SAMS

It stands for the Syrian American Medical Society. This is one of the nice examples of caring and love for the country from Syrian physicians abroad. In the past seven years, each May a conference is held for 4-5 days in which lectures, symposiums, group meetings and free medical and surgical care is offered to both Syrian physicians and patients in Syria.
The conference ends today and due to my busy schedule and other things I was able to attend a couple of days that were of interest to me.
It is amazing to see how many Syrians hold high positions in the USA in all specialties and subspecialties. This doesn't mean that every one is a good presenter, or that the content is up to expectations (of course content quality is viewed differently by different levels of listeners).
The one thing that I hated most about the whole thing – there has to be always something to criticize – is that us physicians, or at least me, have no real methods of knowing about such events except through word of mouth. The syndicate does not publicize such meetings or lectures to its members. At least they should have an email group list of all members and notify through that.
The good thing is that I got to meet few interesting persons who can be of help and collaboration in the future.