The loss of an icon in medicine, an apostolic physician, a contemporary distinguished physician for four generations in Lebanon and the Middle East, an outstanding professor, a pioneer in his medical field in Lebanon, the founding father of a humane cause par excellence - organ donation...

In November 4, 2024 at 11:00 am, Dr. Antoine Stephan passed away.

We lost a legend in medicine, especially in Nephrology. A story that cannot be summed up in a few pages. It is a remarkable professional life journey, day by day for 54 years.

As poet Mahmoud Darwish said: "Life teaches you love, experiences teach you who you love, and situations teach you who loves you." His life situations taught us how to love.

His achievements in the field of kidney diseases, organ donation and transplantation have spanned the country and beyond. He was a pioneer in the cause of organ donation and there would have been no organ donation in Lebanon without Dr. Antoine Stephan.

Dr. Stephan grew up in a family that loved science and practiced medicine with skill, from his maternal grandparents to his late father, Dr. George Stephan, one of the first respected doctors of his time in Lebanon.

His upbringing in a family engaged in faith and doing good had a great impact on his life and behavior. He committed himself to conscientiously self-denial for the sake of others. It’s this way he lived honesty and simplicity, and above all responsibility where he used to repeat his regret and apologies for anything that could have hurt someone or offended any member of his entourage, family or colleagues wishing them amiability and tolerance.

He embodied the spirit of citizenship, as universal ethics, far from divisions, discrimination, and especially sectarianism, and worked honestly, joyfully and in cooperation with all.

He remained convinced of the rejection of violence and war, aiming to a culture of nonviolence worldwide.

Hundreds of doctors from three generations were trained by Professor Antoine Stephan at St Joseph University (USJ), the Lebanese University and the Lebanese American University (LAU). He excelled as a brilliant doctor of science as well as in human and professional relations.

He worked at Rizk Hospital in Beirut, and the National Organization for Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation - Lebanon for more than five decades.

He established the first kidney dialysis center in Rizk Hospital in 1970 and the first kidney transplant center in 1985, and made this center an integrated department that includes all specialties of kidney diseases, blood pressure, hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis and kidney transplantation. He included with him a team of distinguished and competent doctors, each in his specialty. It was also the first kidney donation and transplantation center in the Middle East to include an organ donation and transplantation coordinator on its team. This center remained for many years the reference for every patient in Lebanon and throughout the region.

He was the one who always believed to work collectively.

Dr. Stephan, passionate about science and knowledge, came up with the idea of a weekly meeting (on Thursdays) for all nephrologists and blood pressure specialists in Lebanon, to discuss difficult or rare cases, present the latest scientific advances in the field of kidney diseases, kidney donation and transplantation, immunity, and to exchange knowledge and science with his colleagues in modesty. This meeting lasted from 1990 to 2002. His objectives were knowledge, and human relationship between doctors.

He also opened several dialysis centers from Batroun in North Lebanon to Beirut between 1970 and 1984 and communicated with new doctors coming from abroad and handed over these centers to them to complete the journey.

During his presidency of the National Organization for Organ Donation and Transplantation in Lebanon, he laid the infrastructure of the unified national deceased organ donation and transplantation program with the approval of all parties concerned, and worked hard to implement it with the help of European experts by signing cooperation agreements with Spain and France. This program helped secure hundreds of transplants for pati-ents in need of hearts, livers, kidneys, corneas, and more.

In 2013-2014, he met with the deans of all medical and nursing faculties in Lebanon, under the supervision of the Lebanese Order of Physicians in Beirut, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Higher Education, to introduce organ donation and transplantation into the curriculum of the medical faculties, the schoolchildren, the Orders and institutions.

In 2010-2019, he met with successive Ministers of the Education to introduce organ donation in the curriculum of complementary and secondary schools. He handed over the teaching materials prepared by the national coordinator Ms Farida Younan to the Center For Educational Research and Development (CRDP) and began the training of the public schools teachers.

In 2015, he also integrated the Lebanese American University and the University of Balamand into a European project, sponsored by Spain, aimed at intro-ducing the subject of organ donation and transplantation into the training cycles of doctors and nurses, under the supervision of the National Organization (NOD-Lb) that he headed from 2009 to 2020.

He contributed to raising the name of Lebanon, the name of Rizk Hospital and LAU University, and the level of treatment for kidney diseases and blood pressure, on the map of advanced countries in the field of organ donation.

He was an active and serious researcher, with more than 80 scientific papers and publication.

Despite the exceptional obstacles at all levels, he succeeded to fulfill his dream, but unfortunately without reaching its complete human rights end which is the dream of every patient, every one, in need of an organ transplant that allows him/her to live in health and dignity.

Dr. Stephan was known mainly for his calmness, his attitude of ‘doing with silence’. Although he has crossed several generations, the title of his achievements remained working in silence. He was humble. Sometimes humility comes from not knowing. But Dr. Stephan was humble because he knew, to the point that he took his humility to the extreme where he accepted being second when he was first. He used to say "Let the new generation take over the leadership positions. Let the new blood be at the forefront. We are not going anywhere, we are here, pushing and support them, but let them shine..."

Dr. Stephan passed away, leaving us a great legacy of knowledge and experience, a role model for generations.

Farida Younan, the National Coordinator of Organ donation and Transplantation in Lebanon, who worked with Dr. Stephan along this path for four decades, said: «The teacher, the father and the brother is gone, the man with the big heart, the honest and transparent with himself and with others, committed to values and ethics, who did not get bored despite the burdens of the days, who remained persevering without getting tired because he believes that nothing is impossible if there is a will, answering the phone to serve patients while he was in the intensive care and not saying that he was ill, who remained conscious and thinking until his last breath...

It is a great loss for us, for our country, the region and for the world… His family, patients, doctors, friends, colleagues, the nation and the region will always remember him, a model of dignity, of knowledge and vision, and of humanity…

He will be remembered forever, inspiring generati-ons to continue his pioneer work and achievements… Antoine Stephan, our teacher and brother, with love and respect.