George Hatem
| Ma Haide | |
|---|---|
| Native name | Chinese: 馬海德 |
| Born |
Shafick George Hatem September 26, 1910 Buffalo, New York, U.S. |
| Died | October 3, 1988 (aged 78) China |
| Resting place | Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery, Beijing, China |
| Other names | Dr. George Hatem, Doc Ma |
| Occupation | Doctor |
| Parents |
|
Ma Haide (simplified Chinese: 马海德; traditional Chinese: 馬海德; pinyin: Mǎ Hǎidé; September 26, 1910 – October 3, 1988), born Shafick George Hatem (Arabic: جورج شفيق حاتم), was a Lebanese-American doctor who practised medicine in China.
Shafick George Hatem was born into a Lebanese-American family in upstate New York. His father Nahoum Salaama Hatem moved to the United States from the village of Hammana in the Metn mountains of Lebanon in 1902, to take a job at a textile mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts. In 1909, on a trip to Lebanon, Nahoum married Thamam Joseph, a woman two years younger from the village of Bahannes.
George Hatem's parents were of Maronite background. Some older sources claim that the family was of Syrian Jewish extraction, but according to modern biographers, that was a misconception, although quite common even during George Hatem's life.
Soon after being married, the Hatem family moved to Buffalo, New York, where Nahoum took a job at a steel mill. It was in Buffalo where their first child, George, was born on September 26, 1910.
In 1923 Hatem's father sent him to live in Greenville, North Carolina and the rest of the family joined him a few years later and opened a dry goods store. He graduated as valedictorian of the 1927 class of Greenville High School George Hatem attended pre-med classes at the University of North Carolina and medicine at the American University in Beirut and the University of Geneva. While in Geneva, "Shag", as he was then nicknamed, became acquainted with students from East Asia, and learned much about China. With financial help from the parents of one of his friends, he and several others set off to Shanghai to establish a medical practice to concentrate on venereal diseases, as well as basic health care for the needy.
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