Medical student, Aditi Das, reports on last Friday’s Conflict and Catastrophes Forum at the Royal Society of Medicine, London-RhonaPhoto from the ICRC
On Friday 25 April, the Conflict and Catastrophes Forum hosted a conference at the Royal Society of Medicine, London, entitled ‘Medicine Overseas’. This was a day long series of spectacular talks which aimed to provide an insight into the challenges, fears, hurdles and rewards of a career in humanitarian medicine. An impressive array of speakers from a range of diverse organisations including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) , Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the Department for International Development (DFID), and Medecins du Monde (MdM), each provided unique perspectives of overseas medical careers. In particular, they illustrated the controversies that underlie humanitarian medicine, including whether organisations should remain neutral in conflict settings and how health workers can prevent doing more harm than good. Moreover, the remarkable turnout of young doctors and medical students within the audience reflected that humanitarian medicine is an important field that the doctors of tomorrow need to take an interest in.

The morning’s talks were spearheaded by representatives from the ICRC, MSF, Medecins du Monde and DFID; organisations that have been vital in restoring the health of some of the most vulnerable populations in the world. Notably, Jean Pierre Revel from the ICRC, spoke at length of the challenges of working in conflict areas. In the past, the ICRC has been heavily criticised for maintaining neutrality in conflict settings. However, as Revel reflected, this is necessary in order to deliver health care in situations where a political standpoint would compromise the ability to access people in need. By contrast, both MSF and Medecins du Monde have characteristically adopted a more active stance against human rights atrocities in conflict settings. As Alex van Tulleken from Medecins du Monde emphasised, one of the greatest challenges of humanitarian organisations is bearing witness and advocating against inhumane crimes. Thus, there is an evident divide in the way that these organisations approach health care delivery. However, as reflected by the morning’s talks, they are all united in the dedication and commitment displayed by their staff.

Further insight into the complex, yet rewarding nature of a career in alternative medicine was provided by Rachel Lavy, director of the WHO/DFID response to the Pakistan Earthquake. Lavy described the difficult choices that health workers must make when dealing with crises and mass mortality. Equally, fascinating and interactive talks were delivered by Jonathon Kaplan, a frontline surgeon, Hans Husum, a trauma surgeon dealing with landmine victims in Cambodia and Solveig Hamilton, a GP working with a neglected Aboriginal population in Australia. Each one of these speakers exuded enthusiasm and highlighted that overseas medicine is a field that more doctors should be involved in.

However, the sad fact remains that as medical students, our curriculum is rarely conducive to periods of work overseas. Thus, this was an issue that several of the speakers tried to discuss in detail. As Alex Van Tulleken noted, junior doctors have a lot to contribute to organisations such as MSF and Medecins du Monde. They provide enthusiasm, diversity and intuition in crisis situations. In turn, after experiencing health care overseas, they can equally enrich their own health systems with cultural knowledge and skills. As such, there is a need for overseas medicine to play a fundamental role within the medical curriculum. Notably, the UK government is currently taking heed of the importance of overseas medicine. In 2006, it issued the Crisp Report which emphasised the need to improve mutual understanding between countries and use the National Health System in the UK as a tool to improve the health care of other countries. Thus, it seems as though for those who aspire to volunteer their services in humanitarian medicine, the future is forecasted to offer more opportunities and fewer hurdles. 

Ultimately, the messages gained from this conference were clear; medicine overseas is a challenging and demanding, yet hugely rewarding field. Currently, there is an urgent need for health professionals in conflict and emergency settings. Still today, conflict is creating an unacceptable number of preventable diseases and mass mortalities. Thus, as Crista Hook, President of MSF put it, “we need to roll up our sleeves and do something about it.” Aditi Das: diti_d@hotmail.com 

Bookmark on delicious | Digg

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can trackback from your own site.