Dr. Samer Attar remembers all his patients, he said — and there are a lot of them.
The Chicago surgeon, 49, recently finished a fifth mission to Gaza and he’s also treated the wounded in Syria and Ukraine, risking life and limb to help the victims of war. Attar is also a professor of surgery at Northwestern University.
“I can’t repair the world. But I can stand next to you. I can live amongst you. I can share your grief. I can feel your fear. I can serve your community,” Attar told 60 Minutes after a recent trip to Gaza. “I can bear witness to your suffering. And then just make some noise about it. And it’s not much, but it beats burying your head in hatred and violence and ignorance.”
The Wounds of War
60 Minutes viewers first met Attar in Syria — his parents’ home country — in 2017. At the time, hospitals were being bombed, and more than 800 medical staffers had died in attacks. It was Attar’s fourth trip to the war zone. He was there as a volunteer with the Syrian American Medical Society.
“You work with the understanding that you might find yourself dead, or crippled, or dismembered on the floor next to the people you’re trying to save,” Attar told 60 Minutes at the time.
Healing and Hope
Dr. Attar continued visiting the war-torn country, including after a 2023 earthquake. At the time, he told 60 Minutes about a surgery he performed to help a 12-year-old girl. Correspondent Scott Pelley asked Attar what moments of progress like that meant to him.
“It means that there are days where you fight bouts of helplessness and hopelessness, and you wonder what exactly you’re accomplishing, and you feel like you’re trying to empty the ocean with a small cup because it never ends, and the suffering never ends and it never seems to be going away,” Attar said. “But it’s those, it’s those brief flashes that are enough to keep you going for another month.”
Going for another month — and beyond
60 Minutes spoke with Attar most recently in the Gulf state of Qatar, where some of his patients from Gaza have evacuated amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Attar described hospitals flooded with people in need and operating on patients on floors smeared with dirt and blood.
“The bombs land so close you feel the hospital shaking,” Attar said. “At times the fighting and conflict is so intense you feel like the hospital will– is gonna collapse on top of you.”
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