New degree programme mixes medicine with politics

The Humanitarian and Conflict Resource Institute will launch a BSc in Global Health, which mixes emergency medicine and disaster relief with political science. Medical students on this course will study subjects such as war, refugee camps, floods, and genocides. The institute says this is because they want medical students to become “global doctors”. One of the course tutors for the new degree will be the world-leading humanitarian Dr. Anthony Redmond, who is a specialist in emergency medicine.Dr. Redmond treated victims of the Lockerbie bombing and led a British team of surgeons in response to the Haiti earthquake.

The course will be lead by Dr. Barni Nor, who won the European Muslim Women of Influence awards in 2010 and has worked in Zambia and South Africa on child nutrition, HIV/AIDS and famine prevention.Dr. Nor said she moved to Manchester because, “the HCRI are doing something unique by mixing the faculties of medicine and humanities.“A few years ago, medical students were focused purely on the scientific side. Now they are expected to understand the wider picture.” The degree, which will run from September this year, aims to prepare medical students to work with non-government organizations, governments, charities and campaign groups.

Megan Corder, a second year medical student, said she was thinking about taking the new BSc and working in this area in the future. She said, ‘There isn’t enough emphasis in our course on global health and not much awareness about what’s going on in the rest of the world.”