Dr. Sadok Besrour
Inspired by his personal experience of collaboration in developing family medicine in his native Tunisia, Dr. Sadok Besrour envisioned a Centre where the expertise of the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) and the experience of Canadian family physicians could be leveraged. Through collaboration with international partners and global stakeholders, Dr. Besrour’s vision has been to increase access to person-centred and community-informed quality care around the world.
Dr. Besrour was born in Djerba, Tunisia, and has lived in Montreal, Quebec, since 1969.
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Read Dr. Sadok Besrour’s full bio
After completing his medical studies in Strasbourg, France, Dr. Besrour obtained a doctorate of medicine in Lyon, France in 1968. He then completed a master’s in business administration at the IMD Institute of Lausanne in Switzerland in 1972.
Dr. Besrour was Medical Director of the pharmaceutical company Sabex International in Montreal from 1973 to 1977.
He completed his residency in family medicine at the Montreal General Hospital (McGill University, 1977–79) and holds a diploma from the American Board of Family Physicians (awarded in 1979). He has been a member of the CFPC since 1977.
Dr. Besrour has been affiliated with the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CHUM) at Notre-Dame Hospital in Montreal since 1979 and is co-founder of the Clinique de médecine familiale Notre-Dame in Montreal.
Dr. Besrour founded Canada’s first Research Chair in Family Medicine at Université de Montréal, a highly regarded position in Canada and abroad.
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Philanthropy
In 2007, Dr. Besrour established the Dr. Sadok Besrour Fund for the Development of Medicine in Tunisia, which supports cooperation projects, scholarships, and awards at the Faculty of Medicine at Université de Montréal and at the four Tunisian university faculties of medicine. Since 2007, these research and teaching honours have been awarded yearly by an international jury in Tunisia.
The Fund, the Sadok Besrour Foundation, and the Faculty of Medicine at the Université de Montréal continue to collaborate with Tunisia’s Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Public Health, and its four university faculties of medicine on a number of ongoing projects.
The Dr. Sadok Besrour Foundation has also funded several annual awards of excellence in family medicine at the CHUM Notre-Dame hospital, the CFPC, and in Tunisia.
In 2012, Dr. Besrour approached the CFPC to hold the first Besrour Forum. The Besrour Centre was officially launched in 2015. The Centre’s goal is to leverage collaboration among Canadian and international family medicine experts, academics, communities, patients, and key stakeholders to advance the discipline of family medicine as a pathway to health equity around the world.
