ICE programme: Students of RCSI Bahrain return

Manama : Sixteen senior medical and nursing students from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland – Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain) have returned from postings across the globe as part of the university’s biggest ever International Community Engagement (ICE) programme.

Final year medical students Mohamed Alreefi and Noora Althawadi, final year nursing students Aysha Snan and Maryam Jasim and Senior Lecturer in Family Medicine, Dr David Misselbrook visited Lesotho in Southern Africa as part of the programme. 

The team joined there a group of almost 100 builders, teachers, parents and secondary school student volunteers from the charity group, Action Ireland Trust (AIT).

The RCSI Bahrain contingent worked principally in partnership with St Joseph’s Hospital in Roma, a small town some 35 kilometers from the capital, Maseru, where five doctors and a larger team of nurses aim to provide all inpatient and outpatient care to a rural population of around 200,000 people.

As part of their two-week placement, the team conducted an outreach primary care clinic at a remote school in Hlalele, where they saw approximately 150 patients, while the students also led an Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support (ACLS) session at the Roma College of Nursing, using inflatable resuscitation dummies supplied by
RCSI Bahrain.

Moreover, the group attended a local home for disabled children, had dinner with the Archbishop of Lesotho and attended an Irish-Lesotho-Bahraini cultural event in the company of the King and Queen of Lesotho, the Prime Minister and other Cabinet members.

Dr Misselbrook described the project as “an amazing and eye-opening experience.”

“We realised how fortunate we are to learn and to practice in healthcare professions within a wealthy and well-developed nation such as Bahrain,” he commented.

The Lesotho excursion was one of four to take place as part of what was RCSI Bahrain’s biggest ICE programme to date in terms of the numbers of locations visited and students to take part.

Earlier this year, senior medical students Hari Hullur, Khalifa Aldoseri, Saumitra Tiwary and Myat Han travelled to Chennai in India, where they linked up with Global Health City, attended the Master Class in Liver Disease (MCLD) 2016 conference and worked extensively with a number of the hospital departments.

A second project in India in February saw nursing students Ghadeer Ashoor, Narjes Ashkanani and Ahmed Almass team up with medical student Bibi Laulloo and nursing lecturer, Ali Ebrahim at Vikas Hospital in New Delhi, where the group aimed to identify differences and similarities between Indian and Bahraini health systems and practices.

The final assignment brought Fatema Sultan, nursing classmates Amna Almuhandes and Zainab Heraiz and medical student Ali Ayaz together with RCSI Bahrain Professor of Surgery, Professor Martin Corbally, team leader, Dr Hind Zaidan from King Hamad University Hospital (KHUH), and the Operation Child life team at Children’s Hospital 2 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.