Dr. Tarek Dufan
Chief Medical Officer, Chief of Excellence and Chief of Radiation Oncology at American Hospital Dubai
“Patients are at the heart of everything we do”
The founding truth about medicine and its purpose was probably best captured by Hippocrates, who stated, “Wherever the art of medicine is loved, there is also a love for humanity.” Providing healthcare is a humanitarian commitment, and American Hospital Dubai has honored this commitment for over 25 years. “Hospitals” magazine interviewed Dr. Tarek Dufan, the Chief Medical Officer, Chief of Excellence and Chief of Radiation Oncology at American Hospital Dubai, who shed light on American Hospital Dubai’s role in providing the best possible healthcare.
The term’ medical excellence’ is common parlance in this era of healthcare evolution. It’s a top catchphrase and a habituated aspiration for healthcare providers. But what does medical excellence mean?
Let’s begin with the definition of excellence – it means greatness, the ability to achieve the very best in the field through excelling or being exceptionally good and possessing the most superior merit. But this is only the definition. For excellence to come alive and become a reality, it must be practiced – through implementation.
Achieving excellence in any field requires an understanding of purpose. What is your purpose?
In medicine and healthcare, the purpose is to treat and cure. But it is not such a simple aim; it is deeply nuanced. Your true purpose is to understand the person with the disease, not just the disease in the person. So, while treating and curing the disease is the primary objective, as is alleviating, reducing, and managing the distress and pain of discomfort due to the disease, it is about the person with the disease, not just the disease alone, which means bringing empathy and an understanding of the psycho-social cultural nuances of patients that play a critical role in healing.
This understanding is the seed that births the concept of patient-centric care.
Everyone Deserves the Best Healthcare
Since its launch in 1996, American Hospital Dubai has ensured everyone receives the best quality healthcare. This conviction drives us. We believe healthcare must be progressive, inclusive, empathic, and all-encompassing.
American Hospital Dubai understands the macro vision that will result in the micro-objective: patient satisfaction.
Patients are at the heart of everything we do. The term ‘patient-centric’ may seem obvious; healthcare is all about patients. However, implementing a genuinely patient-centric healthcare model is more complex than it appears. It involves many moving parts: Human Skills, Integrated Resources (Human and Technical), Policies, Workflows, Analytics, Vision, and Intent. Each component is non-dispensable and must be integrated seamlessly into a holistic process that delivers the best patient experience and treatment outcome.
Successful patient-centric care requires a multi-dimensional approach. You must do several things simultaneously with superior merit and intentional vigor. These include delivering the right kind of restorative care at the right time in the right way to ensure patient satisfaction and well-being; promoting preventive and preservative health; staying abreast of the latest medical developments; investing in the best medical professional skills, infrastructure, and facilities and staff training and encompassing these disciplines with visionary leadership, mentoring, and empathy.
American Hospital Dubai adheres to these principles of continual achievement of medical excellence. We consciously construct the best possible healthcare model by investing in best-in-class physicians, specialists, and professionals with high-grade medical skills and experience. We integrate human skills with AI and Big Data to give our patients the best chance at receiving life-changing treatments. We practice interoperability in disease treatment and care, choose evidence-based solutions, keep abreast of evolving treatment methodologies, and integrate innovation and research-led breakthroughs in care delivery.
We are committed to sustainability and guided by exemplary leadership, which helps us deliver benchmark healthcare in the UAE and the region year after year.
But there’s more to excellent patient care: medical expertise and know-how. These game-changers make the difference when a patient seeks the best medical treatment.
Why We Prefer To Be The Change We Seek For The World
American Hospital Dubai believes in being the change we desire for humanity, so we established our centers of excellence and dedicated advanced units in critical medical fields. We harnessed our expertise and experience to set up our leading-edge hubs of treatment centers that are the regional leaders in their respective fields, offering state-of-the-art procedures and surgeries.
Our Heart & Vascular Center, Diabetes Center, Orthopedics (Total Joints Replacement Center), Cancer Care Center, and Center of Excellence in Robotic Surgery (COERS) are the region’s leading hubs for advanced treatments and cutting-edge solutions for complex diseases. Our dedicated units include a Breast Care Clinic, Prostate Clinic, Hernia Center, Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Center, Dialysis Unit, American Children Center Dental Clinic, and the Stem Cell Unit (Bone Marrow Transplant Unit), Dubai’s first and only autologous hematopoietic stem cell/bone marrow transplant facility.
American Hospital Dubai’s synergy with the UAE’s government’s National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence (AI) 2031 led us to take a head start with AI, Big Data and Digitization, integrating them into our innovation-led treatment solutions and work processes. We set up the region’s first AI-led research center in Dubai in collaboration with medical technology giant Cerner in 2020. This year, we launched The Face, the region’s most advanced skincare and plastic surgery destination, offering the latest solutions and services in dermatology and aesthetics. It combines world-class medical expertise, advanced technology, and commitment to patient-centric care.
We have always committed to a keen understanding of the client’s emotional value of decision-making. The Face will deliver on it in the highly sought-after area of skin care treatments and plastic surgery procedures.
Shaping Dubai’s Robotic Surgery Era and Leading in Complex Disease Treatment
Staying relevant in a rapidly evolving healthcare scenario matters not because you need to stay in the game but because your role is to help patients benefit from the latest medical developments.
Robotic surgery advances have transformed healthcare. We are proud to be the first medical facility in the UAE to fully explore its advantages, earning us a leading place in Dubai’s robotic surgery era.
Our Center of Excellence in Robotic Surgery (COERS) is the first private healthcare facility in the region to earn accreditation from the US-based Surgical Review Corporation (SRC).
American Hospital Dubai was the first private healthcare provider in the UAE to install the 4th generation DaVinci Robotic System and the ROSA® Knee System. We are also the first private medical facility in Dubai to install the Halcyon® system radiation therapy and the Mazor X Stealth™ edition Robotic Guidance System for spinal surgeries.
We have conducted over 1,500 robotic surgeries since 2020, when we launched this unit, and our expertise in adult and pediatric robotic surgeries has set several milestones. These accomplishments demonstrate our ability to deliver superior patient experiences continually because that commitment drives our use of advanced procedures.
Our leadership in complex disease treatments and surgeries is driven by a commitment to addressing the crucial need to find solutions for challenging diseases. Complex disease treatment requires high-grade expertise, dedicated resources, and a commitment beyond the traditional boundaries of care management.
Pursuing this vision means initiating our own best practices, and our specialized complex disease treatment hubs have helped us blaze a trail in complex disease management innovations. American Hospital Dubai has achieved several firsts and set many milestones in complex treatments and surgeries, including robotics. To give a few examples of exceptional breakthroughs this year alone, we performed the region’s first robotic pediatric surgery, a Right Diaphragmatic Hernia, on an infant to treat Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH), a rare condition in newborns.
We are proud to have performed Dubai’s first-ever robot-assisted Whipple procedure, a modified PPPD or Pylorus Preserving Pancreaticoduodenectomy (PPPD,) to remove a tumor at the head of the pancreas.
We achieved a breakthrough in a highly complex and rare neurological case of Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis, or ADEM, in a female patient who had previously sought treatment elsewhere without success.
We helped her regain her ability to walk with a cane, communicate verbally, be free of the tracheostomy, feed herself, and eat a regular diet. Our exceptional expertise in open surgeries was evidenced in an open aorto-bi-femoral bypass with graft and thrombectomy of the aorta and renal arteries on a 53-year-old male patient with cardiac and peripheral artery disease. It is a highly complex surgery and was among the region’s milestone achievements.
We performed a highly complex lung surgery on a 15-day-old infant with Congenital Lobar Emphysema, a rare condition that went misdiagnosed and untreated till the parents brought the baby to us.
The Role of Conscious Choices in Pursuing Excellence
American Hospital Dubai has an intentionally designed patient-centric healthcare model, which we believe is essential to leadership performance. We make conscious choices in designing our performance and care delivery to go beyond the conventional disease-and-treatment boundaries and function in an innovation-led, pioneering territory.
Our clinical decisions and actions are patient-centered; we continually enhance our knowledge through experience and promote and share our knowledge through education and training.
We undertake continual reviews of our performance and goals and have implemented the Service Excellence Program to ensure the highest standards of care. It is intrinsic to our pursuit of excellence and drives us to improve our performance consistently. We have a Clinical Education Department offering multidisciplinary education programs for clinical staff to keep up the momentum. We shape our policies and work processes to align with our commitment to patient satisfaction. Earlier this year, we remodeled our Human Resources Department into the People Innovation and Impact Department. The transformative initiative will nurture human endeavor through the self-determination of work value and contribution to collaborative progress, further consolidating American Hospital Dubai’s organizational culture of excellence and people empowerment through innovation.
Expanding Our Medical Care Excellence Footprint in UAE and Globally
In 2024, American Hospital Dubai expanded its footprint by opening a multispecialty hospital in Dubai Science Park, Al Barsha South. The American Hospital Dubai Science Park is a strategic move to demonstrate further our commitment to bringing world-class healthcare to more people.
American Hospital Dubai Science Park is home to the region’s most advanced brain suite, an advanced and comprehensive cancer center, and trauma care.It has state-of-the-art facilities and expertise in over 20 medical fields including Orthopedics, Rheumatology, Neurosurgery, Pediatrics, ENT, Breast Surgery, Ob/GYN, General Surgery, Plastic Surgery, Urology, Dermatology, Neurology, Primary Care, Gastroenterology, Nephrology, Endocrinology, Ophthalmology, Cardiology, Pulmonology, Radiation Oncology, Radiotherapy, NICU and PCC. It is in addition to our seven dedicated clinics across Dubai in Dubai Media City, Al Barsha, Al Khawaneej, Jumeirah, Mira, Dubai Hills, and Nad Al Sheba to make world-class medical care more accessible to people.
We are also active partners in promoting Dubai’s medical tourism goals. We aim to create a synergy between Dubai’s excellent medical facilities and fulfill the expectations of international patients seeking the best solutions for their health recovery.
American Hospital opened its first medical representative office in Lagos, Nigeria, as part of its 30-office expansion across Africa and Eastern Europe. The Lagos office will promote local community engagements and knowledge-sharing online seminars with Nigerian healthcare professionals and address the needs of more Nigerians looking for affordable and trusted healthcare overseas.
Healthcare Leadership Requires a 360° Vision
Among the hallowed ideals of leadership is legacy building. Healthcare is intrinsic to progress, and its role in improving the human condition is forever reshaped by time, discoveries, improvements, challenges, enquiry and search for better solutions. American Hospital Dubai integrates with these forces of change through diverse approaches: innovation, education, research, AI and Big Data, and progressive partnerships with the finest medical institutions globally. We believe these assets enhance our patient-centric delivery model.
We launched the American Hospital Academic Institute (AHAI) to train healthcare professionals and develop talented staff in the UAE and the region. AHAI, in partnership with Robotics Surgical Systems (RSS) and UK-based CMR Surgical, set up the first robotic surgical training hub for MEA in Dubai to promote expertise sharing through training and education to boost medical professionalism in the region. The more we widen the pool of skilled resources, the better we can serve patients.
Our decision to partner with the prestigious Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), Texas, US, to set up a full-fledged medical college and campus on American Hospital premises in Dubai further proves how our education ideology drives us. Baylor College of Medicine is a medical school and research center within the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical center. The medical college in Dubai will offer the BCM curriculum, bringing world-class know-how and skills to the UAE and the region. The partnership is a milestone project for the region’s healthcare landscape, reaffirming American Hospital Dubai’s pledge to promote medical education and raise healthcare standards.
Building Healthier Tomorrows Is Unconditional Responsibility
The finest medical institutions and healthcare providers have a common goal: establishing a continuum of excellence to benefit people and empower them to lead healthier, happier lives. In other words, it is legacy building. American Hospital Dubai’s mission and vision are to continuously learn and update knowledge, performance, and skills and embrace innovation and breakthroughs to deliver on its promise of world-class patient-centric care. We subject ourselves daily to fundamental self-scrutiny: What are we here for, what do we want to achieve, and for whom? How can we do it better than yesterday? These impetuses drive us to pursue exceptional outcomes continually. We believe progress by self-scrutiny is the best tool to shape the future we want.
