Physicians committed to humanitarian efforts learn from health care workers in Gaza

Feeling a calling to care for patients in the ongoing war zone in Gaza, two Advocate Health Care physicians say they will continue to go back, determined to help and inspired by the doctors who live there.

Drs. Thaer Ahmad and Tamathor Abughnaim, both emergency medicine physicians, first traveled to Gaza earlier this year in separate trips with the non-profit humanitarian group MedGlobal. Dr. Abughnaim recently returned a second time and Dr. Ahmad says he hopes to plan his next trip for later this year.

During their first trips to Gaza, they worked alongside physicians scrambling to treat patients in the middle of a war zone, often without access to the supplies and technology of American hospitals. Dr. Ahmad is based in the emergency department at Advocate Christ Medical Center and Dr. Abughnaim works in the ED at Advocate Trinity Hospital. Both have a special interest in humanitarian work and have traveled overseas in the past to help during various crises.

They say they felt a special calling to go to Gaza and have a deep respect for the health care workers who live there.

“It gives you the sense of just how privileged we are practicing in the United States, especially at Advocate where we have all the bells and whistles, specialists to lean on in tough cases, a lot of support from our whole health care team and all the tools and equipment you need,” says Dr. Ahmad.

“You really appreciate what it means to have some of those basic things to be able to do your job,” adds Dr. Abughnaim.

Both say they were inspired by just how much the doctors and other health care workers could do without those advantages.

“We can learn so much from them,” says Dr. Ahmad. “It’s an incredible honor to work alongside these physicians, serving their community.”

Both doctors say they felt a responsibility to help doctors and their patients in the hospitals in Gaza, no matter the risk.

“I did not really think about danger to myself,” says Dr. Abughnaim. “I am an emergency medicine doctor. I’m trained to respond to emergencies and crises. I speak the language. It made sense to me that this is what I should be doing. Nothing outweighs a doctor’s ability to provide care to people who need it. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I could’ve helped and didn’t.”

Both say what they saw in Gaza was difficult to see – gravely injured people being treated without enough tools and medicine. And this tragedy is “taking an incredible mental health toll not only on the population, but specifically the health care workers,” says Dr. Abughnaim.

During a recent trip overseas, Dr. Abughnaim collaborated with other physicians doing humanitarian work to help organizations develop programs to address the mental health needs of the doctors, nurses and others working every day in the hospitals around Gaza.

While her work in Gaza focuses on emergency care, she also plans to continue to help develop and share information about such programs to address mental health needs and help the friends she has made “heal as a community.”

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