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Thurayya Arayssi
Professor of Clinical Medicine and Senior Associate Dean

Dr. Thurayya Arayssi is Professor of Clinical Medicine andSenior Associate Dean for Medical Education and Continuing Professional Development (CPD). She obtained her M.D. degree from the American University of Beirut and completed her residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine and her Geriatrics fellowship at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. She then joined the National Institutes of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Disorders (NIAMS) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, completing a second fellowship in Rheumatology with a focus in the area of early arthritis.

Dr. Arayssi has been working in the area of International Medical Education for almost two decades and has held multiple leadership positions including Program Director of Internal Medicine Residency Program, Designated Institutional Official (DIO), Assistant Dean for Clinical Curriculum, Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and more recently Senior Associate Dean for Medical Education and CPD. She is interested in physician work- force development and retention in less resourced countries through improvement of standards of education and training of physicians across the continuum of education. In this capacity, she has been involved in accreditation of residency programs and CPD programs.

Dr. Arayssi’s current research interests focus on rheumatoid arthritis (RA), for which she has received funding as the Principal Investigator and Behcet disease. She has organized the Middle East Rheumatoid Arthritis Consortium (MERAC), which brings together renowned rheumatologists from the Middle East and the United States who share the interest of investigating the genetics and the clinical characteristics of Arab patients with RA for the purpose of improving their care. She has authored more than 100 peer- reviewed articles, abstracts and book chapters in her area of expertise. She has received several teaching awards and honors including being inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.