Dr. Samer Makhoul is an experienced UK certified consultant psychiatrist and the chief executive officer of REEM Neuroscience centre and adjunct assistant professor at UAE university.

Dr. Makhoul is a Syrian/British who completed his psychiatric training in the UK with double CCT in 2010 in adult psychiatry and substance abuse psychiatry, (after he has obtained the membership of the royal college of psychiatrists (MRCPsych) in 2006).

Dr. Makhoul has complemented his training with a certificate of psychopharmacology from the British association of psychopharmacology as well as a postgraduate certificate (PGcert.) in Autism from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. He has trained and worked primarily in the NHS in the UK, working as a consultant psychiatrist, and helped developing the service in the trust he worked at.

Dr. Makhoul then moved to the UAE in 2013 and quickly became the first psychiatrist and youngest chief of medical services at the biggest private provider for health in Abu Dhabi at the time (Al Noor hospital).

Dr. Makhoul then moved to the American center for psychiatry and neurology as a consultant psychiatrist and head of department of psychiatry as well as various other positions over his time there such as deputy chief medical officer and helped building their mental health service.

In 2021, Dr. Makhoul has moved to a new highly specialised hospital (AlReem Hospital) to help build and established a new state of the art mental health services to cater for a wider population and started working on the REEM neuroscience centre that is a unique state of the art neuroscience centre that launched in late 2022 in Abu Dhabi.

Dr. Makhoul has been driving excellence with audit, service improvements and management of all clinical and non-clinical staff. He has demonstrated much leadership with his development of training and updating of skills programme, assuring quality training within these programmes: organising many international conferences in many different areas in all the facilities he worked at including formal lectures, workshops, and seminars in order to drive forward excellence and competence and standards. Some of the meeting he established includes  a series of yearly international conferences such as the schizophrenia forum in Abu Dhabi for 7 years in a row , the Abu Dhabi integrated mental health conference for 3 years so far including the upskilling programme for primary care in Abu Dhabi and the flagship meeting “ The Masterclass” which is a meeting that set standards and promote excellence organised with members from the British Association of Psychopharmacology as well as world renowned clinicians and researchers.

Dr. Makhoul had a very inspiring start from the days of his medical school when he started working as a medical student with his first Cochrane review with the schizophrenia group and then being awarded the MD Recognition Award for Excellence from the dean of the faculty of medicine, at his university (Damascus University), on behalf of the ministry of higher education in Syria. This was followed by a Diploma from the WPA (World Psychiatric Association) as a fellow of the XII world congress in Psychiatry in Yokohama 2002. Most recently (in September 2018) he was elected as a fellow of the royal college of psychiatrists in the UK (FRCPsych) for his contribution to psychiatry and mental health.

Dr. Makhoul is also involved in assessment of pilots and their mental health: to this end he has been an aviation specialist and been approved by the General Civil Aviation Authority in the UAE as a specialist Aero medical examiner since 2015 and been one of the few approved assessors in the UAE in this area including substance abuse. Dr. Makhoul is HIMS trained aeromedical psychiatrist.

Dr. Makhoul has also been involved with the department of Health -Abu Dhabi as part of the Mental health task force.

From the start of his career in the UAE, he has made his ultimate role to raise awareness in the community and the Arab world in general. He conducted multiple awareness campaigns in the community. He has been a regular source for many newspapers, and regular guest in local and national TVs such as Abu Dhabi TV and international TV stations such as Sky News with hundreds of interviews and programmes so far.