A childhood of privilege leads to a heart for service and a career in health care

Dr. Salim Hayek grew up in a well-to-do family in Lebanon, a child of privilege who knew safety and security even as civil war raged around him. As a result, Hayek realized early on that safety and security were privileges not everyone was afforded.

It was that realization that led the future vice president and chief transformation officer for the University of Texas Medical Branch into a career in health care.

"I've always wanted to have an impact," Hayek said. "I'd grown up privileged but in a world and society where privilege was not the norm, and I've always felt somewhat guilty that I was just born into privilege-maybe it's akin to survivor's guilt. And all I wanted to do, even as a child, was to be able to help others that are less fortunate. And that's why I became a physician because I found that through knowledge, through science, through hard work, we can improve people's lives.

"But that's also why I became a scientist," he added, "I realized that through science and research, I'm able to impact a much larger group of folks by developing new therapeutics or new strategies to improve clinical care. And now, as an administrator, I find the potential to further improve not just how we provide care, but the quality of our care and how our employees are fulfilled in accomplishing our goals of clinical care, education and research. It's tremendously fulfilling and indeed meets my urge to have an impact on those around me."

Hayek's career started at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, where he did his undergraduate work and then completed his MD in 2008.

The need to broaden his horizons led him to Canada to do his postdoctoral fellowship in cardiac development and differentiation at the University of Ottawa with Dr. Mona Nemer, the current chief science officer for the Canadian government.

"That's where I really got my hands dirty in basic science," he said. "After that, I was fortunate to join Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. And that's where I spent eight wonderful years of my life training as a cardiovascular specialist in cardio oncology.

"And that's also where my research career launched in which we made major discoveries linking the immune system to both kidney and cardiovascular disease," he added. "And it's through that work I transitioned to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where I built the cardio oncology program and built a robust research program targeting inflammation as the cause of kidney cardiovascular disease."

From there he became the medical director for the university's cardiovascular center, focusing on patient experience, physician experience and compensation plans.

Hayek came to UTMB as chief transformation officer in March 2024 and added chair of the Department of Internal Medicine to his list of responsibilities two months later.

As CTO, Hayek's role is to design and implement institution-wide initiatives that further UTMB's overall mission to improve health by offering innovative education and training, pursuing cutting-edge research, and providing the highest quality patient care. He lists his top priorities as revamping the institution's compensation plan, integrating artificial intelligence into everything happening at UTMB and strengthening the clinical research infrastructure.

Hayek calls AI "the most important breakthrough of our lifetime, akin to the development of the internet."

"It's poised to disrupt health care in many ways," he said. "Here at UTMB, we have excellent but dispersed expertise in artificial intelligence. And in my role as chief transformation officer, I am bringing together these experts and formulating a strategy surrounding artificial intelligence. Our vision is for UTMB to be the first AI-powered health care system in Texas."

The main goal of AI in a health care setting is, of course, to improve the patient experience. Hayek explained that what that looks like is threefold, with AI:

• Taking over mundane activities like scheduling and medication refills
• Reducing the administrative burden on physicians
• Improving safety and quality of life by catching mistakes, making recommendations, and delivering the most important information to physicians in the right context at the right time

One of the major challenges currently plaguing the health care sector is a shortage of health care personnel and a significant burnout rate due to the large administrative burden, Hayek said, adding that most, if not all, the administrative work that is done currently by physicians and other health care workers can be eliminated with AI, thereby removing barriers between physician and patient.

"And that is only a small snippet of the potential of AI in health care and at UTMB," he said. "AI is now. The Pandora's box is open. There's no turning back. It's used everywhere and if we're not using it, we're falling behind.

"It's important to note that AI would not replace physicians-at least not in our lifetimes-but will enable physicians to operate at the top of their scope," he said.

Hayek is working with the newly created AI Council at UTMB to design, guide and streamline the institution's AI strategy to utilize the technology across all four of UTMB's pillars-education, research, clinical care and innovation.

"UTMB sits at a very important cross point and carries tremendous potential in health care innovation," he said. "When I joined UTMB I discovered that we have a tremendous amount of people who are experts in artificial intelligence and who are on the forefront of using tools like large language models and machine learning to develop both programs and applications that can help us in our missions of clinical care, research and education. Innovation is what ties it all together.

"What we want to accelerate is the translation of research findings to clinical practice," he added. "And we're poised to do that."

To hear more about Dr. Hayek, click here to watch his Leadership Moment video featured in the Health System Heartbeat newsletter.