by Ne’ama Rak
A group of medical students from all over the world toured several medical facilities in Israel and got to know more about the humanitarian aid provided by Israel
Medical students from all over the world who arrived in Israel to learn about the country’s humanitarian medicine visited with the IDF this week. When the 60 students from 25 countries visited the Bahd 10 Training Base located in Tzrifin, which houses a school for military medicine, they learned about the Medical Corps and its activities, and from there they continued to the Tel Aviv University (TAU) for a lecture by Col. Dr. Itzik Kreis, Commander of the Relief Mission to Haiti. Afterwards, they met with combat medics in reserve duty who told them about their service during the Second Lebanon War and in the territories.
The group arrived to Israel within the framework of an initiative by 20 TAU students who are members of the diplomatic “Stand With Us” program. These students created the first and only Humanitarian Medicine Conference in Israel. “This is not a political but a professional conference”, explained Capt. Itay Ashahel, one of the Israeli students behind the project who serves as an officer in the IDF Military Advocate General. “But on this opportunity we wanted the students to learn about the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.
The visitors only paid for their flight tickets and their entire stay in Israel was subsidized by the funds of the project. Throughout the week, they toured the Hadassah and Wolfson hospitals, learned about Israeli technological developments in the medical field, met with Israeli and Palestinian doctors, were briefed on different humanitarian projects in Israel and also visited the Old City of Jerusalem. The group is composed of students from England, the US, Canada, Nigeria, Croatia, Nepal, Singapore and many more. They are hosted by students from TAU.
The vast majority of the group is not Jewish and their knowledge about Israel at the time of their arrival was extremely limited. However, some of them already expressed their desire to stay in Israel and travel after the end of the conference.
We are soldiers, but first we are medical personnel
“I never had the opportunity to visit Israel and know this country, and therefore I was very happy to join this conference”, explains John Brookman, Chairman of the American Medical Student Association and medical student in Ohio State. “I heard stories from people who experience the reality of life here, which is completely different than reading about it in a newspaper. It is important to establish this dialogue. In my opinion, nobody in my circle of friends and family thinks that Israel is a terrible place, but regardless I know now a lot more about the country and I will be able to represent the Israeli side in future discussions on the subject”.
The visitors were welcomed in the Bahad 10 Training Base’s School for Medicine by the Commander of the training program for the units, Maj. Asi Hampel, who presented the activities of the training base in particular and of the Medical Corps in general. “We are soldiers, but first of all we are medical personnel”, he explained. “When we see somebody injured, we do not think about his identity, but only about the injury and its treatment”.
The visitors asked many questions of the Israeli officer, mostly about the enlistment of doctors into reserve duty and IDF’s professional training program. Josh, a Jewish student from England donning a yarmulke, received particular attention when he explained that he was interested in serving in the IDF as a doctor. In response, Maj. Hampel displayed on the screen the oath of a military doctor in the IDF, translated into English, and had Josh read it out loud in its entirety. After the lecture, the visitors watched an exercise of treatment of wounded persons which took place in a building within the training base that resembles a Palestinian city. As part of the exercise, the military medics treated imaginary wounded persons – Palestinian soldiers and civilians. They also visited the training base’s medical training clinic, which utilizes various technologic simulations, and they watched a movie about the relief mission sent by the IDF to India in 2001.
“I was amazed. When I get back home I will be an ambassador for Israel”
Another participant at the conference was Anael Okic, a surgical intern who is personally involved with humanitarian medicine. In the 90s, as a young man, he experienced firsthand the war between the Bosnians and the Serbs in his homeland of Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a sixteen year old, he volunteered to help with food received by humanitarian aid organizations. Then he decided that he wanted to be a doctor.
“I understood that it was the best way to help my community”, Okic said. “In my first years of studies I was assisting the doctors in supsuppling medicines to patients; homes. In my second year I completed a massage and physiotherapy course, and I used this knowledge to help injured people who needed treatment”. Before he arrived in Israel he had the opportunity to meet Israelis and Palestinians at a medical student conference, and he was faced by the topic ever-present on the news.
He said that he decided to participate in this conference in order to see “how things really happen.” He says, “I did not know at all that there was humanitarian aid here. I was sure that the Israelis were busy taking care of their own problems and that they did not have time to help the others. I was amazed to know the research studies conducted here and I learnt a lot. When I return to my country I believe I will be an independent ambassador for Israel. I met exceptional people here and I definitely changed my opinions about Israel, and I plan to come back here in the future”.
Ne’ama Rak
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