PHR Student Blog

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.

This week, you can invest a few minutes in something that will have tremendous impact in the years to come.

Congress will meet soon to decide on the budget for the coming year. Across the US, students, medical residents, nurses, doctors, and public health professionals are working together to send a clear message to Congress: protect funding for global health. Please join us! Click here for information about the 2011 Global Health Week of Action.

Funding for global health is a smart investment. If the Senate fails to sustain or increase global health funding in fiscal year 2012, this will have a devastating impact on health outcomes for years to come:

• Interrupting the dosage of HIV drugs could allow the virus to develop resistance. If this happened for large numbers of patients currently taking medication, this could affect thousands of patients—and could result in their sexual partners becoming newly infected with resistant virus.
• Reducing critical U.S. support for vaccinations will mean a sharp spike in children’s deaths from more than a dozen preventable illnesses—and the resurgence of polio, which is closer to eradication that at any other point in history.
• Reducing U.S. bilateral assistance and support for the Global Fund will also damage efforts to stem the spread of tuberculosis, resulting in more multi-drug resistant TB cases and increasing the death toll among people living with HIV, for whom TB is the already the leading cause of death.
• Undermining family planning programs compromises HIV prevention, while contributing to greater maternal mortality and threats to child health.
• Cuts in U.S. support to vital health surveillance programs in developing countries could permit the outbreak of an epidemic like SARS or bird flu – which could cross national boundaries with little time to prepare.
• Failing to meet our global health commitments could irreparably undermine the trust of other countries. In sub-Saharan Africa—where economic growth rates are much higher than in advanced economies, and where U.S. investment in health has paid considerable foreign policy dividends—these economies are future consumers of U.S. goods and services. Health support for these countries is not only the right thing to do; it makes good economic sense for the U.S.

Please join PHR in urging Congress to protect funding for global health.

Global health spending represents less than 1% of the US federal budget. Source: Kaiser Family Foundation.

What’s the Global Health Week of Action?

During National Actions, students and residents across the US coordinate their advocacy efforts to increase their impact. Every spring, the Global Health Week of Action focuses on an urgent health issue that transcends national boundaries. Join us this May 1-7, 2011 to protect federal funding for crucial health programs and research. Interested in creating your own campaign? At the bottom of this post, there are links to new resources to customize your Global Health Week of Action.

The threat to essential global health programs and research

The struggle over the federal budget this year is far from over. As we’ve seen over the past few months, international affairs has been targeted for spending cuts – despite being less than 1% of the overall budget, and despite huge returns on investment (pdf). For background, see previous posts on January 28, February 15, and April 15.

Soon, your Senators and Representatives will decide on the federal budget for the coming year, FY2012. For this year’s annual PHR Global Health Week of Action (May 1-7, 2011), let’s make sure that Congress knows  that health professionals see that global health funding is critical – to protect the right to health, to advance international development and security, and to avoid needless suffering and death.

Recruit health leaders to join the campaign

PHR is launching an elite sign on letter that will be addressed to each member of the Senate and the House of Representatives, asking for their advocacy in Congress for a continued robust U.S. response to global health. This letter is a collaborative effort with IDSA’s Center for Global Health Policy, Partners in Health, the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), Health GAP, and Physicians for Human Rights.

  Letter to Congress: Support global health funding

Please ask the leadership and health professionals at your schools and hospitals to agree to add their name to the letter above. Senators and representatives are interested in the opinions of thought-leaders, like your school’s deans and professors, the head of your hospital’s department, and doctors, nurses, and other health professionals. Recruiting these leaders to participate is an effective way to influence Congressional representatives.

Share this letter with leading health professionals on your campus or in your community. The more deans, professors, nurses, public health researchers and practitioners, and doctors who participate, the better. To sign onto the letter, please click here and enter your name, title, affiliation, and city. The deadline for signing on is Sunday, May 8^th at 9 pm EST.

You might use this script when asking people to join the campaign:

Global health spending is in jeopardy for the FY 2012 federal budget. Cuts in global health support would have dramatic and long-term consequences, and would do almost nothing to balance the budget. I would like to invite you to join us in sending a letter to Congress.

Please consider adding your name to this letter, which is a collaborative effort with IDSA’s Center for Global Health Policy, Partners in Health, the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR).  PHR will present these letters to our state’s members of congress to demonstrate that leaders in health support lifesaving and cost-effective global health programs. Please help show our senators and representatives that health professionals who live and work in the state they represent value U.S. leadership in global health.

You might ask for a face-to-face meeting to request that they sign on to the letter. If they agree to meet, be well-informed and prepared to make your case. Here’s a series of posts on this issue in this blog. Laurie Garret’s now-classic “The Challenge of Global Health” (pdf) and this analysis of the sources and uses of global health funding offer useful context. Your target may also be persuaded by an email or a phone call. Either way, respect their time: being able to succinctly state your case is an important skill in advocacy.

When they agree to sign on, please add their information to this form.

If they’re enthusiastic, ask them to share the letter and the link to the form with other leaders.

PHR will compile the names of the leaders who you recruit to sign on to the letter.  We will deliver the letters to your members of Congress. If you’d like to join us, please let us know! You can track the status of US funding for key global health accounts to be sure your information is up-to-date.

Ready to do more? Other options for your Global Health Week of Action.

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.

You may choose from these issues and use the PHR Toolkits to lead education and advocacy, or select another issue that you’re passionate about:

• Doctors imprisoned in Bahrain: Bahrain: Free the docs!
• Crimes against humanity in Burma: Life Under the Junta
• Access to Essential Medicines
• Asylum and Detention
• Health and Human Rights Education
• Domestic Health Equity and Ethnic Disparities: Access to Health in Massachusetts
• Medical Professionalism

Next week, I’ll be visiting campuses in Washington and California to meet students who are passionate about health, dignity, and justice. Please join me! Let me know if you’d like to learn more about PHR and how PHR partners with students to promote and protect health and human rights.

• University of Washington, Seattle, WA – date TBA
• UCSF School of Medicine, San Francisco, CA – date TBA
• Stanford, Palo Alto, CA – date TBA

As a health professional student, you can make a distinct and critical contribution to human rights advocacy. Clinical and public health skills can enhance your ability to advocate for evidence-based policy. The PHR National Student Program has over 60 Chapters in schools nationwide. Chapters use PHR resources to educate and mobilize their campuses to take action.

Join me in September. Meet other students at your school who are interested in leading a PHR Chapter and learn what resources are available to you.