Médecins Sans Frontières Oxford collaboration workshop

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) are interested in linking up with Oxford researchers through TORCH’s Medical Humanities Programme to examine a number of potential areas of investigation that could enhance the impact of their projects in the field.

Areas they are eager to explore include:

• Attitudes towards terminal suffering and incurable illness in children and young adults in various African contexts and its relevance for end-of-life care: what can we learn from anthropological, socio-cultural, ethical, psychological, spiritual, legal… approaches to this challenge?

• Defining a comprehensive and dynamic approach towards protecting the physical and mental health of people on the move in the Middle East, Africa, and South America.

• How can we move towards an ever more patient-centred approach across diverse cultures including hearing the patient’s voice, compassion, patient satisfaction and empowerment vis-à-vis maintaining his/her own health? Can lessons learned in a “Western” context be applied to a “developing country” context?

TORCH and MSF propose to organize a workshop in November 2017 around one or more of these themes in order to:

• Define the particular focus of the research project (research hypothesis, population(s) involved, expected output(s)…)
• Decide on the scope of the project (number of researchers involved, time-line, necessity or not for extra funding…)
• Identify cross-disciplinary needs to address the topic
• Agree on practical aspects of collaboration between TORCH and MSF researchers (principle investigator(s), division of tasks, data ownership, joint publications or other outputs…)

Victoria McGuinness from TORCH, along with a representative from MSF, will be organising an exploratory workshop in Michaelmas term.

If you would be interested in attending or in discussing this further please contact victoria.mcguinness@humanities.ox.ac.uk