Public Health Activities in Qatar
Department faculty are excited to be involved in educational and research activities at the branch of the Medical College in Doha, in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar.
Madelon L. Finkel, Ph.D., Professor of Clinical Public Health, helped establish the required Public Health courses taught to medical students at the Qatar campus of Weill Cornell Medical College. Several other members of the Public Health faculty are also involved in research and teaching at the Qatar branch.
A team of faculty members from the Department of Public Health and from the Hamad Medical Corporation in Doha are conducting a two-year study of the effects of diabetes in Qatar. Investigators include Alvin I. Mushlin, M.D., Sc.M., Professor and Chairman of the Department of Public Health, Lisa M. Kern, M.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor in the Division of Outcomes and Effectiveness Research, and Ravinder Mamtani, M.B.B.S., M.D., M.Sc., Professor of Clinical Public Health. The researchers are evaluating risk factors, treatment patterns, and outcomes for people affected by the disease. They are also examining the impact of diabetes and other metabolic syndrome risk factors on cardiovascular disease and hospital care, as well as the economic effects of the disease. More on the Qatar diabetes project.
Two faculty members of the Department of Public Health – Pablo Rodríguez del Pozo, M.D., J.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, and Dr. Mamtani – are based in Qatar.
Dr. Rodríguez del Pozo represents the Division of Medical Ethics in Qatar and in consultation with colleagues in New York, directs the Medical Ethics curriculum. In designing the curriculum, he faces the unique challenge of adapting the American version of its Medical Ethics curriculum to a predominantly Middle Eastern, and mostly Islamic, student body. With Joseph J. Fins, M.D., F.A.C.P., he has created and implemented a course called Medical Ethics: An Introduction to Medical Humanities for the premedical students at the College. Through discussions and readings of classic and contemporary works, the course exposes students to some of the humanistic issues they will face as doctors and encourages them to develop their own set of values according to their individual cultures and traditions. A course in palliative care for fourth-year medical students is currently also being developed. More on the Medical Ethics curriculum in Qatar.
In addition to working on the diabetes research project, Dr. Mamtani teaches premedical and medical students.
