[4] He returned to Lebanon in 1955 as "the first neurosurgeon certified by the American Board of Neurological Surgery to practice in the Middle East and... the entire Arab world.

[2] All the while, he kept a private practice where he "received patients from the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, the Levant, North Africa, Turkey, and Iran.

"[5] The Lebanese Civil War began in 1975, making it difficult for American University of Beirut students to pursue a medical residency in the United States of America.

[9] Haddad explains the differences in disease, as tuberculosis ravaged much of Iran while it was far less prominent, and therefore a lower diagnostic priority, in the United States.

[9] Additionally, Haddad addresses differences in societal stability, since he had spent much of his career working under fire during the Lebanese Civil War.

He notes how the absence of telephone communication and electricity (at times for two to three weeks) made surgeries and post-operative care exceptionally difficult.

He finishes his address with a story and a firm commitment to the people of Lebanon: A further example is that of a veiled woman who entered my empty office on one of the worse days of the fighting.