Stopped eight times by the army as well as various uniformed officials for scheduled security checks at Beirut airport alone, one can sense the tense atmosphere in this country. 25% of Lebanon’s population is now Syrian refugees. It’s a country surrounded by decades of conflict with Palestine in the south...
Today, I spent the day in a specialty clinic in the Beka’a Valley. When I arrived, I asked the clinic staff how many patients were here to see me. A staff member answered, “15, but more may show up”. At 1 pm, after I had seen 12 patients, she suggested I...
Let’s start with a few quick facts about the Syrian American Medical Society. SAMS is a non-profit, non-political and non-religious medical relief organization. They provide financial support to the dwindling doctors and hospitals remaining in Syria, that continue to face attacks. Today, 5 million Syrian refugees are spread across the...
Our medical mission to Lebanon kicked off with a nice breakfast followed by group orientation with the 38 volunteers currently on SAMS’s medical mission to Lebanon. A few key statistics remind us of the gravity of the refugee crisis in Lebanon: Lebanon has a population of approximately 6 million. It is...
It’s now 4:40pm in Amman, and 8:40am in Chicago as I write this from 30,000 feet up above the Atlantic. (I mean “writing” in the literal sense – thanks to the #ElectronicsBan on flights from Arab cities, I’m rediscovering how atrocious my longhand is.) As I begin my reentry to...
This morning, making my rounds of the breakfast tables, I had the following (paraphrased, I don’t have a photographic memory) conversation with Sami Diab: “We had a patient (at Azraq camp) that we couldn’t help with our materials. He was an elderly gentleman, and he already had a set of dentures...
Every day is a new experience on a SAMS mission, as we rotate through different areas of the country serving those in need. Going to bed last night, I also tried to put to bed some of the emotions from the day before. The schedule moves on forward, and therefore...
The day began at 4:50 am. It took me 36 hours, but I’m more or less over jet lag and I was grateful for 4 hours of sleep. The first day of the mission is full of nervous energy, making sure that all of the different providers and teams are...
Dr. Abdulkhalek remembers all too well the moment that a rocket targeted the house next to his. “I remember when we were in our house and the plane targeted next to our house with a bunker buster rocket. The sound of that rocket was horrible,” he says, adding that he...
Like many Syrians displaced by the ongoing crisis, SAMS medic Abu Rajab dreams of one day returning to his hometown of Aleppo. Before the eruption of the Syrian crisis, Abu Rajab worked as radiologist technician. At the time, he could not anticipate how dramatically his life would change as years...
Women’s health and reproductive care in Syria have been disproportionately imperiled since the beginning of the conflict in 2011. In late 2016, as the siege of eastern Aleppo stifled the city’s civilian population and medical infrastructure, a group of brave medics on the ground continued providing care despite constant aerial...
My first exposure to the “refugee crisis” was in the summer of 2013, just before my senior year of high school. I was in Istanbul visiting family and the Turkish nightly news was consumed with reports of increasing numbers fleeing the seemingly endless violence in Syria. Thousands were pouring across...
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