AAEM Introduces the “Amin Kazzi International Emergency Medicine Leadership Award”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 16, 2015
MILWAUKEE — The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) is proud to announce the renaming of the annual “International Emergency Medicine Leadership Award” to the “Amin Kazzi International Emergency Medicine Leadership Award.”
Since 2001, this annual international leadership award recognizes an individual who has made an exceptional, longstanding, and profound leadership contribution to the international development of emergency medicine (EM) or to the advancement of EM education worldwide. The renaming of the award honors Amin Antoine Nabih Kazzi, MD MAAEM FAAEM, who has played an exceptional leadership role in our specialty’s efforts internationally.
Dr. Kazzi is a Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon. Dr. Kazzi is a past-president of AAEM (2004-2006), of the California Chapter of AAEM (2001-2003), and twice the recipient of the AAEM International Leadership Award himself in 2004 and 2009.
Dr. Kazzi is internationally known for founding in 2001, with two European colleagues, the premier international multinational Mediterranean Emergency Medicine Congress (MEMC). As executive chair, he planned & executed in partnership with other key leaders five out of the eight Mediterranean EM Congresses, most recently this September 2015 in Rome, Italy.
In 2006, he returned to Lebanon and established the first academic department of emergency medicine at AUB as its Founding Chair, and in 2011, its first EM residency program. In 2010-2012, he served as president for the Lebanese Society for Emergency Medicine and spearheaded the regulatory changes required to secure reimbursement of professional fees for EM specialists in parity with their peers. More recently, he has founded the Mediterranean Chapter of AAEM (MAEM) and the Lebanon Chapter of AAEM (LAEM) to enhance the development of emergency medicine in those regions.
Over two decades, Dr. Kazzi received the David K. Wagner Leadership Recognition Award, the AAEM Special Leadership Recognition Award, the AAEM International Emergency Medicine Leadership Award, the AAEM-EuSEM Founders’ Award, & the AAEM Resident Section Leadership Award. In 2013, Dr. Kazzi was the third recipient to receive the Master of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine (MAAEM) distinction, which is awarded to those who embody the MAAEM ideals of longstanding extraordinary service, education, volunteerism, and advocacy.
AAEM congratulates Dr. Kazzi on his many accomplishments and will present the “Amin Kazzi International Emergency Medicine Award” to future recipients in his honor.
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The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) is the specialty society in emergency medicine today. As an organization, AAEM believes achievement of board certification represents the only acceptable method of attaining recognition as a specialist in emergency medicine.