After completing my gastroenterology fellowship in 1999, my journey up through the ranks to section chief with research success resulted in the opportunity to serve as chair of the department. This is a testament to the great institutional culture of mentoring, grooming, promoting, and practicing diversity, in addition, to preaching it. It is a privilege to carry on this commitment to staff and faculty inclusion; both to cultivate leadership from underrepresented minorities and women, as well as, to reflect the diversity of Houston and the patients we serve. My job as chair is to provide guidance, assistance, and resources to develop the best physicians, researchers, educators, and leaders, making a positive difference.
Baylor is my family and Houston is my home! My wife, Dr. Rola El-Serag, a graduate of our internal medicine residency program, now directs the Houston VA’s Women’s Health Center. We have tremendously enjoyed our 22 years in Houston, and we are the proud parents of three Houston-born and raised children, now in high school and college.
Our department represents the best of Houston’s features: we have achieved understated excellence, diversity, unity and worldly outlook, and we have as ambitions as large as the Texas skies.
Hashem B. El-Serag, M.D., M.P.H.
The world looks much different now than it did a year ago. COVID-19, the struggle for social justice, and a “once in a lifetime” arctic freeze has changed life as we know it. However, these extraordinary events sharpened our focus on the important values that drove us to medicine, science, and healthcare. Our Baylor community stayed resilient and united and placed us on a road to recovery and resurgence. At the Department of Medicine, our core commitment has been to care for patients, families, each other, and our institution. I’m inspired by our response as a learning healthcare center- from frontline providers who put their lives on the line to treat the ill; researchers and investigators who lead the pivotal treatment trials of remdisivir, tocilizumab and vaccines trials; educators who improvised and innovated; to staff and administrators who organized and coordinated our response and recovery.
We strive for excellence in our professional pursuits and do our best to lead balanced lives to share these moments with others.
I invite you to learn more about our department, what makes us special, and how we produce impactful medicine. Please feel free to contact me if you would like to learn more.
Hashem B. El-Serag, M.D., M.P.H.