Dr. Elkebbi graduated from the American University of Beirut, Faculty of Medicine, Lebanon, in 1985 and completed his residency in Internal Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, in 1988. He completed a fellowship in Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA in 1991. As a faculty member at Emory University, he was heavily involved in healthcare delivery research which led to the restructuring of the Diabetes Clinic at the Grady Health System, a county health system affiliated with Emory University. The Diabetes Clinic thus received national recognition and was awarded the Safety Net Hospitals Quality Improvement Award by the American Hospital Association (AHA). In 2004 – 2005, during his role as a contractor for the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he was involved in planning and implementing a project to establish a national surveillance programme for chronic diseases in Egypt, in collaboration with public health experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO). Dr. Elkebbi also worked as a consultant for the World Health Organisation – Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and significantly contributed to the development of management guidelines for metabolic conditions in the MENA region.