PHR Student Program Midwest Regional Hub

The not-so-simple act of surviving medical school can be exhausting, easily wearing on the ideals of even the most dedicated human rights advocates. Third year clerkships have been particularly grueling, so I’ve spent much of the year looking forward to PHR’s National Conference as an opportunity to recharge my batteries—a chance to be inspired by luminaries in the field of health and human rights, as well as by the work of my fellow students (aka future luminaries).  When the conference finally arrived last weekend, it provided just the jolt I had been looking for.

The fun began early with a pub night. By the end of the evening, I had met students from as far away as Texas, learned something new about connective tissue diseases from a researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital, and even received career advice from one of the conference speakers—all while sipping delicious cocktails and enjoying good music. It was a great way to jump-start the weekend and to arrive at the conference knowing there would be familiar faces to greet.

The conference itself provided all the inspiration I had been looking for. The all-star presentation line-up included a keynote by Dr. Howard Zucker, who described the power of even small ideas to change the face of care for the underserved if we persist in pursuing their implementation. He was followed by Professor Stephen Marks, who expounded upon the notion of a right to health in the context of the current American political climate. The panels that transitioned the conference from morning to afternoon included:

• Motivational advice from PHR Past President Dr. Holly Atkinson about our role in bending the arc of history toward justice;
• Moving first-hand testimony about the conflicts in Chechnya and Darfur from Dr. Khassan Baiev and Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Eisa, respectively, along with commentary by Dr. Michael VanRooyen, Dr. Sondra Crosby, and PHR Deputy Director Susannah Sirkin about how American medical professionals can assist in the face of atrocities;
• Practical advice from resident Sohil Sud, fellows Stephen Morris and Parveen Parmar, and Oxfam America advisor Sarah Kalloch about how to pursue a commitment to human rights throughout medical training;
• Explanation by Dr. Ramin Asgary and lawyer Christy Fujio of the role medical affidavits can play in ensuring that torture survivors receive asylum;
• A primer from PHR Deputy Director Richard Sollom on the power of epidemiological research to hold perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable;
• Tips for developing advocacy initiatives based on clinical problems and taking these initiatives to the press, by Dr. Gloria White-Hammond, ABIM Foundation Director of Communications John Held, and PHR Senior Press Officer Megan Prock.

Click here to learn more about the speakers.

(In the next post, recap of the awards ceremony and Sujal Parikh Memorial Education Expo…)

This week, students across the US will use the new National Action Toolkit to educate their communities about why patients are denied access to life-sustaining medicines and lead their communities to take action. Join PHR and Chapters across the US in advocating for better access to essential medicines in resource-poor settings through UNITAID’s new Medicine Patent Pool. Our new National Action Toolkit offers analysis, resources to educate your community, and easy advocacy projects. This week of action spans from World AIDS Day (December 1) to International Human Rights Day (December 10). This National Action is dedicated to our friend and colleague, Sujal Parikh, in recognition of his leadership in this area. Let us know about your Chapter’s National Action! Send the National Student Program Coordinator, Hope O’Brien, an update with photos and flyers, and we’ll feature your Chapter on the blog.

Hello Northeast chapters! As I hope you all have heard by now, December 4 is our Northeast Regional Advocacy Institute at Tufts University in Boston. This is a fabulous event every year, very interesting and re-invigorating for the chapters that attend. You’ll hear about some issues PHR is currently advocating on, get new ideas for human rights education and advocacy, both on campus and in the wider political sphere, and meet some other equally motivated students. It’s also a great opportunity to network with each other, especially chapters that are near you, to coordinate joint actions and events.

At this year’s Insitute, we’ll hear from such exciting speakers as PHR CEO Frank Donaghue (who is always a treat), a representative of the Asylum Network, an expert on health and human rights in Burma, and a resident from Dartmouth, who will tell us about keeping yourself active in human rights advocacy through residency, something I’m sure we’re all interested in.

So, everyone should come, I promise it will be worth taking the time out of your busy schedule. You can register here. (And on that note, everyone in your chapter should also register themselves to receive updates and opportunities from the PHR National Student Program – you can do that here.)

Hope to see you there!

Speaking from the perspective of a health care professional (in training), defending and promoting human rights can be exhausting.

It does not have to—and should not—be that way.

A large part of the struggle is appreciating what has happened in the past and understanding what lies ahead: How does one define human rights? What advances have been made in the past? How are human rights impacted in my community vs. around the world? What efforts can we lead in our communities to support human rights? Why should human rights matter to health professionals? How do we approach human rights violations that are intricately intertwined with political arguments?

The answers to these questions—and many more like them—are what we strive to provide in our regional and national conferences.

Participating in regional and national conferences is essential to understanding the workings of any organization, and there are many opportunities to attend PHR Regional Advocacy Institutes (happening now) and National Student Conferences (held around February of each year). When we come together for these workshops, we see that we are not alone in protecting human rights. We all face problems as local organizations, we all have different goals, and we all want to learn more.

Beyond understanding the basic questions surrounding work in human rights, attending these nationally sponsored events promotes the exchange of ideas and promotes interactions between chapters. National conferences facilitate learning new facts and techniques for promoting human rights and expose you (and your chapter) to regionally and nationally acclaimed speakers. These events introduce you to a network of other like-minded students to whom you can reach out, and they also provide endless opportunities to make new friends.

More than anything, attending nationally sponsored events reenergizes you to head back home and fight the good fight. While defending human rights is an ongoing struggle, when we come together, we are able to take a step back—away from our smaller realms of influence—and understand that there’s a much larger effort being formed in our national community.

We hope to see you in soon at a Regional Advocacy Institute or at the 2011 National Student Conference. In the meantime, please check out the newly launched PHR Toolkits website, PHRtoolkits.org. The Toolkits are fantastic resources from the people at the PHR National Student Program to help chapters across the nation easily move forward in promoting human rights efforts.

Over the next month, PHR chapters in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern regions will be collaborating on a Regional Advocacy Institute that will take place on November 13 at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. The Mid-Atlantic and Southern Institute promises to be an engaging, informative, and exciting event.

The Institute will address a number of topics that are relevant to students: the research and advocacy of PHR, how students can contribute, the resources available to Chapters (like the new Toolkits), and the new online community (everyone in your Chapter should register!). This weekend, the Midwestern Regional Advocacy Institute took place in Chicago, and they covered a lot of the same topics. Chapters from all over the Midwest connected and shared resources, ideas, and plans.

For me, the most prominent issue is Health and Human Rights Education (HHRE), which Jake already identified as our number one priority for the year. We need to identify ways to implement HHRE, provide support for our chapter leaders as they spearhead curricular initiatives, and ultimately come up with an evidence base for the importance of HHRE in medical education.

HHRE initiatives could range from health and human rights electives (something that we are currently implementing at my school, as part of the preclinical public health course) to colloquia on human rights and justice issues as they pertain to health. Health and human rights issues could also be incorporated into academic inquiry – as medical students, our research, whether basic sciences, translational, clinical, public health, or something else, would only be enriched by an awareness and understanding of human rights issues. I could go on ad infinitum about the benefits of HHRE, but I’ll end for now.

At the Institute, I look forward to collaborating with other Mid-Atlantic and Southern chapters, and working with fellow SABer Mona Singh at VCU College of Medicine, to bring the goals of National Student Program in alignment with those of our individual chapters.

Keep on fighting the good fight!

Whether you’re new to PHR or a seasoned veteran, the PHR Regional Advocacy Institute will offer you something new to take home and use in your community, chapter, or on your campus. We’re still putting together the final details, but have many things figured out that should make for a great day.

To start the morning, we will introduce you to PHR and give you a background for understanding the organization. As unnecessary as this may seem, it is important that members of PHR—every one of us scattered across the country in our chapters—understand what the organization stands for and where it hopes to go in the future. Without a basic understanding of the goals and directives of the organization, recruitment into your chapters can be quite difficult. We want to show you what PHR is all about: we will delve into the role, mission, and impact of PHR and give a brief overview of current investigations.

As we move along in the Institute, you’ll have opportunities to discuss things that have worked for you—chapter leaders—over the course of the last several years. What are the best ways to recruit? How can you manage fundraising? How do you incorporate national initiatives into your local chapter’s goals?   What activities or advocacy efforts have you supported? We will take some time to go over chapter management, advocacy planning, and relating national goals to a local effort. Additionally, we’ll take some time to walk through the student toolkits available for chapters at http://phrtoolkits.org/toolkits/student-chapter-toolkit/.

More than anything, the RAI is an important way to keep abreast of the things going on at PHR National and serves as great way to learn how PHR can support your local chapter. After all, we are all working towards the same goals, even if we make it there using different paths. The benefits of being involved with PHR national include having the support of a larger organization behind any one of your efforts. Come learn how to capitalize on that!

We will anchor the afternoon with a keynote speaker discussing taking action on one of PHR’s advocacy goals. We’re still awaiting official confirmation of the speaker, so keep your eyes and ears tuned to this blog for the formal announcement.

As we plan for the Regional Advocacy Institute in Chicago, we’ve got you in mind!  Let us know if there’s a subject you’re interested in learning more about, and we can see where it would fit in. Above all, we hope to bring together a fantastic group of people for great discussion, planning, and networking throughout the day.

We hope to see you in Chicago!

PHR has sadly received word of the untimely death of Student Advisory Board Member Sujal Parikh.

Sujal, a student at the University of Michigan Medical School, was spending a year in Kampala, Uganda, as a Fogarty Fellow doing long-term research with children with HIV, after which he would have returned to UM for his 4th year. His death is a great loss for the health and human rights movement.

UM’s Center for Global Health says: “We are heartbroken as we inform you of the passing of our dear friend Sujal Parikh, an exemplary human being and colleague. Among other accomplishments and honors, Sujal was a member of our internal advisory committee and a CGH awardee for several initiatives. All of us at CGH benefited immensely from his advice and from his example of humble service to global health. Although his life was cut so short, his achievements were many and he touched and enlightened many lives.”

Sujal was the 2009 recipient of PHR’s Emerging Leader Award, presented at the 2009 National Student Conference, in recognition of his dedication to human rights advocacy. Sujal’s untimely death is a loss not only for those who knew and loved him but for the thousands whose lives his work would have doubtless touched as a leading human rights activist.

Welcome – or welcome back – to PHR! I hope that you have had satisfying and safe summers, and that you’re returning to school or starting your next adventure renewed and ready to go. This summer the PHR National Student Program has been busy developing materials and planning events for you to use this year.

Attend a Regional Advocacy Institute

Regional Advocacy Institutes are free day-long workshops where you will meet other PHR chapters, learn about PHR’s work and develop the advocacy skills you need to work alongside PHR to demand health, dignity and justice. We’re pleased to announce the dates and locations of this fall’s Institutes:

• October 23, 2010 in Chicago, IL
• November 13, 2010 in Baltimore, MD
• December 4, 2010 in Boston, MA

I’ll soon email you to invite you to sign up. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with other students and develop your ability to advocate for health and human rights.

Visit our new website for new tools

Today, we’re launching a new website to make it easy to use the resources we develop for you. You’ll find a new Student Chapter Toolkit to help you establish and manage your Chapter, materials to recruit new members, reports about PHR’s human rights research, and ideas for events, actions, and advocacy.

Create your profile and register your chapter

You may have already created or updated your profile and registered your Chapter. Chapters must register every year. If so – thank you! If not – here’s your chance! Registration allows you to connect with other students, residents, and faculty, to share ideas and resources. Update your profile to tell the community more about you.

Start a new Chapter

If you’re interested in starting a new Chapter, please register and let us know! I will also host Chapter Development sessions to meet students interested in starting new Chapters in Seattle, San Francisco, and Palo Alto. Let me know if you’re interested!

Get ready for a National Action

Three times a year, Chapters coordinate their advocacy on a single urgent issue, such as last April’s Global Health Week of Action. PHR Chapters, residents, young health professionals, and faculty join together to raise awareness on their campus and lead targeted advocacy. It’s a powerful way to get our legislators’ attention. The first National Action will take place this October – look for information soon!

In the year ahead, please use the PHR National Student Program resources and community for whatever cause or campaign that appeals to you personally and professionally.

PHR sincerely congratulates the Dartmouth Chapter for their dedication to educating and mobilizing their campus around human rights issues. The Chapter was recently honored for their bold social justice and human rights work – which PHR learned about when we received a $500 donation associated with the prize!

From Dartmouth Medicine:

The Dartmouth Medical School chapter of Physicians for Human Rights received Dartmouth College’s Martin Luther King Social Justice Award for a student group. The award was accepted by the leaders of the chapter, Katherine Ratzan, a fourth-year M.D. student, and Alexandra Coria, a second-year M.D. student.

Katie Ratzan has a long history with PHR. She interned with Sarah Kalloch in 2004-2005, before entering medical school. She served on the Student Advisory Board (SAB) and has been a leader in helping other students introduce health and human rights education (HHRE) to their med school curriculum. Katie will soon begin a Pediatrics residency at the University of Michigan.

Alexandra Coria was recently chosen to join the SAB. Last year she served as a Regional Training Coordinator.

Through activities such as their recent panel on health, human rights, and the environment, Alexandra, Katie, and the other remarkable members of the Dartmouth Chapter have increased awareness and scrutiny of important human rights issues and broadened the audience for PHR’s investigations. PHR’s mission begins with the “mobilization” of health professionals, students and the community, and education like this precedes action. Student Chapters are a critical link between PHR’s work, the public’s demands for change, and policy responses that can put an end to human rights abuses.

Response has been strong to the invitation to apply to serve as a Regional Chapter Mentor or a Regional Training Coordinator.

Because it is such a busy time of year, and to give all interested students enough time to apply, we’re extending the application deadline by one week to May 31, 2010.

If you’re interested in drawing on your experience, insight, and creativity to inform the work of other Chapters in your region— Northeast, Midwest, West, South, and Mid-Atlantic — and to strengthen the National Student Program, please consider applying.

Visit the original post for more information and to download the application forms.