On the 9th of September, 28 Palestinian medical students arrived in Oxford to attend a two week clinical training program. 24 students were selected by the Arab American University in Palestine (AAUP) while another four had been displaced from Gaza.
Most students from the group are currently living in the West Bank, having flown to the UK from Jordan. Rafiah Niha, one of the summer school co-leads, wants OxPal to “open up to everyone”. This has not been possible, she told The Oxford Blue, since the Gazans on the course “were unsure about how they would progress with their education”. Khadija Najam, the other summer co-leader, ensured that students had access to a therapist – she brought in Gwyn Dnaiel, who has worked in Gaza. It was because of OxPal’s founder, Ayesha Musa, who also championed the programme by spreading the word to displaced medical students, that Gwyn was able to attend. Some students were meant to be in last year’s cohort but had been unable to obtain visas in time. This year, funding from respective universities, and letters from clinicians, guaranteed that no one missed out for that reason.
The training programme was run by OxPal, an organisation established in 2011 by a small group of students whose founding belief was that “every patient everywhere deserves access to a well trained doctor”. After a hiatus the organisation was relaunched in 2018, when students again came together intending to restart it. OxPal’s founders thought that they were privileged to be taught at Oxford, having access to tutorials with some of the best qualified academics. Their stated goal is to use the resources at the University to help educate Palestinian medical students. Rafiah told The Blue that Palestinian students have faced restrictions impacting their ability to study medicine, such as a lack of stethoscopes, which students had to fundraise for. As an apolitical organisation, OxPal can focus on its educational mission and provide the best resources for its students. While being entirely student-run, such a task does rely on some support from clinicians and the university.
The summer school’s co-leads worked tirelessly to ensure that the programme ran smoothly. Previously, students were spread around Oxford but this year OxPal was able to secure accommodation from Exeter on Iffley Road, allowing the students to live together. Moreover, all three volunteers at OxPal helping with the summer school were students on placement years, meaning they had to coordinate booking shifts so that students always had someone available to them.
There were some potential culture shocks that OxPal tried to manage. These included ensuring that halal food was always available, and making sure that students knew how to use the buses to get to the John Radcliffe Hospital (where the training took place) by providing transport instructions. However, the co-leaders also made sure that the students could enjoy their downtime as well, providing opportunities to enjoy Oxford through college tours and punting. Some clinicians who trained the students also invited them round to dinner, while another group of students organised a trip to London after the programme.
OxPal’s hard work paid off, with students providing positive feedback about the programme last year. Rafiah told us that students particularly enjoyed the simulation program (OxStar) and actually planned to speak to the dean of AAUP to try and get the simulation at their own university. They also enjoyed learning other clinical skills such as drawing each other’s blood and communicating with patients.
The director of OxPal, Yumna Ahmad, noted that the dean of AAUP has told OxPal that staff in hospitals could tell which clinical students had undergone clinical training. Yumna explained that the British education system placed greater focus on “soft skills”, compared to memorisation, which the Palestinian system emphasised. This, combined with access to more resources, meant that students really got to hone basic clinical skills that they otherwise could not develop at home. Most students from the clinical programme have gone back to AAUP to start their fourth year and first year of clinical teaching. They have now undergone their white coat ceremony (meaning they are now trainee doctors) and will be starting placements. Rafiah told us that the students on the course were ambitious—most of them wanted to be surgeons because of their environment, while one wanted to be a cardiologist. However, the displaced Gazan students unfortunately face uncertainty about how they can continue their medical education after the course.
