FEBRUARY 10-16, 2017 ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL

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When Dr. Sameer Siddiqui took over Saint Louis University’s Division of Uro-logic Surgery, in 2013, it was severely diminished, having lost nearly all its staff after doctors left, retired or died.

“It really was like starting a new program,” said Dr. Donald Jacobs, who hired Siddiqui.

Jacobs said Siddiqui was charged with hiring doctors, including a full range of spe-cialists, and starting a residency program — essentially from scratch. Since then, Jacobs said, the division has tripled the number of urologists, as it has five full-time faculty members with plans to hire two more. The residency program is back, too, after two years of hard work. In addition, patient visits to urology clinics have increased 23.7 percent and surgeries have increased by 48.6 percent. SLUCare generated $273 mil-lion in net operating revenue for the university in fiscal 2016, which represents about 84 percent of SLU’s total net patient care operating revenue, according to bond docu-ments filed with the Missouri Health and Educational Facilities Authority (MHEFA).

“It takes a lot of drive — extra hours, weekends, nights — to be able to put together the details of a successful research program — the recruiting, building the referral base, taking care of patients,” Jacobs said.

Siddiqui, a New Jersey native, spent some of his childhood in Asheville, North Carolina, then the United Arab Emirates, after his dad got a job with a universi-ty. The years in the Middle East exposed him to a range of cultures and people.

After graduating from high school a year early, Siddiqui went to Washington Uni-versity for his bachelor’s degree, then medical school at Mizzou. A Mayo Clinic resi-dency and fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit followed.

Jacobs said Siddiqui was then the top private-practice doctor in his field locally.Why academia, then?“I thrive at the leadership part of the job,” Siddiqui said. “The day-to-day respon-

sibility of looking at the budget, making sure patient care is optimally run, handling complaints, making sure equipment is up to date.”

“He is of the SLU mission,” Jacobs said. “Ideas about care, ideas of equality, taking care of those that need our help, not necessarily those that have the resources.” - Jacob Kirn

High school: International School of Choueifat in the United Arab EmiratesCollege and degrees: B.A. in political science from Washington University in St. Louis and M.D., University of Missouri - Columbia

DR. SAMEER SIDDIQUI, 39Division chief of urological surgery, SLUCare Physician Group

FAVORITE LEADERSHIP QUOTE“It is not the critic who counts. ... The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly ... who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

- Theodore RooseveltPROO

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