OxPal’s Summer School for Palestinian Medical Students – September 2024

In September 2024, OxPal hosted its second Oxford Summer School for Palestinian medical students, focusing on fourth-year students, including those displaced from Gaza. The programme featured hands-on training at the John Radcliffe Hospital’s skills lab, simulation sessions with OxSTaR, and seminars on communication skills, medical ethics, and surgical techniques. Participants also shadowed doctors through observership contracts with Oxford University Hospitals. Sponsored by The Hanoon Foundation, the initiative aimed to support the clinical skills development of displaced Gazan students.

Testimonial:

I was created in this world for a reason—a message that must be delivered. I’m one of the messengers. That’s how a Gazan student copes despite all we’ve endured and continue to face.

I was accepted into the OxPal summer school in Oxford. After a year away from university, or rather from life, and most importantly from home—Gaza—I was able to return to medical school for a glimpse into medicine, a new experience that deserves to be documented.

A new Salma, born from the genocide on 7th October, is now immersed in theatres, surgical skills labs, the corridors of John Radcliffe Hospital, and the ENT clinics at Churchill Hospital, learning and practising to prepare for the clinical years of her studies, trying to bloom despite a world full of thorns.

With help from FQMS, a sprinkle of enthusiasm, the great efforts of the summer school leaders, and most importantly, God’s companionship, I completed the entire summer school, gaining new knowledge and memories, and hopefully, more determination to work hard and focus on the reason I came.

That’s my only way to survive. I have to—I want to help people. I’ll never be a silent observer, assuming I can do nothing for humanity. I can never watch others suffer without offering a hand or even both hands to help.

This is how it works: humans support humans. It’s a cycle of humanity that must never end, though it is barely understood today.

I am Salma, supposed to be a fifth-year student, technically a fourth, but currently a third-year Gazan medical student trying to survive.

Read more about the international training placement programme here