A Conversation with Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah

Event Recording

Date and Time: Monday, December 11 at 11:00am EST | 6:00pm EET | 4:00pm GMT

Location: Zoom – registration required

Join the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights, a partnership program between the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights and the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University for a webinar with Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah in conversation with Dr. Omar Dewachi, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Rutgers University. Dr. Abu-Sittah is a British-Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon who has spent the past several weeks working in hospitals in northern Gaza. He will share a first-hand account of his experience caring for patients during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Dr. Dewachi’s work examines the social, medical, and environmental fallouts of decades of war and violence in Iraq and the broader Middle East. A Q&A session will follow the presentation.

This webinar is co-sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative at Harvard Divinity School.

Speakers:

Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah

Professor Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a multi-award-winning Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, with a worldwide reputation as one of the world’s leading specialists in Craniofacial surgery (facial deformities), aesthetic surgery, cleft lip and palate surgery and trauma related injuries.

Professor Abu-Sittah is a passionate and active humanitarian. A British Palestinian, he has worked as a war surgeon in numerous conflict zones including Syria, Yemen, Iraq, South Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. He is Clinical Lead for the Operational Trauma Initiative at the World Health Organization’s EMRO Office and serves on the board of directors of INARA, a charity dedicated to providing reconstructive surgery to war injured children in the Middle East, and Board of Trustees of the UK based Medical Aid for Palestinians.

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Omar Dewachi, MBChB, MPH, PhD

Omar Dewachi is an Associate Professor of Medical Anthropology and Global Health at Rutgers University. His research and practice are centered on the dynamics of war and healthcare in Iraq and the broader Middle East. Before joining Rutgers, he was at the American University of Beirut, where he and Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta co-founded the Conflict Medicine Program at AUB’s Global Health Institute. His acclaimed book, “Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq,” explores the evolution of Iraqi medicine during the 20th century’s colonial and postcolonial periods. His upcoming book, drawing on nearly two decades of ethnographic research and practice, examines the repercussions of prolonged Middle Eastern conflicts on modern healthcare, the human body, and the rise of war biology.