Photos showing the damage at Saint George Hospital University Medical Center in Beirut. Source: George Wanna, MD.
For George Wanna, MD, Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Beth Israel, the recent deadly blast in Beirut hit very close to home, which is why he is working so hard to help the city where he was born and raised.
Dr. Wanna, who credits Mount Sinai with giving him an opportunity to become a doctor in the United States and who considers Mount Sinai a second home, has been in touch with colleagues in Beirut and has been working to raise funds, including establishing a GoFundMe account that has raised more than $60,000. A focus is helping Saint George Hospital University Medical Center, a leading hospital in Lebanon severely damaged by the blast.
“They are treating people out on the streets,” said Dr. Wanna, who is also Professor of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, and Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “We are just trying to see what we can do to help care for people in a community that is now completely devastated.”
George Wanna, MD
Following the blast on August 4, Dr. Wanna spoke with the hospital’s Chief Medical Officer, Alexander Nehme, MD, someone he knows who trained at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine, who told him of the dire need for supplies and also passed along photos of the destruction, which the hospital has also prominently displayed on its website. The hospital says it evacuated 160 patients and the blast killed four nurses and 12 patients.
The explosion has also displaced hundreds of thousands of people in the city, and the home of Dr. Wanna’s parents, about a kilometer from the blast site, has been severely damaged.
Founded in 1878, the hospital is a nonprofit academic medical center owned by the Orthodox Archdiocese of Beirut and affiliated with the University of Balamand in El-Koura, Lebanon, about 60 miles north of Beirut. The hospital served patients through years of civil strife during the 1970s and 1980s and was expanded to 400 beds in 2004.
Dr. Wanna has also been working with Brent Stackhouse, Managing Director of Mount Sinai Ventures, to see if Mount Sinai can provide surplus medical supplies such as hospital beds, mattresses, and IV poles. Georges Naasan, MD, Medical Director for the Center for Cognitive Health and the Vice Chair of Ambulatory Operations and Quality for the Department of Neurology, is also helping to provide assistance to the American University of Beirut Medical Center, which is providing care for those injured in the blast. Dr. Naasan, a native of Lebanon, earned his medical degree at the American University of Beirut.
Dr. Wanna, a prominent hearing and balance surgeon and researcher, received his medical degree from Lebanese University. He completed his residency training in otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine and a two-year fellowship in neurotology at Vanderbilt University Hospital. Dr. Wanna was an Associate Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Vanderbilt Medical Center before being recruited by Mount Sinai and returning to New York in 2017.
Dr. Wanna, an American citizen who was born in Beirut in the 1970s, spent much of his childhood in a bomb shelter in Lebanon during years of civil war.
“I am one of the lucky ones. Mount Sinai took a chance on me and gave me the opportunity to leave Beirut and achieve the American dream,” he said. “I will always be grateful. Mount Sinai will always be home to me.”