On March 24 and 25, human rights activists from the fields of medicine, public health, and public policy are convening for:

Sustainable Connections & Collaborations
for Health & Human Rights

a joint conference of

The Physicians for Human Rights National Conference

and

The Second Annual University of Michigan Sujal Parikh Memorial Symposium
for Health & Social Justice

March 24th & 25th, 2012 in Ann Arbor, Michigan

As a former PHR Student Advisory Board member, friend of Sujal’s, and current pediatric resident interested in continuing a career dedicated to underserved populations, this conference is particularly important to me. I am very excited about the breadth of talks as well as the academic and practical discourse that will occur between the many different health professionals and students who are coming. Among the many amazing speakers confirmed for this conference, I am particularly happy to announce that Drs. Arash and Kamiar Alaei, prominent Iranian physicians and HIV activists previously imprisoned in their home country under false pretenses, will be joining us as keynote speakers.

Please join me and others interested in health, human rights and social justice for an inspiring and educational weekend in Ann Arbor.

Registration is free, so I encourage you to register today at SujalSymposium.org.

There you will also find our current conference agenda, a list of speakers, and information about submitting abstracts for poster presentations (deadline is January 30, although extensions may be possible by contacting us). I look forward to seeing you!

Katie Ratzan Peeler
University of Michigan Pediatrics House Officer
Former PHR Student Advisory Board Member

PHR Board of Directors Chair Dr. Robert Lawrence will be presenting at this year’s Global Health & Innovation Conference, speaking about “Hunger and the Right to Food.” For more information and a complete list of speakers, visit uniteforsight.org.

Global Health & Innovation Conference 2012

Presented by Unite For Sight, 9th Annual Conference

Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Saturday, April 21 – Sunday, April 22, 2012

http://www.uniteforsight.org/conference

“A Meeting of Minds” — CNN

The Global Health & Innovation Conference is the world’s largest global health conference and social entrepreneurship conference. This must-attend, thought-leading conference annually convenes 2,200 leaders, changemakers, students, and professionals from all fields of global health, international development, and social entrepreneurship. Register during January to secure the lowest registration rate. Interested in presenting at the conference? Submit a social enterprise pitch for consideration.

PHR’s Student Program is always on the lookout for new health and human rights education opportunities — and we have a great one for you in Gulu, Uganda in January 2012. PHR members and friends Michael Westerhaus, MD, MA, Julian Jane Atim, MD, MPH, and Amy Finnegan, MALD, MA, have created an amazing social medicine course in Gulu, Uganda and are accepting applications for the third annual course in January 2012.

Beyond the Biological Basis of Disease: The Social and Economic Causation of Illness is an on-site immersion course in social medicine offered at Lacor Hospital in Gulu, Uganda from January 9, 2012 through February 3, 2012. This intensive course designed for 15 international medical students (clinical years) and 15 Ugandan medical students (3rd-5th year) from Gulu University intersects the study of clinical medicine in a resource-poor setting with social medicine topics such as globalization, war, human rights, and narrative medicine, among others. This highly-interactive course is taught through a combination of lectures, small and large group discussions, films, community field visits, ward rounds, and clinical case discussions. Credit for away-rotations can also be arranged.

For more information, we invite you to visit their website. You can also watch short videos of
their previous courses from 2010 and 2011.

If you have any questions or are interested in applying, please email the course instructors at social.medicine[at]yahoo[dot]com. Applications are due July 31, 2011.

Resources to build your Chapter, educate your community, and lead meaningful advocacy

The National Student Program has launched a website dedicated to resources for students, residents, and young professionals who are interested in advocacy based on PHR’s human rights investigations.

To educate your campus or community, refer to the PHR Student Chapter Toolkit for detailed information about how to plan and lead an advocacy campaign, host educational events, and more.

Use the issue-based PHR Toolkits to lead education and advocacy:

Access to Essential Medicines

The UN Working Group on Access to Essential Medicines opened its report on Essential Medicines with the assertion that “The lack of access to life-saving and health-supporting medicines for an estimate 2 billion poor people stands as a direct contradiction to the fundamental principle of health as a human right.”

Using clinical skills to defend human rights: Asylum and Detention

Physicians for Human Rights’ Asylum Network is a community of hundreds of health professionals who offer pro bono physical and psychological evaluations to document evidence of torture and persecution for men and women fleeing danger in their home countries. As mentioned in a recent post, the Asylum Network at Physicians for Human Rights conducted 317 evaluations during the 2010-2011 academic year. 10% of these evaluations were shadowed by medical students and residents through student-run asylum clinics.

Transforming health professional education: Health and Human Rights Education

Over the course of their careers, every health professional will be confronted with patients who have endured human rights violations. However, few medical and public health schools have mainstream courses to help prepare students to deal with this effectively. Students and faculty are working together to introduce new courses and promote Health and Human Rights Education.

Prioritzing the Patient: Medical Professionalism

Medical professionalism is the basis of medicine’s contract with society. It demands placing the interests of patients above those of the physician, setting and maintaining standards of competence and integrity, and providing expert advice to society on matters of health. As discussed in a previous post, there is a strong human rights basis for the integrity of medical professionalism and for prioritizing the needs of the patient.

Domestic Health Equity and Ethnic Disparities: Access to Health in Massachusetts

This Toolkit examines health disparities and health reform through the case of Massachusetts’ health reform and its relationship to federal health reform.

Other recent resources that may be of interest:

• Doctors imprisoned in Bahrain: Bahrain: Free the docs!
• Crimes against humanity in Burma: Life Under the Junta

The PHR Asylum Network

The notion of ‘human rights’ can seem vague and theoretical – but what does it really mean to protect human rights?

Physicians for Human Rights’ Asylum Network is a community of hundreds of health professionals who offer pro bono physical and psychological evaluations to document evidence of torture and persecution for men and women fleeing danger in their home countries. Survivors of human rights abuses are legally entitled to seek safe haven in the United States, but often find themselves immersed in lengthy and complex legal procedures that could ultimately result in deportation, resulting in further abuse, torture, and even death.

The Asylum Network at Physicians for Human Rights conducted 317 evaluations during the 2010-2011 academic year. These evaluations aided survivors of female genital mutilation, LGBT persecution, gang violence, government-sponsored torture, and a number of other forms of persecution. 10% of these evaluations were shadowed by medical students and residents through student-run asylum clinics.

PHR has partnered with student-run clinics at Mount Sinai, Cornell, UCSF, and University of Miami, and is now working with students to establish asylum evaluations at a student-run clinic at Tufts School of Medicine.  These clinics offer not only direct medical training for students and residents, but provide much-needed forensic evaluations to survivors of egregious human rights abuses. Evaluators sign medical affidavits, which provide clear evidence of persecution to courts and help secure legal status for survivors who deserve the chance to start their lives anew in the US.

PHR forensic evaluations are conducted by licensed physicians and residents, psychologists, and clinical social workers.  However, medical students can play a very active role in conducting forensic evaluations. Asylum clinics run by students are a valuable resource, and PHR is always looking to expand to more medical schools.

How can you establish an asylum clinic?

PHR has created an online Asylum and Detention Toolkit to help students understand the purpose of the Asylum Network and how to contribute. The essential steps are:

1. If your school has a free clinic, see if it can be reserved for a few hours a week or month for forensic evaluations.

2. Recruit interested doctors who would be willing to conduct evaluations while teaching medical students. Professors, clinicians, mentors, and residents are all great resources for building a team for your clinic. Once identified, have the physicians join the PHR network directly. They receive excellent training (and CME credits).

3. Identify a point person for the PHR student clinic. This student representative will be responsible for in-take for clients referred by PHR. When the clinic has openings for client evaluations, the point person will notify PHR, who will then send a list of pending clients. This is a critical role: the linchpin of the process.

Throughout the process, PHR will be available to answer any questions, provide training materials and example affidavits, and place you in touch with students and mentors from the already operating student clinics.  Please see the example of the clinic at the University of Miami here.

Student clinics are an effective way to gain valuable clinical experience while directly helping clients in critical need of medical evaluations.  Students who are involved in their asylum clinics can arrange training sessions for students and residents, host meetings to present their asylum work, and continue to get more students and licensed practitioners alike passionate and motivated about helping this vulnerable population.

If you are interested in establishing an asylum clinic at your school, please contact Kelly Holz, the Asylum Network Coordinator, at kholz[at]phrusa[dot]org.  She will be available to answer any questions, and to provide all of the available resources.

The Asylum Network needs more forensic evaluators – and you can recruit them for us through establishing a student-run asylum clinic. Contact the Asylum Network today!

Want to provide national leadership to PHR’s National Student Program? Apply now!

Please apply to serve as either a member of the Student Advisory Board or as a Regional Chapter Mentor.

PHR Student Advisory Board (SAB)

The SAB is a national board of 7 or 8 students. The role of a Student Advisory Board member is:

1. to serve as a liaison to student chapters within a certain geographic region, and
2. to provide strategic and operational advice to the mission and direction of the National Student Program.

An SAB member is expected to be engaged in the development of the Student Program by completing his/her assigned duties, maintaining open lines of communication, and actively seeking areas for improvement in the National Program. These expectations include:

1. attendance at a Student Advisory Board retreat this summer (2011),
2. attendance and involvement in the Student National Conference in early 2012, and
3. participation in monthly conference calls (with a maximum of three missed over the course of the year).

Please apply only if you feel you can meet these commitments. Other leadership roles are available for students who are not on the SAB, including Regional Chapter Mentors.

  SAB Application

Regional Chapter Mentors

Regional Chapter Mentors will work with Chapters in their region ­­­­— Northeast, Midwest, West, South, and Mid-Atlantic — to strengthen the National Student Program and improve their region’s experience and impact. They are overseen by the Student Advisory Board, and offer critical peer-to-peer support, advice, and problem-solving assistance to their region’s student Chapters, and help student Chapter leaders advance their Chapter development and activities. Regional Chapter Mentors provide the personal communication and online presence to ensure the chapters feel supported, appreciated, and connected to one another and to the National Student Program.

  RCM Application

Please consider applying. Use your creativity, sense of humor, ability to organize, and dedication to human rights to serve as a liaison between your region’s Chapters, the PHR offices in Cambridge, and the halls of legislature.Your leadership can shape the course of the PHR National Student Program.

The application for SAB is due June 10. Applications for the RCM positions are due on June 24. Your application must be submitted to phr.sab[at]gmail[dot]com. Those selected for an interview will be contacted by Wednesday, June 29. Interviews will take place by phone or in person.

Questions? Please contact Alexandra Coria at acoria[at]dartmouth[dot]edu.

Photo: Monica Barnabé

A new report, “Truth Seeking and the Role of Forensic Science” presents the results of a three-day conference in Kabul, Afghanistan in October, 2010 where over 100 participants represented victims and civil society members, as well as governmental authorities from nine provinces in the country.

The impact of more than three decades of violence has rendered almost every Afghan a victim. Meaningful attempts to deal with the injustices of the past have been few and far between, due to the ongoing hostilities, precarious security situation, weakened status of many governmental institutions, and the fact that many of the perpetrators of violence and mass atrocities remain in positions of power. Under these circumstances, the International Forensic Program (IFP) has collaborated with civil society organizations in Afghanistan to undertake a program called “Securing Afghanistan’s Past.”

In this context, the program aims to initiate a dialogue between victims of conflict and Afghan authorities as a first step towards discussing necessary policy and legal frameworks to protect and preserve evidence of past abuses, and begin a process of truth seeking. The multi-year program began with a training course in the forensic documentation of mass graves in May and June 2010 and includes two conferences, the first of which was mentioned above.

The report recounts the details of the three-day conference, titled “Truth Seeking and the Role of Forensic Science” and presents a series of recommendations issued by conference working groups examining different aspects of how to deal with the crimes of the past.  According to Stefan Schmitt, Director of the IFP, “This conference is based on the principle that the endless and ongoing cycle of violence can only be broken by starting with a discussion about how we can begin to acknowledge the truth.  It is a conference about hope, the hope of a better future for our children. Those in Afghanistan, as well as those around the world.”  International experts and national actors, such as one of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court Judges, contributed to the discussion with topics like comparative approaches to transitional justice and the current state of forensic science in Afghanistan, as well as what measures must be taken to improve it. Participants of the conference were unanimous in expressing that for any meaningful peace to take hold in Afghanistan, justice for crimes of the past would have to be addressed.  Additionally, international actors in Afghanistan were asked to more actively support the Afghan people’s call for justice.

Forensic analysis, through its scientific objectivity and transparency, can provide an accurate and verifiable record of past mass crimes and make it difficult for official actors, perpetrators, and other responsible parties to ignore, deny, or distort the evidence. Therefore, PHR’s International Forensic Program uses scientific methods to document these violations against human life and dignity to provide a foundation upon which the wrongs of the past can be discussed in an impartial manner. The IFP has been engaged in Afghanistan since 1997 and continues to remain active in the country with its current program.

Before a country can move beyond its own past, its leaders and society must reckon with the previous dark chapters of its history. Despite the ongoing violence and hostilities in Afghanistan, the time to begin documenting past atrocities and truth seeking is now.