Using health to build bridges to peace: a global health initiative involving medical students from the middle east
A multicultural meal at the home of one of the program directors
Can you imagine Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian and Canadian medical students, enjoying Toronto’s sights, cooking and eating multicultural meals together, planning cooperative medical research projects, and learning together about caring for children in the emergency department of a major Canadian hospital? (1)
It happened this summer in Toronto during the International Pediatric Emergency Medicine Elective (IPEME) organized by the Canada International Scientific Exchange Program (CISEPO), the Peter A. Silverman Centre for International Health at Mount Sinai Hospital, and the Division of Paediatric Emergency Medicine at the Hospital for Sick Children.
As medical students, the elective offered us an excellent opportunity to learn about paediatric emergency medicine and international health, while developing a better understanding of each others’ cultures and perspectives. Medical education consisted of lectures on common topics in paediatric emergency medicine, such as fever, sepsis, abdominal pain, poisoning and jaundice. We also attended workshops on casting, suturing, and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation. Can you imagine Israeli and Palestinian students put casts on one another, laughing the whole time and making a complete mess? Despite our different backgrounds, we had a wonderful time together.
Our group with one of our program director and the chaplains
In addition to medical knowledge, we learned conflict resolution principles, medical professionalism, ethics, research study design, literature searching and presentation skills. The program encouraged the building of trust, understanding, and cooperation between Canadian, Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian students, while developing leadership skills that will be essential in our future careers.
Another important focus of our elective was international public health. We learned together about several international health organizations and a number of inspiring projects that have made a real change in people’s lives. In particular, Dr. Stanley Zlotkin gave an extraordinary presentation on the Sprinkles Global Health Initiative to end vitamin and mineral deficiencies in children. We saw how a simple idea, started in a kitchen, of vitamin and minerals supplement powder sprinkled on food, can help prevent debilitating conditions such as iron deficiency anemia in infants and young children throughout the world.
In our peace building sessions we learned to work as a team. We were able to present our different opinions on various health related issues and life experiences. One of the most special and eye-opening sessions was a panel of Jewish, Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist chaplains working at the Hospital for Sick Children. We were fascinated by the Canadian health care system’s awareness of cultural and religious issues in the doctor/patient/family relationship. Every effort is made to be supportive and resolve conflicts respectfully.
“Shall I tell you what acts are better than fasting, charity, and prayers? Making peace between enemies are such acts; For enmity and malice tear up the heavenly rewards by the roots.” (A prayer from the Islamic tradition)
From a discussion about the health needs of our different countries we designed two research projects that we will continue to work on once we return home. One project is a general evaluation of pneumococcal vaccination in the child population in the Middle East. In Canada, the current practice is to routinely immunize children with pneumococcal vaccine, whereas it is provided to only select patients in the Middle East. The other project is a comparative study of different techniques in use in Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Canada to control pain and anxiety in children undergoing medical procedures. If we can help to reduce mortality rates from pneumonia or improve pain management for pediatric patients, we’ll have made a meaningful impact. Our joint projects transcend political agendas in the Middle East because of our focus on improving the health of children.
Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is among the most multi-cultural cities in the world, with over eighty different languages spoken by its residents. During our stay in Toronto, we shared in the multi-cultural nature of the city. We were most impressed by the ability of Canadians to establish a society, in particular a health care system, which is based on a solid grounding of human rights and non-discrimination. This climate of different nationalities, religions and ethno-cultural groups working and living alongside one another, provided us with an excellent venue to address Middle Eastern health issues in a non-political way, despite the conflicts between our home countries.
One of the most important things we learned from this elective didn’t come from a specific lecture or a practical session, but rather the feeling that the responsibility for making changes lies within ourselves. We hope that some of the professional and leadership tools we learned, as well as our better understanding of one another, will help us to continue to work together, in our homes in the Middle East and Canada. Together we aim to build mutual trust and confidence across the Arab and Israeli divide, something that our leaders have not yet been able to do!
We believe that many small steps, and numerous meetings and exchanges are needed to produce a lasting trust between our nations. We feel that the social contract between the public and the medical profession places certain responsibilities on us as individuals, with respect to our relationships with our colleagues and our collective involvement in the best interests of our communities. We shall try to put all Middle East conflicts aside and work for the future. We shall try to look together toward a brighter future, both medical and political, in the Middle East.
“Don’t say, that day will come. Do what you can to make this dream come true today! (Ya’acov Rotblit “song for peace”)
Eyal Lotan
Medical student, class of 2010
Faculty of Medicine
University of Tel Aviv
Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Ayal Hassidim
Medical student, class of 2008
Faculty of Medicine
Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Be’er-Sheva, Israel.
Nermine Gorguy
Medical student, Class of 2009
Faculty of Medicine
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Laura Pacione
Medical student, class of 2009
Faculty of Medicine
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ont, Canada.
Diala Tawfiq Hashem Al-Mardeeni
Medical student, class of 2008
Faculty of Medicine
Jordan University of Science and Technology
Irbid, Jordan
Eiman Mo’hd Al-Atrash
Medical student, class of 2008
Faculty of Medicine
Al-Quds University
Abu Dis, West Bank.
Shatha Mohammad Aburayyan
Medical student, class of 2008
Faculty of Medicine
Al-Quds University
Abu Dis, West Bank.
Zahi Anwar Batiha
Medical student, Class of 2008
Faculty of Medicine
Jordan University of Science and Technology
Irbid, Jordan.
Acknowledgements: We would like to thank our program directors: Ms. Abi Sriharan, Dr. Dennis Scolnik, Mr. Andrew Ignatieff, and Dr. Rahim Valani for their guidance, encouragement and mentorship throughout the program and also in preparing this manuscript. We would also like to acknowledge the support received from Ms. Karen Bramhill and Ms. Katherine Patterson in preparing this manuscript.
(1) Skinner H, Abdeen Z, Abdeen H, et al. Promoting Arab and Israeli cooperation: peacebuilding through health initiatives. Lancet 2005; 365: 1274-77.
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