Dr Aladdin Toukan passes away

Born Alauddin Toukan in 1947 in Jerusalem, Palestine to Hanan Jalal Hashem and his late excellency Bahauddin Toukan. Brother to the late Majesty Queen Alia Al Hussein and HE Dr. Abdullah Toukan, uncle to HRH Princess Haya and HRH Prince Ali, Ms. Abir Muheissin, the late Tarek and Ali Toukan. Husband to Mrs. Randa Ghanma Toukan, father to Ms. Alia, Dr. Hanan and Dr. Oraib, and grandfather to Talal Homoud and Hamza Homoud, Soraya Zolghadr-Toukan , Balkis Azzam and Rayyan Azzam-Toukan.

 

Dr. Alauddin spent the first two years of primary school in the Terra Sancta School in Amman, Jordan before moving to the UK in 1956 to attend Claremont School, St. Leonard's in Sussex, UK and secondary school at Bryanstone Public School in Blandford, Dorset, UK, from where he graduated in 1964. In 1965, Dr. Toukan enrolled in St. George's Hospital Medical School, University of London, where he received his undergraduate education. He carried out his postgraduate training first in internal medicine at the University of Western Ontario followed by Boston University Medical Center in Boston, MA, USA. After that Dr. Toukan held various appointments, these include, amongst others, Professor of Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Jordan; Chief of the Gastroenterology and Liver Unit in the Department of Medicine at the University of Jordan, Clinical Research Associate in Medicine at Boston University Medical Center, Fulbright Scholar and Researcher in the Hepatitis Branch at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, GA, U.S.A, as well as Chairman of the Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Jordan, and Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Jordan.

 

Over the decades Dr. Toukan was an instrumental pedagogue in medical education and avid university lecturer and researcher where he was Principal Investigator on various epidemiological studies on Hepatitis in Jordan that were published in numerous international medical journals. These studies defined the transmission patterns of hepatitis B in the Middle East and continue to be sources of reference for the implementation of prevention and vaccination programs in Jordan and the wider region.  Dr. Toukan passionately taught countless medical students and was above all inspired and driven by his students’quest for medical knowledge.

 

Dr. Toukan played a major role in initiating and directing the Internal Medicine Residency Training Program at the University of Jordan Hospital, leading to the Masters Degree and certification by the Arab and Jordanian Boards of Internal Medicine. He developed the G.I and Liver Units of the Jordan Hospital into a modern and fully equipped national referral center. He initiated the Liver Research Laboratory in the Faculty of Medicine and developed this into a major instrument of Hepatitis research in the country. He was also Co-Founder of the Arab-African Society of Gastroenterology and Endoscopy, and Founder, with his wife Randa Ghanma Toukan, of the Jordanian Society of Friends of Liver Patients, a society formed for the support and financial help of Liver Patients.  In addition, as chairman of the scientific committee, Dr. Toukan led a major thrust in educational involvement by all member physicians, particularly in supporting meetings, studies and educational activities in schools, rural areas, refugee camps and parental and teacher associations regarding liver diseases. Dr. Toukan was also invited by Dr. B. Blumberg, Nobel prize recipient for the discovery of the hepatitis B virus to sit on a Global committee for the eradication of hepatitis B, under his chairmanship and resulting from that, the formation of, and chairing for the Middle East and North Africa study group on hepatitis B which held its first meeting in Amman.  Dr. Toukan was also a member of the WHO coordinating committee on hepatitis in Geneva.  

 

His hobbies were reading, photography, gardening and listening to music.