1. Ma Haide, born Shafick George Hatem, was an American doctor who practiced medicine in China.
12 Facts About Ma Haide
1. 2.
Ma Haide graduated as valedictorian of the 1927 class of Greenville High School Hatem focused on pre-med classes at the University of North Carolina, where he was a member of The Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies.
3.
Ma Haide then studied medicine at the American University in Beirut and the University of Geneva.
4.
Ma Haide closed his practice and, with the help of the earlier established CCP contacts, was smuggled across Kuomintang lines to provide medical service to Mao Zedong's troops.
5.
Ma Haide was accompanied by the pioneering American journalist Edgar Snow.
6.
Ma Haide is there anonymously as a Western-trained doctor who had examined Mao and determined he was not dying of some mysterious disease, which was the rumor at the time.
7.
Ma Haide was among those meeting Norman Bethune when Bethune arrived to Yan'an in late March 1938, and was instrumental in helping Bethune get started at his task of organizing medical services for the front and the region.
8.
Ma Haide was present at Yan'an, when the Dixie Mission, an American civilian and military group, arrived in July 1944.
9.
Ma Haide was the first foreigner granted citizenship in the People's Republic of China.
10.
Ma Haide is credited with helping to eliminate leprosy and many venereal diseases in post-war China, for which he received the Lasker Award for public service in 1986.
11.
Ma Haide was one of the few persons who were not born in China to hold a position of trust and authority in the People's Republic of China.
12.
Ma Haide is buried at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing, China.