Dr Joseph El Khoury is a Consultant Adult and Addiction Psychiatrist and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK). He is the co-founder and medical director of the Valens Clinic, a Dubai based mental health clinic established in 2023. He is the former founding head of the department of psychiatry and behavioral health at American Hospital Dubai. He has held faculty positions at several universities, including the American University of Beirut and the University of Sharjah. He is currently adjunct assistant professor of psychiatry at the United Arab Emirates University in Al-Ain.

Dr El-Khoury qualified as a medical doctor in London in 2002 and completed his training in the UK National Health Service in 2010. He combines international public and private sector clinical experience from the United Kingdom, Lebanon and the UAE with an extensive track record in teaching, research and mental health advocacy. He has co-authored more than 55 peer-reviewed publications and has a special interest in
conflict medicine, having obtained an MSc in War and Psychiatry from King’s College London in 2019. Dr El-Khoury has been active in service development and leadership throughout his career founding one of the first community services for patients with severe mental disorders in the Middle East, the Psychosis Recovery Outreach Program (PROP) at the American University of Beirut Medical Center in 2017. He also co-led the
mental health response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the same center.

In addition to his ongoing activities Dr El-Khoury has acted a subject matter expert on large scale projects ranging from mental health strategies and wellbeing strategies to addiction services development. This was done through a number of organizations and consultancy firms in the GCC and the Arab region including the United Arab Emirates, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.