Dr. Rania Medhat Seliem is a Consultant Hematopathologist and senior laboratory medicine leader at Dubai Health. She currently serves as Head of Rashid Hospital Laboratories and Chief of the Hematopathology Service Line within the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology (DLMP). She is also the Program Director of the Anatomic and Clinical Pathology Residency Program at Dubai Health and a Clinical Associate Professor of Pathology at Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences (MBRU).
Dr. Seliem completed two years of research at Columbia University before undertaking her residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology at Baystate Medical Center/Tufts University and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School. She subsequently completed fellowships in Surgical Pathology and Hematopathology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is American Board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology and in Hematopathology.
Dr. Seliem joined the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology as a Consultant Hematopathologist and was appointed Head of Rashid Hospital Pathology Laboratories in December 2006. In 2023, she was appointed Chief of the Hematopathology Service Line within DLMP.
She has played a major role in advancing laboratory quality and accreditation within Dubai Health and led Rashid Hospital Laboratories to successful College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditation. She also serves as an International Assigning Commissioner for the College of American Pathologists (CAP), contributing to CAP accreditation activities and international laboratory quality initiatives across the region. Dr. Seliem has authored and contributed to numerous publications in hematology and hematopathology, with a particular focus on neoplastic hematopathology. Her principal
areas of expertise include lymphoma and other hematolymphoid neoplasms, bone marrow pathology, and flow cytometry. She has held prominent scientific and professional leadership roles regionally. She was a co-founder and Scientific Chair of the Emirates Society of Hematology in 2012 and, in 2023, was appointed an Honorary Board Member and Scientific Advisor of the Society. She has chaired and participated in several regional scientific committees and expert advisory groups, including the GCC PNH Advisory Board, the Expert Forum for Myelodysplastic Syndromes, and the Steering Committee for the GCC Consensus on Blastic Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell Neoplasm (BPDCN).
Dr. Seliem has a longstanding commitment to undergraduate and postgraduate medical education. She has held an academic appointment at Dubai Medical College since 2008 and was appointed Clinical Associate Professor at MBRU in 2024. As Program Director of the Dubai Health Anatomic and Clinical Pathology Residency Program, she leads the development and implementation of postgraduate pathology training, competency-based assessment, and resident education across the participating training sites. Her professional interests center on neoplastic hematopathology, lymphoma diagnosis, flow cytometry, postgraduate medical education, laboratory quality and accreditation, and advancing hematopathology standards and practice in the United Arab Emirates and the wider region