The Medical Neutrality Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 2643) is a bipartisan bill, largely drafted by PHR, that makes the protection of medical professionals and access to medical services a global policy priority for the US government. The bill also calls for the creation of a UN Special Rapporteur on the Protection and Promotion of Medical Neutrality. Upon introduction, the legislation was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and to the House Judiciary Committee for further consideration.

A Medical Neutrality Protection Act toolkit has been added to PHRtoolkits.org. This toolkit provides details on the Medical Neutrality Protection Act and actions that can be taken to support its passage. The toolkit also provides a brief introduction to the principle of Medical Neutrality, its foundation in medical ethics and international law, and violations of Medical Neutrality.

DOWNLOAD NOW:  Medical Neutrality Protection Act Toolkit (pdf)

The PHR Student Advisory Board (SAB) warmly welcomes you to apply for a national leadership role as a member of the SAB or for a regional position as a Regional Chapter Mentor (RCM)! Applications (pdf) for both positions must be submitted no later than April 20th, 2012.

PHR Student Advisory Board Member

The Student Advisory Board (SAB) is composed of seven to ten students from across the country. Members serve as liaisons between regional and national leaders and provide strategic and operational support related to the mission and direction of the National Student Program (NSP). Members are expected to be self-starters and motivated individuals interested in developing and strengthening the NSP. Members of the SAB are expected to be excellent in oral and written communication, time management, as they will be expected to volunteer and complete assigned duties, and teamwork leadership skills, as they will need to work well with fellow SAB members at a distance. SAB members must be comfortable thinking critically and working actively to improve the NSP during PHR’s current transition period, particularly in the face of financial and managerial support constraints.

Tasks for PHR’s Student Advisory Board members include:

• Attend the SAB retreat in summer 2012
• Participate in monthly SAB conference calls (with a maximum of 3 missed calls over the year)
• Actively participate in discussions regarding the Student Program via email
• Reach out to chapters in your region and be available via email and phone for inquires and requests for support, responding in a timely manner
• Attend and provide guidance for the National PHR Student Conference in early 2013

The average time commitment for the Student Advisory Board is 10-12 hours per month, with peak activity at the beginning of the fall semester, the approach of the National Conference, and the closing of the academic year. Members generally remain on the SAB until graduation.

Desired qualifications include:

• Commitment to the PHR Student Program’s mission to advance health professional students’ understanding of and lifelong investment in health and human rights activism
• Prior organizing, advocacy, activism, and leadership experience
• Excellent oral and written communications skills

PHR Regional Chapter Mentor

The Regional Chapter Mentor (RCM) serves the critical role of providing peer-based advising and support to student chapter leaders in the RCM’s region to aid in these chapters’ development and organizing. Mentors will liaise between chapters, SAB, and staff. Mentors will be selected for their personal experiences and passion for chapter organizing, developing a peer-based network, and promoting inter-chapter collaboration.

Tasks for PHR RCMs include:

• Reach out via phone, email, or in-person to student chapters on a quarterly basis, and be available for chapter inquiries and requests for support, responding in a timely manner
• Promote inter-chapter collaboration and participation in PHR events and advocacy initiatives
• Communicate regularly with the SAB by phone or email
• Facilitate a networking opportunity for your region at the 2013 National Conference

The average time commitment for the Regional Student Chapter Mentor is 3-4 hours per month, with peak activity at the beginning of the fall semester, the approach of the National Conference, and the closing of the academic year.

Desired qualifications include:

• Commitment to the PHR Student Program’s mission to advance health professional students’ understanding of and lifelong investment in health and human rights activism
• Prior organizing, advocacy, activism, and leadership experience is preferred, but not required
• Excellent oral and written communications skills

Application for PHR SAB and RCM Positions

This application must be submitted to phr.sab[at]gmail[dot]com no later than April 20, 2012.

  PHR SAB RCM Application 2012

For questions please contact Shaheja Sitafalwalla at shaheja[at]gmail[dot]com.

I have been working at PHR for more than two decades now, and I recognize the extraordinary value of collaboration in the movement to protect and defend the human rights of all people. I’m also convinced that students count among our most passionate advocates. For both of these reasons, I’m writing to encourage you to come to the 2012 PHR National Conference, Sustainable Connections & Collaborations for Health & Human Rights.

Susannah Sirkin presenting Sujal Parikh with the "Emerging Leader" award at the 2009 National Student Conference.

As you probably know by now, it’s being held this year in conjunction with the University of Michigan’s Second Annual Sujal Parikh Memorial Symposium for Health & Social Justice. I had the privilege of knowing Sujal through his active and enthusiastic participation with PHR, and was impressed by the ways he constantly sought to connect with other people passionate about health and human rights. So this collaboration is particularly fitting.

The student program has lined up a fantastic array of speakers, including keynote speakers Drs. Arash and Kamiar Alaei, our Iranian colleagues who treated HIV in Iran and ended up in prison as a result of their efforts.

So I hope that you will join us on March 24 and 25 at the University of Michigan, to learn from each other, brainstorm together, and reinvigorate all of our commitment to the right to health for all people.

Register (for free!) at sujalsymposium.org.

There you’ll also find more information on all of the inspiring speakers that the PHR student program has lined up. They are all interested in meeting you, our student advocates. I certainly know that I personally am very much looking forward to connecting with you in Michigan next month.

Hope to see you there!

Yesterday, we gathered with a group of other students on Yale’s central quad to rally for the rights of drug users. We held signs reading, “Ban the Ban!” and “Clean Needles Save Lives!” One girl even dressed up as a needle. Passersby took photos or stopped to collect the small flyers we were handing out. Others just stared or hurried to the other side of the quad. A local newspaper sent reporters to take photos and write a story about our rally to end the federal ban on syringe exchange funding.

Syringe exchange programs (SEPs) allow injection drug users to trade used needles for sterile needles. Giving drug users access to clean needles protects them and those around them from HIV and other blood-borne diseases. Epidemiologic studies have shown that the presence of an SEP in a community does not increase drug use and reduces transmission of HIV. According to a study published in Social Science and Medicine in 2002, HIV prevalence steadily decreased by about 5.8% in cities with SEPs, and increased by about the same amount in cities that lacked the programs.

Congress initially lifted the 20-year ban on federal funding for syringe exchange in December 2009 due to enormous pressure from numerous policy advocates, including Physicians for Human Rights. Unfortunately, syringe exchanges were once again stripped of federal funding through the introduction of language in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012—the federal budget for fiscal year 2012. House Republicans acted to reinstate the ban, and Democrats and the Obama administration failed to react. On December 23, 2011, while most of the country’s attention was elsewhere, the ban was signed into law.

The decision to ban federal funding for syringe exchange was not driven by economic concerns—syringe exchange is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce HIV transmission. It was motivated by our society’s discrimination against drug users, a population that the government has deemed unworthy of health. We are all entitled to human rights, regardless of our race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or whether or not we use drugs.

The federal ban on syringe exchange funding violates the right to health, exposing drug users, their sexual partners, and, by extension, the entire community to increased HIV risk. Every nation in the world signed at least one treaty recognizing health-related rights—the US must not ignore this right. Yet the ban could also be considered a mechanism for cruel, unusual, or degrading treatment and for punishment given without due process. While drug use is illegal, it should be punished through established legal process and after a fair determination of guilt, not through denying drug users access to evidence-based health services and increasing their risk of disease.

As pre-medical students, future doctors, we feel that advocacy is an essential part of our work. We currently lack the medical skills to heal individuals, but we can raise our voices to help end systemic barriers to health. Once we earn medical degrees, we aim to continue being advocates, building on the strategies we have already learned and using insight into the challenges confronting patients to bring issues to the attention of policymakers. With advocacy around harm reduction and drug use, in particular, the voices of medical providers and public health professionals are crucial. The public health and medical communities must emphasize that programs like syringe exchange are evidence-based and use their positions of authority and understanding of drug use to reduce the debilitating stigma toward drug users.

It is time for everyone to take action. Repeal of the federal ban on syringe exchange funding will take the same fortitude and determination that it required in 2009. We must urge our members of Congress and President Obama to ensure that the ban is not included in the fiscal year 2013 budget. We can do this using many tools of activism: gathering signatures on a petition to Republicans in the House of Representatives, bringing media attention to the federal ban, holding lobby meetings, and raising awareness in our community.

As medical students and health professionals, we know that promoting the health of our patients and communities is a team effort. It can take any combination of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, social workers, and patient advocates working in concert with patients and their families to make our goals of care attainable. When it comes to addressing the systemic injustices that so often underlie poor health, we expand our networks even further, joining forces with community organizers, public health professionals, journalists, lawyers, politicians, and many others in the pursuit of optimal health outcomes. That is why PHR is pleased to announce the theme of this year’s National Conference: Sustainable Connections & Collaborations for Health & Human Rights. The conference, which takes place March 24 & 25 at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor,will be held in collaboration with the Sujal Parikh Memorial Symposium for Health & Social Justice, an annual symposium that brings together members of many excellent organizations that work to promote the well-being of vulnerable populations, including:

• Universities Allied for Essential Medicines
• Global Health Education Consortium
• American Medical Student Association
• Uganda Village Project
• Global REACH
• University of Michigan’s Center for Global Health

We urge students and professionals from every discipline and with any level of training to bring their talents into the mix by joining us at the PHR National Conference. You will hear from an exceptional lineup of inspiring speakers, including Drs. Arash and Kamiar Alaei, Iranian physicians and brothers who were imprisoned for more than two years due to their work combating HIV/AIDS, and who were freed after sustained petitioning from PHR members and allies. Expert-led skill-building workshops will help you hone your abilities in research, curriculum development, advocacy, and social entrepreneurship. Perhaps most importantly, you will have the opportunity to drive change and motivate your colleagues by sharing your research, ideas, and social justice-promoting projects as an oral or poster presenter. Please consider submitting an abstract! The deadline has been extended to February 15. Check out the conference program for additional details. Whether you can join us in Ann Arbor or not, odds are you know many outstanding student leaders who deserve recognition for their work promoting health and human rights. Show your appreciation for students who have inspired you by nominating them for the Navin Narayan Student Achievement Award. And please, help us spread the word about the conference!Distribute this flyer to all of your friends and colleagues so that they can bring their energy and ideas to this amazing event: 

  2012 PHR National Conference Flyer

Fiona Danaher
PHR Student Advisory Board Member
Mount Sinai School of Medicine, M4

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!