Beirut, Lebanon, February 15, 2018– To commemorate AUBMC’s commitment to humane medicine and patient-centered care, the Salim El Hoss Bioethics and Professionalism Program (SHBPP) at AUBFM and AUBMC organized a special event under the leadership of the Executive Vice President for Medicine and Global Strategy, Raja N. Khuri Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at AUB, Dr. Mohamed H. Sayegh. The event, held at the Issam Fares Lecture Hall, relaunched SHBPP’s initiative under the name of “Medicine’s New Formula: M= EC2” which stands for “Medicine is about Empathy, Caring, and Curing”; this slogan was first introduced four years ago to second year medical students to nurture medical ethics and encourage a culture of physicians, nurses, residents, medical students, and staff who believe that medicine is about empathy, caring, and curing.
The one-day event included various activities held by volunteers from the Lebanese Medical Students’ International Committee (LeMSIC) – AUB, where patients, medical students, nurses, residents and physicians shared their views about what physicians and patients are and are not. In addition, the SHBPP Medical Humanism Fund champions, also medical student volunteers, organized a bake sale that aimed at supporting needy patients to be treated at AUBMC. The highlight of this celebratory day was a musical performance “Compassio Veraque” created especially for this event and presented with a live orchestra and dance by Mr. Faysal Tabbara accompanied by the International College (IC) Ras Beirut Middle School Performing Arts club.
“It has been quite a few years now since AUBMC’s vision and commitment to humane medicine and patient-centered care strengthened the foundation of modern healthcare which has, internationally, succumbed to the supremacies of market forces, technology, corruption and power,” said Dr. Thalia Arawi, PhD, Founding Director of the Salim El Hoss Bioethics and Professionalism Program at AUBFM-MC. “The crux of our commitment at AUBMC is that medicine is an art as much as it is a science. For healing to occur, we as members of the healthcare team need to join our forces, hearts, and minds in the interest of our patients who suffer the existential trials of illness as we ponder the psychological, social, spiritual, etc. aspects of care,” she added.
AUB president Dr. Fadlo Khuri and Dr. Mohamed H. Sayegh were presented with the AUBMC Humane Medicine flag by Dr. Arawi. Associate Professor in the Department of Fine Arts and Art History at AUB, Dr. Henri Franses then talked about the importance of art in the teaching of humanism in medicine. The event also featured a live testimony by a patient suffering from Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) about his enduring journey and the role of the empathic physician. Concluding this celebratory day, SHBPP held its second forum theatre event “كنت ناطرة الحكيم “بس which portrayed the real case of a leukemia patient receiving the news of her diagnosis from her physician.
The initiative of the SHBPP falls in line with the AUBMC 2020 Vision led by Dr. Sayegh, which revolves around patient-centered care while defining service excellence. The Salim El-Hoss Bioethics and Professionalism Program at the American University of Beirut Faculty of Medicine (AUB FM) is an interdisciplinary resource for faculty, students, healthcare providers and policy makers who are involved in bioethics education, research, and consultation in Lebanon and the region. Launched in April 2010, it is the first targeted initiative in the Arab World that seeks to educate, research, and champion issues related to professionalism, medical humanism, and bioethics.
About AUBMC
Since 1902, AUBMC has been providing the highest standards of care to patients across Lebanon and the region. It is also the teaching hospital for the Faculty of Medicine at AUB (established in 1867), which has trained generations of medical students and physicians, and whose graduates can be found at leading institutions around the world. AUBMC is the only medical institution in the Middle East to have earned the five international accreditations of JCI, Magnet, CAP, ACGME-I and JACIE attesting to its superior standards in patient-centered care, nursing, pathology/laboratory services and graduate medical education.
The Faculty of Medicine has graduated over 4,000 medical students and physicians; the Rafic Hariri School of Nursing provides excellent education for the nursing staff, and the Medical Center meets the healthcare needs of over 360,000 patient visits annually.
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