Impact Stories

Although it has been more than 20 years since he graduated from the American University of Beirut (AUB) as a member of the MD Class of 2002, Khaled Zreik’s memories of his days on campus are still very powerful. “It is a time that I will never forget,” he says. It is also a time that profoundly influenced the course of his life.

It was at AUB that Zreik was first exposed to Lebanese from many different backgrounds. “Growing up,” he remembers, “most of my friends were just like me. The exposure that I got at AUB helped me develop my character and gave me a sense of what it meant to excel. It was there that I imagined the person I could become.”

After graduating from AUB in 2002, Khaled completed a residency in general surgery at Waterbury Hospital in Connecticut and then a fellowship in surgical critical care at the University of Minnesota. He is currently an acute care surgeon at Sanford Health in Fargo, North Dakota, where he specializes in trauma and critical care surgery. Dr Zreik is also the director of resident education at the University of North Dakota and the surgical quality officer at Sanford Health.

It isn’t just the exposure at AUB to “brilliant classmates” who inspired him to do better that made Zreik the person he is today. (“My class was full of geniuses, which was terrible because we were all graded in comparison to each other,” he laughs.) Zreik also credits some of his “exceptional professors” – people like Dr. Seta Dadoyan, who taught Civilization Sequence courses. “She was so smart, so inspiring. She opened our eyes to new worlds. She also pushed us to take charge of our lives, to not wait for our fathers to buy things for us but to instead make our own futures and chart our own paths,” he says. “I still remember some of the things she told us.”

Dr. Zreik is deeply grateful for the financial support that he received at AUB. “Without financial assistance, I would not have been able to succeed,” he says. A long-time supporter of his alma mater, Dr. Zreik has stipulated in his will that a part of his estate go to AUB to support financially needy students. “I was one of those students,” he says, “and want to do what I can to help other students like me succeed.”

“We are deeply touched by Dr. Zreik’s decision to make a bequest to his alma mater,” says Associate Vice President for Development Walid Katergi. “I hope that this gift will inspire others to consider making similar arrangements.”