← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:02]
A
Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings healthcare leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues facing the industry. And every year, those conversations shift in profound and unexpected ways. This April, more than 3,500 healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's 16th annual meeting. 795 elite speakers will offer new lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what comes next. Join us April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit BeckersHospitalReview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right.
- [00:38]
B
Hi, my name is Paige Twenter. I'm an assistant editor here at Becker's Healthcare. I am so, so honored to be joined today on the Beckers healthcare podcast by Dr. R.F. ravai, President at SAMS Health. I'll go ahead and send it over to you. Can you. Dr. Refai, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about SAMs?
- [01:00]
C
Okay. I am Arif Rifai. I'm an ophthalmology physician, a retina specialist in Pensacola, Florida. I'm also the president of the Syrian American Medical Society. SAMS, it's a society that has more than 1500 members based here in the US has been providing medical relief to Syria since 2012, since the beginning of the revolution and prior to deliberation on any particular day in Northwest Syria, more than 10,000 services would be delivered all across Northwest Syria to a population of about 6 million over every year. We were delivering almost more than 3 million medical services in 13 hospitals across Northwest Syria prior to the liberation of Syria. And since the liberation, the work has actually quadrupled as all of Syria has been liberated and now SAMS is almost all across all provinces inside Syria delivering
- [02:12]
B
care, I believe before 2012. SAMS was created in 1998, right? As a educational medical society for Syrian American professionals in the U.S. correct?
- [02:26]
C
Correct, correct. In 1998, the organization was created mostly for educational purposes where conferences were being held overseas in Syria with some participation from the diaspora physicians in the U.S. but the work of SAMS really came to the highlight during the time of the Syrian revolution in which a lot of responsibilities were given to SAMs through trust and support by international donors from U.S. state Department, USAID to United nations to European governments. A lot of aid grants were given to SAMs and you know, the work on the ground significantly increased all across Syria where we did have field hospitals. Also part of our work was advocacy and providing testimony to some of the atrocities that have taken place, including the chemical weapon use in in Alta suburb, rural Damascus and also in Saraqib and Khan Sheikhoun. So we SAMS physicians did go and testify in front of the UN Security Council during that period.
- [03:52]
B
So SAMS is just a lot bigger than it has been. A lot of, I believe more than 20 chapters in the US it's just grown and grown and grown. Can you share maybe like two to three priorities that you've set for yourself and for SAMS? You just became president last summer, right? In July 2025? Yeah, correct.
- [04:16]
C
So I was on the board of the SAMS as the treasurer. And then in July 2025 I became the president of the Society. But yes, SAMS has grown significantly. We quadrupled the number of the members since the liberation. December 2024, after liberation of Syria. And now the whole Syria in its geography and its 13 provinces is available for us to be able to operate over there. I'll give you kind of in general, our core strategic objectives as SAMs. What we are looking for currently is to play a major role in elevating the quality of medical care that is being provided inside Syria, to standardize that the clinical practice have high impact on the care that is being delivered and also work on the training future generation of physician, expand the workforce in between physician nurses and allied health. Also at times we do address the unmet urgent medical needs or health crisis. You know, I'll give you example with the liberation of the eastern part of Syria recently. I was there one week prior to the liberation of Rakan Deirzur. We visited the hospitals over there, met with the officials, did address the urgent health needs and were able to provide some and especially also on the side, as well as the refugees. There are still more than 1 million people that live in refugee camps and intents inside Syria. We also would like to work on strengthening the medical education and training of the medical students, the residents, so that we prepare for the future generation of Syrian physicians. And then four, we probably prioritize providing specialized care in centers of excellence that only SAMS will be able to provide. Advanced cardiology services, advanced oncology care. We do provide certain surgeries that no one else does. Cochlear implants for deaf kids, retina surgery. Those are the things that SAMHS is looking into providing.
- [06:51]
B
Obviously leaning on your experience as an ophthalmologist to probably build those services. More. Of those four priorities, which one do you think will be the hardest?
- [07:06]
C
Very good question. Actually probably working very hard into training and providing medical education for the future Syrian physicians. This would be the most difficult and will provide the highest impact that SAMS would be able to participate in elevating the medical care. The other thing is visiting Syria's hospitals, clinics. Unfortunately, the Syrian regime has left the infrastructure in such a dilapidated, destroyed fashion that to try to rebuild the healthcare system is going to be a monumental task. In between the structures, in between the equipment, in between having the staff, the trained staff, strengthening the health care system, those are two gigantic tasks. And that's where the challenge that we do look at facing Syria and for
- [08:15]
B
SAMs, where do you see the biggest opportunity for growth in, let's say just 2026, just this year?
- [08:24]
C
Well, currently we are functioning as a, you know, medical relief that is cooperating with the Ministry of Health and trying to see the unmet need. Certain areas that they do require some, you know, assistance. So this is one opportunity. The other one is we are expanding on our centers of excellence. So I'll give you example. In few weeks we will be launching a radiation oncology center in Hama. It has been probably almost 12 months to get it prepared, to get the staff, to get the radiation oncologist, the physicist. That is a huge center that will be servicing probably about 5 to 6 million people in Syria. We basically look at that as a great opportunity to showcase how Syrian American physicians will be able to assist in delivering specialized care in Syria. That is one opportunity. The second one is in Idlib. We do have an advanced cardiac center that is providing right now advanced cardiac intervention, repair of structural heart defects through non surgical interventions, doing minimally invasive cardiac surgery, doing pediatric surgery. This is something that SAMS is working on providing that service. And also on top of that, we do have physicians that come to those centers and actually participate. The third one is SAMS does have an educational arm called SAMS Institute. We do have a simulation lab that we constantly train physicians, medical student residents, and then we do participate in a lot of conferences, medical education initiatives across Syria. So those fall along what we do
- [10:40]
B
in our last few minutes here. Is there anything in particular you'd really like to share with other healthcare leaders, you know, listening to this podcast? Any statement you'd like to share?
- [10:54]
C
Yeah, I will take that opportunity to just basically talk about. Sam's experience here in the US has been recognized by a lot of the major players, stakeholders in the U.S. so we recently did have certain healthcare systems trust SAMS by giving major donations. I would like to thank, you know, through this advent Health, Ascension Health, Orlando Health, in which they were having a lot of renovation in their major hospitals and they donated to us. You know, one hospital donated more than 300 hospital beds, they're basically going through renovation. And they handed functioning hospital beds Advent Health has been giving us. They gave us more than 120 intensive care unit specialized beds. And those came in very handy because they were all put in containers and were shipped overseas. And right now they are underground, you know, in public sector hospitals providing and assisting in the health care of the patients. On top of long list of donations in consumables, I'll give you an example. America Care is a big organization that does provide medications. In 2025, SAMS shipped more than 70 containers from the US all the way across overseas. And those containers entered Syria with medications, donations, equipment, beds, consumables, ventilators, anesthesia machines. All of that has been donated by partners here in the US that did trust SAMs, that we will be able to manage that. So, yes, and this did not come out of a vacuum. It's just basically sam's constant effort to advocate, attend, meeting, reach out to partners, to basically advocate on behalf of the Syrian population on the Syrian communities. The need, the dire need for support. We basically with the election of President Trump, yes, they did support, they did say, let's give the Syrian people a chance. But the amount of donations through usaid, like all other international organizations, has gone down a little bit. But they still recognize that Syria is a special case that they would like to continue to support and give a chance. And also the same thing goes for Secretary Marco Rubio that we still have some grants through the U.S. state Department. So just for your listeners to let you know that, yes, sams, as an organization, we do have an arm that goes and advocates. This coming Friday, I'm going to be going to Washington D.C. to one of those think tanks to attend a roundtable. We'll be asked a lot of questions about what is going on on the ground, what is the future of the health care in Syria. And just basically they like to hear. Since the liberation of Syria last year, 2025, I've been to Syria 11 times. Every four to five weeks I go for about a week. I go all across Syria, meet officials over there, visit hospitals, visit centers, and try to see what we can do to basically support the healthcare system in Syria.
- [14:39]
B
Well, thank you so much for joining the Vickers Healthcare Podcast and sharing these updates on the Syrian American Medical Society, or sams. Thank you so much.
- [14:49]
C
Thank you very much. Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to talk about Syrian American Medical Society sams and I'll be very happy in the future if you do need me to, you know, give you updates. I will. I will, you know, be happy and privileged to. To do that.