are there faculty and staff at UAMS (or the VA) who were impactful in your training that you would like to recognize?
Dr. Khassawneh: Yes, Peter White, John Schultz, Charles Hiller, Teofilo Lee-Chiong, and James Philips