AMMAN — Alauddin Toukan, born in 1947 in Jerusalem,
Palestine, to Hanan Jalal Hashem and Bahauddin Toukan, passed away on April 9,
2022.
He was the brother of Her Majesty Queen Alia Al
Hussein and Dr. Abdullah Toukan, and uncle to HRH Princess Haya and HRH Prince
Ali, to Abir Muheissin, and Tarek and Ali Toukan. He was husband to Randa
Ghanma Toukan, father to Alia, Dr. Hanan and Dr. Oraib, and grandfather to
Talal Homoud and Hamza Homoud, Soraya Zolghadr-Toukan, Balkis Azzam, and Rayyan
Azzam-Toukan.
اضافة اعلان
Dr. Alauddin spent the first two years of primary
school in the Terra Sancta School, in Amman, before moving to the UK in 1956 to
attend Claremont School, St. Leonard’s in Sussex, UK, and secondary school at
Bryanston 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 completed 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, US.
Dr. Toukan held various appointments, including
professor of medicine at the Faculty of Medicine, 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, US, as well as
chairman of the Department of Medicine and dean of the Faculty of Medicine at
the University of Jordan.
Over the decades,
Dr. Toukan was an instrumental figure in medical education, an avid university
lecturer and researcher, and the
principal investigator in various epidemiological studies on hepatitis in
Jordan that were published in numerous international medical journals. Those
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 master’s degree and certification by Arab and
Jordanian Boards of Internal Medicine. He developed the Gastroenterology and
Liver Units of the Jordan Hospital into a modern and fully equipped national
referral center. He initiated the Liver Research Laboratory at the Faculty of
Medicine and developed it 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, formed to lend support and financial help
to liver patients. In addition, Dr. Toukan was instrumental in pushing his
fellow physicians to engage in education, particularly by supporting meetings,
studies, and educational activities in schools, rural areas, refugee camps, and
parental and teacher associations to raise awareness about liver diseases.
Dr. Toukan was 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. As a result, under his chairmanship,
a study group on hepatitis B in Middle East and North Africa was formed; its
first meeting was in Amman. Dr. Toukan was also a member of the WHO
coordinating committee on hepatitis in Geneva.
Outside of his many professional accomplishments, his
hobbies were reading, photography, gardening, and listening to music.
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