Dr. Sara El Ouali

Dr. Sara El Ouali, MD, is a consultant staff physician in the Digestive Disease Institute at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi and at Cleveland Clinic Ohio, and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr. El Ouali earned her medical degree from McGill University in Montreal, Canada during which she was awarded several scholarships for academic excellence. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at the McGill University Health Center, where she was awarded the Ezra Lozinski prize in recognition of her outstanding compassion, understanding and sense of responsibility. She completed her Gastroenterology & Hepatology fellowship as Chief Resident at McGill University, and then underwent an advanced inflammatory bowel disease fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. 

Dr. El Ouali has published numerous articles and book chapters and presents at major international conferences. She is actively involved in IBD research and academic activities. She is associate editor of the IBD Journal and is also part of the editorial team of several gastroenterology journals. She has founded the first patient education program for IBD in the UAE in 2018. In 2022, Dr. El Ouali won the "Rising Star" award in recognition of her ongoing clinical and academic contributions to CCAD and in 2023, she won the “Outstanding quality of Care” award at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.