Hossein Gharib


Dr. Hossein Gharib is a physician who specializes in thyroid disorders. He was born in Tehran, Iran, on February 2, 1940, and is a consulting physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Early life

Gharib grew up in Tehran, the son Dr. Mohammad Gharib, a former professor and chair of pediatrics at Tehran University, and Zahra Gharib, daughter of Ostad Abdolazim Gharib, a professor of Persian literature. Both his father, Mohammad Gharib, and his grandfather, Abdolazim Gharib, were honored by postage stamps issued by the government of Iran. Gharib has two sisters, Nahid Ziai and Mayram Comninos, and one brother, Dr. Mohsen Gharib.
Gharib attended Ferdowsi Grade School and later Alborz High School, graduating with honors in 1958. He traveled to the United States to study of medicine. He received a B.S. degree from the Ohio State University in 1962. He went on to receive a medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1966, and took his internship at Philadelphia General Hospital from 1966 to 1967. He completed an internal medicine residency and fellowship in endocrinology and metabolism at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. After a visiting fellowship in reproductive endocrinology at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City, he joined the Mayo Clinic faculty in Rochester in 1972.

Professional career

In 1974, he returned briefly to Iran, where he was initially a consultant at the Queen Heart Hospital before being appointed medical director of the Reza Pahlavi Medical Center. Gharib later became the associate dean of the College of Health Sciences and served as the director of the Department of Internal Medicine at Saadat-Abad Medical Center, National University. In June 1979, he returned to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester to become professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, and a consultant in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Nutrition. He also teaches and conducts clinical research.
Research
In 1971, Dr. Gharib and his colleagues developed the first radioimmunoassay to measure triiodothyronine in human serum. Published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism between 1970 and 1971, his initial observations hold true today. This was a major development that allowed further extensive studies on the mechanisms of thyroid hormones physiology and metabolism.
In the 1980s, Dr. Gharib focused his attention on nodular thyroid disease and thyroid cancer, making a number of important contributions to thyroid practice. For example, an early paper emphasized the importance of NTD in clinical practice ; several studies illustrated the technique, accuracy, and impact of thyroid fine-needle aspiration biopsy in the management of nodules ; and defined the limitations of FNA. He gets credit for helping establish the accuracy and safety of thyroid FNA biopsy in the management of thyroid nodular disease. His seminal study published in NEJM in 1987 was a landmark report that challenged the conventional wisdom that long-term thyroid hormone therapy shrinks thyroid nodules. This report initially sparked considerable controversy but, when confirmed by others, eventually changed medical practice and thyroid hormones are no longer used to suppress benign nodular goiters. He was one of the first to draw attention to the high prevalence of the incidentally discovered thyroid nodules, "thyroid incidentalomas", and described steps in diagnosis and challenges in their management.
Publications, Lectures and Memberships
Gharib co-edited the first evidence-based endocrinology textbook, originally published in 2003, with the fourth edition printed in 2020. In 2013, he and three colleagues edited and published the textbook Endocrinology: A Problem-Oriented Approach. In 2017 he published the book Thyroid Nodule. Other published works include more than 120 peer-reviewed original papers, 50 review articles and 30 textbook chapters. He travels worldwide to teach and lecture, and by 2020 he had lectured at 350 endocrine events in more than 35 countries. He takes pride in regularly visiting his home country, Iran, to teach and educate.
He is a member of the American Medical Association, Minnesota Medical Association, AACE, Endocrine Society, American College of Physicians, and the American Thyroid Association. He was a member of the MMA Committee on CME and chaired that committee from 2006 to 2009. He has served on numerous ATA committees, including Awards, Development, Membership, Patient Education & Advocacy, and Public Health.
He has served on the editorial boards of Acta Endocrinologia ; EndocrinologyNews; JCEM; Endocrine Practice; International Journal of Endocrinology; U.S. Endocrinology; Portuguese Journal of Endocrinology; Diabetes & Metabolism; and Thyroid. He has served as the Dean of Endocrine University since 2004.
He was elected a Master of the American College of Endocrinology in 2004 and a Master of the American College of Physicians in 2006 He has held leadership positions with the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, serving as president in 2002. In 2008 he became president of the American College of Endocrinology, which announced in 2012 a campaign to fund the Hossein Gharib Educational Fund, "in honor of Hossein Gharib, MD, MACE in recognition of his outstanding contributions to clinical endocrinology."
He became president of the American Thyroid Association at the ATA annual meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in October 2013. The American College of Endocrinology awarded him its Yank D. Coble, Jr, MD, Distinguished Service Award during the College Convocation on May 17, 2014, in Las Vegas.
In September 2015, Gharib received honorary doctorate degree from Carol Davila University of Medicine & Pharmacy in Bucharest, Romania, for his "academic, scientific and human merits." He received the H. Jack Baskin, MD, Endocrine Teaching Award from AACE in May 2018, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Accolades

Roozegar-e Gharib is a 36-part Iranian television series based on the life of Dr. Mohammad Gharib's life. Hossein, his siblings, and other members of the Gharib family are also portrayed in the film by Iranian actors.