Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabeeah () is a Saudi pediatric surgeon. He has filled a number of supervisory and advisory roles in Saudi Arabia, including Minister of Health, Advisor to the Royal Court, and Supervisor General of the international aid agency KSrelief.

Early life and education

Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabeeah was born in

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

, Saudi Arabia, on 23 February 1955. Al Rabeeah attended

King Saud University King Saud University (KSU, ) is a public university in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Established in 1957 by King Saud bin Abdulalziz to address the country's skilled worker shortage, it is the first university in Saudi Arabia. It was known as Riyadh U ...

Riyadh Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the Riyadh Governorate. Located on the eastern bank of Wadi Hanifa, the current form of the metropolis largely emerged in th ...

where he obtained his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degrees in July 1979. He interned in August 1980 at King Khalid University hospital,

. In 1981, Al Rabeeah was formally licensed to practice medicine. He studied at the

University of Alberta Hospital The University of Alberta Hospital (UAH) is a research and teaching hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The hospital is affiliated with the University of Alberta and run by Alberta Health Services, the health authority for Alberta. It is one o ...

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

(1985) and IWK Hospital for Children,

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia, Canada, with three campuses in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia, Bible Hill, and a second medical school campus ...

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and most populous municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2024, it is estimated that the population of the H ...

(1987) where he completed Fellowships in General and

Pediatric Surgery Pediatric surgery is a subspecialty of surgery involving the surgery of fetuses, infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. History Pediatric surgery arose in the middle of the 1879 century as the surgical care of birth defects required ...

, respectively.

Career

King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud appointed Al Rabeeah as

Minister of Health A health minister is the member of a country's government typically responsible for protecting and promoting public health and providing welfare spending and other social security services. Some governments have separate ministers for mental heal ...

for the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...

. He was appointed on 14 February 2009. He served as Minister of Health until 21 April 2014. Al Rabeeah serves as the Supervisor General of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (known as KSrelief), headquartered in

. He concurrently holds the position of Advisor to the Royal Court. KSrelief was inaugurated on 13 May 2015 by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,

King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (; born 31 December 1935) has been King of Saudi Arabia since 2015, and was Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia from 2015 to 2022. He is the 25th son of King Abdulaziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia. He assumed the thron ...

; its purpose is to serve both as an aid-monitoring organization and as a direct provider for Saudi humanitarian aid and relief being administered worldwide.

Conjoined twins

As a pediatric surgeon, Al Rabeeah has performed separations of conjoined twins. He performed his first separation of female Saudi conjoined twins at King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, Riyadh in December 1990, as well as a further three. Since 1996, Al Rabeeah and the Saudi National Team have reviewed 99 cases and performed 42 successful separations of conjoined twins from 19 countries. 38 of these surgeries were carried out at the Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs,

King Abdulaziz Medical City King Abdulaziz Medical City is a district general hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; it was established by a royal decree in May 1983. With a bed capacity of 690 beds, it provides all types of care to all National Guard soldiers and their families, ...

. One of the most complex cases that Al Rabeeah undertook was at the request of King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud concerning

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

n conjoined twins, Ahmed and Mohammed. Al Rabeeah performed the surgery on the

twins Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of Twin Last Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two e ...

in September 2002. The numerous surgical phases took 23.5 hours and resulted in a successful separation of the boys. Al Rabeeah wrote a book in Arabic entitled ''My Experience with Conjoined Twins''; this book has been abridged in English. He has published three additional books, and authored entries in 103 scientific/medical/abstract publications.

Other positions held

* 1992 – present: Head of the Surgical and Multidisciplinary Team for the Saudi National Conjoined Twins Programme * May 2011: President of the Executive Board of the Arab Health Ministers' Council * August 2010: Chairman of the Board of Directors,

King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre The King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre () (KFSHRC) is a non-profit tertiary healthcare institution headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Overview As a tertiary referral hospital, it offers primary and specialized inpatient and ...

* 2003 – 2009: Chief Executive Officer of

National Guard Health Affairs The Ministry of National Guard Health Affairs (MNGHA) is a government-funded health system in the Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, founded in 1982. It is affiliated with the Ministry of National Guard and the Saudi Arabian National Guard, co ...

* 2005 – 2009: President of King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences * 2009 – 2016: Member of the Board of Trustees,

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology The King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST; ') is a Private university, private research university located in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. Founded in 2009, the university provides research and graduate training programs in English ...

* Chairman, Co-Chair, and Honorary Member with many Executive Committees in the Royal Cabinet, Ministry of Health, Saudi Council for Health Specialties and other Government Agencies and Universities * Chairman of the Riyadh Pediatric Surgery Club * Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Saudi Council for Health Specialties * Chairman, The National Health Insurance Council

Personal life

Al Rabeeah is the father of eight children - seven girls (including a set of identical twins), and one boy. His son, Khalid, followed in his footsteps and is a medical consultant specializing in

urology Urology (from Ancient Greek, Greek wikt:οὖρον, οὖρον ''ouron'' "urine" and ''wiktionary:-logia, -logia'' "study of"), also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of t ...

; Khalid also began his career by studying at

and completing his Fellowship in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Recognitions

* March 2010, Recognition by Arabian Business Magazine as being the 45th Most Influential Arab. * December 2012, Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award for Medical Sciences for Outstanding Medical Personalities in the Arab World. * November 2016, Humanitarian Award from the

Gulf Cooperation Council The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (), also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC; ), is a Regional integration, regional, intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Ba ...

(GCC) – Regional Network for Social Responsibility (member of

United Nations Global Compact The United Nations Global Compact is a non-binding United Nations pact to get businesses and firms worldwide to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, and to report on their implementation. The UN Global Compact is the world's ...

) –

Kingdom of Bahrain Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which mak ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rabeeah, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz 1954 births Living people King Saud University alumni King Khalid University alumni University of Alberta alumni Dalhousie University alumni Academic staff of King Saud University Pediatric surgeons Saudi Arabian pediatricians Saudi Arabian surgeons Health ministers of Saudi Arabia People from Riyadh Heads of universities and colleges in Saudi Arabia 21st-century Saudi Arabian politicians