A revered professor, clinician, researcher, and mentor, Dr. Suheil J. Muasher is an internationally-known fertility expert who has helped thousands of people overcome infertility and been an award-winning trainer of residents and fellows in the field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility (REI). He is professor emeritus of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University and the former vice chairman for education and former director of graduate learning and academic development in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Duke.
Muasher's family has a long history with the American University of Beirut, with more than twenty-five graduates among them, including both of his siblings. After obtaining his medical degree at AUB, Suheil (BS '72, MD '76) went on to do his residency at Johns Hopkins University and his fellowship at the Jones Institute at Eastern Virginia Medical School. In 1983, Muasher began working closely at the institute with Dr. Howard W. Jones, Jr. and his wife Georgeanna, who had pioneered the first in vitro fertilization (IVF) baby in the United States in 1981.
As an infertility specialist at the Jones Institute, Muasher held the positions of director of the In Vitro Fertilization Program (1988-2000) and director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (1998-2000). While there, Dr. Muasher collaborated and conducted breakthrough research that led to improved IVF stimulation protocols.
Suheil Muasher founded the Muasher Center for Fertility and IVF in Fairfax, Virginia in 2004, the same year he was awarded the King Hussein Medal for Scientific Achievements of the First Order. He was soon appointed associate professor in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to guide residents and fellows in the art and science of reproductive medicine and infertility through tutorial lectures and participation in academic and teaching meetings.
Over the course of his career as a researcher, Muasher has published 202 peer-reviewed papers and 18 book chapters, several of which are among the most highly cited and read in reproductive medicine literature. He has given equally of his time to research, to treating patients, and to mentoring students, winning the prestigious Kavoussi Family Outstanding Teaching Award in the field of reproductive medicine in 2018. He has been honored with the Council on Resident Education in Obstetrics and Gynecology (CREOG) teaching award four times. Dr. Muasher has also been instrumental in helping medical students at AUB learn how to contribute to research papers that in turn help them obtain residencies in their field.
Those under Muasher's tutelage praise him for his “tireless mentorship" and for being not just a teacher but a friend. The patients in his care have presented him with countless complex situations in their quest to have a child. “I love to treat the very difficult patients," Muasher has said. “I love to find solutions where both patients and other doctors may have seen no way forward." This has led to Muasher's reputation as the doctor to see as the resource of last resort and to his patients' claims that he was able to find a way to help them conceive when other doctors had given up.
In honor of his retirement from Duke University, doctors in the field of reproductive endocrinology and infertility sent tributes that spoke to Dr. Muasher's dual role as both doctor and mentor: “Thank you for both the clinical advice and the advice in life."