Sami Richa, the head of the psychiatry department at the Saint Joseph University School of Medicine, has become the first Lebanese psychiatrist to be elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in France, since its establishment nearly 200 years ago. Richa was unanimously elected as a corresponding member of the academy within the "medicine and society" section of the National Academy of Medicine, which was founded in 1820 and is the foremost body of doctors in France.
At the age of 54, Richa established the psychiatry department at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Beirut, where he also chairs the hospital's ethics committee. He is a member of the Lebanese National Advisory Committee on Ethics in Life Sciences and Health. Richa, who also founded the Francophone Association for People with Mental Disorders and previously served as president of the Lebanese Psychiatric Association, has published around 150 scientific articles in prominent specialized journals. He is a French-language author and has published two novels titled "Trois dont un de plus" ("Three... One More than Necessary") and "Le monde ne va pas si mal" ("The World is Not That Bad"), as well as three medical books: "La psychiatrie au Liban - Une histoire et un regard" ("Psychiatry in Lebanon - A History and Perspective"), "Parler de la psychiatrie à mes filles" ("Talking to My Daughters About Psychiatry"), and "Manuel d’éthique en psychiatrie" ("Ethics Manual in Psychiatry"). His next book, titled "12 cas cliniques en éthique psychiatrique" ("12 Clinical Cases in Psychiatric Ethics"), is set to be released in France and Lebanon next October.
