Interview with Sami Hashim, MD by Norma M.T. Braun, MD

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US AA155.INT171

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Title

Interview with Sami Hashim, MD by Norma M.T. Braun, MD

Date(s)

  • 6/27/2017 (Creation)

Extent

1 DVD (1:00:50)

Name of creator

(1937-)

Biographical history

Dr. Norma Braun (neé Wang Mai Tsen) was born in Shanghai, China during the third Japanese invasion, before the World War II. Prior to the war her family was well off and very well educated. Both her grandfather and father spent time in American universities. Norma, however did not attend school until age 10, because of the war. In 1949, she, her mother and siblings relocated to Philadelphia. Norma, who desired to be a doctor from a young age, started medical school at Temple University but transferred to Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons (Class of 1963) after being offered a scholarship. She completed her internship and residency at Bellevue Hospital and began working at St. Luke’s Hospital in 1982, as a cardio-pulmonary fellow under A. Loomis Bell, MD, who ran the cardiopulmonary laboratory. Eventually she narrowed her specialty to pulmonary medicine, and continues to work in that area at St. Luke’s, now Mount Sinai Morningside.

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Biographical history

Born and raised just south of Beirut, Lebanon, Dr. Sami Hashim attended an American-based high school and completed his BA at the American University of Beirut. Originally working towards a PhD in biochemistry, a meeting with an American professor from the University of Buffalo (New York) redirected him to medical school there. Hashim completed his internship, residency, and research fellowship in nutrition at Harvard University while working at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where he met Dr. Theodore VanItallie. A few years later Dr. VanItallie became Chief of Medicine at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York, and invited Dr. Hashim to join St. Luke’s staff where he rose to the position of Director of the Division of Metabolism and Nutrition in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Hashim’s research into lipid metabolism led to the development of MCT (Medium Chain Triglycerides) as a supplement to infant formula for premature babies and as the basis for a drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease, among other applications. Collaborating with Dr. VanItallie, they developed cholestyramine, the first cholesterol lowering medication. Both doctors, though retired from Hospital service, continue their research ventures and currently are collaborating on is a new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.

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Scope and content

Dr. Sami Hashim discusses his education and career development, his research on lipid metabolism and its derivatives, the ketogenic diet, the development of MCT (Medium Chain Triglycerides) which today has in many nutritional and medicinal applications and his collaboration with Dr. Theodore VanItallie which produced cholestyramine, the first cholesterol lowering medication. Dr. Hashim remarks on his family life and children, his hobbies, and his acquaintances with the Royal family in Kuwait and meeting the former President of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, Nobel Laureate Linus Pawling, IRA member Bobby Sands, and Arctic Explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

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This material is available for research use. Click on icons to open. Contact the Archives (MSArchives@mssm.edu) for further information.

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Transcript is available.

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Copyright is held by Mount Sinai. Please contact the Archives (MSArchives@mssm.edu) for more information.

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      DVD was a DVD-R containing MP4 file; copied to Azure 11/13/2017. Video sent to MediaScribe for transcription 11/15/2017.

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