Clinical Leadership and the Development of Specialized Urology Services in Saudi Arabia – The Career of Said A. Kattan
Clinical leadership in Saudi Arabia developed along with the expansion of hospitals and the establishment of specialized care services. At the start of the 1990s, there was an increase in the establishment of tertiary centers and private practices due to population growth, rising life expectancy, and the need for specialized care. Statistics for the country indicate a significant increase in population from the early 1990s to the early 2020s. Urology and its associated specialties require professionals to attend to the patient’s needs while also developing the services and training programs.
It is within this setting that the career of Said Kattan, a clinician who has practiced for more than 30 years across various public and private institutions, warrants discussion. His career reflects a generation of consultant physicians who were expected to do more than just treat patients; they had to establish clinics, manage training programs, and participate in whole-hospital planning. These were especially true in specialties where progress was meager during the early years of the Saudi era of healthcare advancement.
One of the earliest highlights is the establishment of Saudi Arabia’s first andrology clinic at King Khaled Hospital, affiliated with King Saud University, in 1990. This was a critical juncture because at this point, there was not yet a specific service for the diagnosis and treatment of reproductive conditions for men. The focus was placed on infertility, sexual dysfunction, and so forth, as such conditions were increasingly being highlighted, especially as the population mix changed.
Kattan commenced working with King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in 1995 as a urology and andrology consultant. King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center is one of the leading tertiary facilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It receives references for complex cases across Saudi Arabia. He worked with King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre through 2025, maintaining a long career as a consultant in the Department of Urology at this major tertiary referral hospital. This was likely a consultant position that involved direct patient care and contributions to a multidisciplinary team for oncology and complex-surgery cases.
During his stint at King Faisal Specialist Hospital, he contributed to developing a fellowship training program. In 1997, he established the Saudi Andrology Fellowship Program, and in 1998, the Saudi Oncology Fellowship Program. This was a step to address some shortages in the human resources field by providing training for candidates beyond residency. Locally, this made a country less reliant on training foreign nationals. This measure was implemented during a period of localization in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Its influence was not limited to hospitals, as Kattan has also held other important positions in the private health industry. He began by joining Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib Hospital and Medical Center, one of the largest private hospitals in Saudi Arabia, where he served as Head of the Department of Urology and Medical Director of the Orthopedic & Joint Hospital.
Private hospitals introduce another dynamic in leadership compared to those in the public system, usually revolving around efficiency, service expansion, and volume. By the 2010s, Saudi Arabia’s private health care system had significantly expanded its hospital bed base, and it was not unusual to see high-ranking consultants in those institutions shaping health protocols and managing working groups. Kattan’s profession placed him directly in the middle of this shift in hospital administration.
Outside his work in hospitals, his contributions in national clinical coordination through professional groups are evident. He served as head of the Andrology Group of the Saudi Urological Association from 2017 to 2020. Such groups are useful for setting standards and providing direction in clinical training in younger specialties, such as andrology. Kattan’s practice career spanned the period when the incidence of certain conditions, namely prostatic and bladder malignancies, erectile dysfunction, and infertility, increased due to the average increase in age and modern lifestyles.
The incidence of uro-cancers documented in national cancer registries has risen over the last two decades, highlighting the importance of subspecialty consultants in tertiary centers to address this emerging trend.
Kattan’s career shows how senior consultants structured specialized urology services in Saudi Arabia. Whether it was in setting up some of Saudi Arabia’s initial specialty clinics or running fellowships and departments within hospitals, his career reflects Saudi Arabia’s progression from limited specialization to full-spectrum care within its own community.
