Comedian brings unusual skillset to San Diego

  • 2024-09-17
A comedian who has been a television host and has the unusual background of also being a cardiothoracic surgeon is coming to downtown San Diego.

Bassem Raafat Mohamed Youssef, who goes by the name Bassem Youssef, is a native of Cairo who majored in cardiothoracic surgery at Cairo University’s Faculty of Medicine, graduating in 1998. He went on to pass the United States Medical Licensing Examination, and since 2007, has been a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, an organization that was established in its first form in England in the 14th century.

He performed cardiothoracic surgery for 13 years in Egypt, and trained in Germany where he learned lung and cardiac transplant methods. After that, he moved to the United States for 18 months, working for a medical equipment company. However, in 2011 he moved away from medicine and into comedy.

He began his career with “The B+ Show,” then from 2011 through 2014, he hosted “El Bernameg,” a comedy satire show dealing with Egyptian politics. Time Magazine called him one of the “100 most influential people in the world” in 2013, and he hosted the 43rd International Emmy Awards in New York City in 2015.

Bassem Youssef will bring his one-man show, “The Middle Beast,” to the Balboa Theatre in downtown San Diego on October 5. When they schedule a show like this, organizers often work with a Print shop, whose experts use poster printing techniques to create an advertisement for the event.
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