1) HEALTH AND HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY
Amnesty International
Host: Michael Esvelt
Most people will be aware of Amnesty International’s objectives of health and human rights advocacy but have you ever wondered how the organisation achieves these aims? Or how is it decided that a particular human right should be internationally recognised? This workshop offers an opportunity to discuss the role of this prominent organisation and gain a greater understanding of the scale of Amnesty International’s impact worldwide.
2) FORENSIC PSYCHIATRY
Dr Vivek Kohsla
Forensic psychiatry deals with some of the most disturbed and difficult to manage patients in psychiatric practice. Its focus is the assessment and treatment of mentally disordered offenders, and other patients, presenting with severe mental disorder in association with significant behavioural disturbance. Treatment settings vary from high security hospitals through to medium secure units and community forensic services, as well as the opportunity to treat patients in prison settings. Knowledge of the law in relation to clinical practice is central to the work and there is regular involvement with criminal justice agencies.
Personal qualities should include:
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Good clinical skills with sound experience in general psychiatry
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Natural curiosity about unusual behaviour and willingness to examine it in a multi-dimensional manner
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Tolerance for difficult patients - capacity to accept - without condoning - anti-social behaviour.
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Clarity of thought and of expression, both written and oral
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Thoroughness and attention to detail
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Capacity to lead a clinical team
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Willingness to respond to emergencies and see patients at short notice
3) SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE ELECTIVES
Becky Davis, Child Family Health International
Child Family Health International (CFHI) is a global family of committed professionals and students who work at the grassroots level to promote the health of the world community.
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Community Initiatives -- healthcare for underserved communities through local medical professionals and clinics
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Medical Supply Recovery -- collection and distribution of salvaged medical supplies
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Global Service Learning -- medical student programs that focus on cultural competency in the health setting.
Becky has worked for the San Francisco based global health NGO, “Child Family Health International” for 2 ½ years. Prior to moving to San Francisco, Becky spent a number of years working in the hospitality industry in San Diego, where she lived after studying Spanish and learning about the ecotourism industry in Costa Rica. During her studies in the UK, Becky interned for People and Planet, Oxford, and helped write the Responsible Tourism guidelines for The Gambia. Becky has a B.A in Sociology with Development Studies from AFRAS at the University of Sussex, and a Masters in Responsible Tourism Management from the International Centre for Responsible Tourism at the University of Greenwich, London. Becky works to manage CFHI's rapidly growing network of Alumni in connection with conducting outreach and marketing for CFHI's global health education programs and other activities. Becky is UK Cultural Ambassador for Step Up Travel, an online Responsible Travel community, and takes great pride in being part of an organization which is truly working in a socially responsible and financially just manner.
4) MENTAL HEALTH- “POWER, IMPERIALISM AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF WESTERN MENTAL HEALTH APPROACHES- WHOSE VOICES COUNT?”
Dr Derek Summerfield
Senior Lecturer at the King's College Institute of Psychiatry
Besides lecturing on psychiatry, Dr Summerfield is an expert on issues of human rights and social justice. He has worked for the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture and is currently a teaching associate at Oxford's Refugee Studies Centre. He advocates caution in the application of Western models of mental health - especially the use of labels such as "post-traumatic stress disorder" - to human responses to hardship and danger. In his work (which has been published in six languages) he aims to bring together the disciplines of anthropology and sociology with medical approaches to mental illness.
5) MENTAL HEALTH- WHO INVOLVEMENT?
Prof Norman Sartorius, Member of the WHO’s Expert Advisory Panel on Mental Health
"Fluent in six languages and a professor at the universities of at least as many countries, Dr Sartorius is among the most respected figures in psychiatry. He started work for the WHO in 1967 was its Division of Mental Health between 1977 and 1993, after running the programme of Epidemiology in Social Psychiatry. He has been president of the World Psychiatric Association and is currently President of the Association of European Psychiatrists. His interests include schizophrenia, depression and the delivery of health services, and he has published over 300 articles.
6) DEPRESSION - MALIGNANT SADNESS
Lewis Wolpert, UCL
Lewis Wolpert is currently Emeritus Professor of Biology as applied to Medicine in the Department of Anatomy and developmental biology at University College London. In addition to his scientific and research publications in the field of mollecular signalling in embryonic development, Lewis Wolpert has written about his own experience of clinical depression in Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression. This was turned into three television programmes entitled 'A Living Hell' which he presented on BBC2.
He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1980 and awarded the CBE in 1990. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999
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7) OBSTETRIC FISTULA VIDEO
Dr Jane Moore
An obstetric fistula is a hole in the birth canal caused by prolonged labour without prompt medical intervention, usually a Caesarian section. The women is left with chronic incontinence and, in most cases, a stillborn baby.
Left untreated, fistula can lead to chronic medical problems, including ulcerations, kidney disease, and nerve damage in the legs. Fistula is almost entirely preventable. But at least 2 million women in Africa, Asia and the Arab region are living with the condition, and some 50,000 to 100,000 new cases develop each year.
Affecting the most powerless members of society, fistula has an impact on reproductive health and rights, gender equality and poverty.
The workshop will start with a video produced by UNFPA, who spearheaded the global Campaign to End Fistula in 2003 and move on to discuss the issues surrounding this debilitating injury.
8) WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN? TRENDS IN EVALUATION OF DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
Ruth Levine
In a conference focussed on pandemics, disease and disaster, Ruth Levine is much-needed optimist. Her book, Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health, explores the ways in which public health projects really can make a positive difference to people's lives. An internationally-recognised expert on global health and on health policy and economics, she has worked for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, evaluating the success of the ways they use their funds for development, and she now holds a senior position in the independent US think-tank the Center for Global Development.
9) MEDICAL CARE OF THE HOMELESS
Dr Merlin Wilcox, Oxford Homeless Medical Fund
Dr. Merlin Wilcox is a GP at The Luther Street Medical Practice, which provides
primary healthcare for homeless people living in Oxford. His workshop will
discuss the illnesses that affect homeless people and the difficulties
encountered in treating such a highly mobile population.
10) INCREASING ACCESS TO HEALTHCARE INFORMATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES)
NEIL PACKENHAM-WALSH, HIFA
Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of the Global Healthcare Information Network, a non-profit organization that administers the ‘Healthcare Information For All by 2015’ campaign (www.hifa2015.org). He has a special interest in the availability and use of relevant, reliable healthcare information in developing countries, especially at primary and district levels. He qualified as a doctor in 1983 and worked for 6 years in NHS hospital medicine, including 2 years in paediatrics. In 1990 he moved into medical publishing and worked with the World Health Organization, Medicine Digest, and the Wellcome Trust CD-ROM series 'Topics in International Health'. From 1996 to 2004 he developed and managed the INASP-Health programme (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications) and the eForum, HIF-net (Health Information Forum). He has worked as a medical officer in rural Ecuador and Peru, and in 2005 he worked alongside rural healthcare providers in South India to assess local priorities in access and use of health information. neil.pakenham-walsh@ghi-net.org
11) “GLOBAL HEALTH AS A CAREER OPTION- WHAT’S MMC, MTAS AND TOOKE GOT TO DO WITH IT?”
Professor John S Yudkin
This workshop will explore the impact of MMC, reforms in Specialist Training, and the Tooke Report on the feasibility of working overseas, both as a period out of programme and as a possible career option.
Emeritus Professor of Medicine, former Director of the International Health and Medical Education Centre, University College London
Special Interests: Medical education; Capacity building; Health services in resource-poor settings; Pharmaceutical policy; Diabetes and cardiovascular risk; Obesity, inflammation and low birthweight
12) Five myths and Five Truths about the HIV epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa
Glen Williams- STRATEGIES FOR HOPE
Strategies for Hope (SFH) is based in the UK and works in collaboration with many organisations in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America & the Caribbean.
Strategies for Hope produces and distributes books and videos that document successful, innovative strategies of HIV/AIDS work by NGOs and community groups.
For many organisations in sub-Saharan Africa, the SFH Series is the only available source of printed or audio-visual information about HIV and AIDS. The evaluators also found that organisations using SFH materials had become involved in a wider range of HIV/AIDS work, and the materials were making a significant contribution to improvements in public attitudes and responses to the HIV epidemic.
13) PROJECT- CROSSING BORDERS
Kushalinnii Ragubathy and Daniel Korn
Refugees and asylum seekers have specific health needs and often experience difficulties accessing the healthcare that they need. Crossing Borders is a Medsin Project that works with refugee health issues. Come along to find out how you can get involved in refugee health projects and get refugee health issues into your medical school curriculum. It’ll be an interactive session where we all input ideas and resources. Finally, you will be able to get copies of our 2 resource packs - the Crossing Borders Project Pack and Refugee and Asylum Seekers' Health Resource Pack, which are full of useful info and resources.
Kushalinii is studying Medicine at BirminghamUniversity. She is the new Crossing Borders National Co-ordinator and has worked on getting refugee health issues into medical school curricula across the country, as well as putting together our Refugee and Asylum Seekers Health resource pack. Dan is studying Medicine at Brighton and Sussex. He is outgoing Crossing Borders Projects Co-ordinator and put together our Project Pack, designed to help people start voluntary projects with refugee groups.
14) CAMPAIGNS- ARMS TRADE
(led by Nick & Jen Riches)
The Arms Trade Campaign set out with some initial aims. All current aims are subject to change as it is our hope that they will agreed upon by the group of Medsin members who become involved in the campaign.
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To educate students and the general public about the effects of the arms trade on health and the need for its abolition.
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To educate the scientific and medical community about the effects of the arms trade on health and the need for its abolition, and to secure their support in lobbying companies, institutions and the government.
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To continue to pressure Reed Elsevier to disengage from their involvement in the arms trade.
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To lobby the government to shut DESO (Defence Export Services Organisation). DESO is a government agency that identifies potential opportunities for arms sales, then works with the companies and other elements of government to push for deals. It focuses purely on arms company sales and profits and is uninhibited by ongoing conflicts, human rights abuses, or pressing development needs. Its position and role within Whitehall means that the arms industry's vested interests are relentlessly promoted across government.
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To engage Medsin members in calling for their universities to divest their shares in arms companies.
Since we were voted in at the SGA 2007 - two of these five objectives have been met and are now no longer valid!! So... where next with the campaign?
15) PROJECT AND CAMPAIGN PLANNING
Daisy Acres
*Got a great new idea? Want help in ideas of how to get it up and running?
This is your session!
"A goal without a plan is just a wish."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery *French writer (1900 - 1944)*