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. (more…)