Basel Termanini, MD
Executive Producer

Dr. Termanini is the Vice President of SAMS and was born and raised in Aleppo, Syria. Three years after graduating from Aleppo University, he emigrated to Washington DC in 1986, where he resided for ten years. During this time, he was a researcher at George Washington University, followed by Internal Medicine residency at Georgetown university, followed by a GI fellowship at Georgetown University – National Institute of Health (NIH) program.

In 1997, he moved to Pittsburgh, PA, where he started a private GI practice, followed by a large multi specialty group. In 2011, he joined a local hospital as a practitioner. He married Cheza, also from Aleppo, and they have three children, Sammy and Kareem in medical school and Firas, who is studying business.

During a brief visit to northern Syria in 2013, Dr. Termanini’s first since the eruption of the war, he realized that SAMS was one of the most active medical relief organizations on the ground in Syria. Upon his return to the US, he established a chapter in Pittsburgh and became actively involved in the Turkey regional and fundraising committees. Since this initial visit, Dr. Termanini has visited northern Syria 6 more times. He was elected as VP of National SAMS in 2015.

In the past two years, Dr. Termanini has been actively involved in the many milestones that SAMS has accomplished, including the tripling of the number of medical services provided. Dr. Termanini has acted as the chairman of the fundraising and media committees, and is an active member in the Turkey regional, GI, advocacy and membership committees. He also acts as a chairman of two international conferences and co-chair of two national conferences. He has completed seven GI missions in the field to northern Syria and Turkey. He also initiated SAMS’s medical student scholarship program. He has been an active fundraiser for SAMS, his efforts contributing to the collection of close to 1.7 million dollars in five months for the foundation. He is also a vocal advocate for SAMS, having conducted many TV, radio, newspapers and online interviews on behalf of the organization. Dr. Termanini is consulting the filmmaking team as a story and cultural advisor.