Shahawy Sarrah, Diamond Megan
Harvard Medical School, 25 Shattuck St, Boston, MA 02115 USA.
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115 USA.
Confl Health. 2016 Feb 24;10:5. doi: 10.1186/s13031-016-0067-8. eCollection 2016.
The movement of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories is restricted by bureaucratic and physical obstacles. To date, no studies have examined the barriers that Palestinian medical students face in accessing hospitals for clinical training. The objectives of this study were to characterize these barriers and understand how they affect Palestinian students' medical education and quality of life.
Convenience sampling was used to recruit 4th-6th year medical students from Al-Quds University to participate in focus group discussions. A total of 36 students participated in the discussions. Transcripts of the discussions were coded to identify major themes.
Palestinian medical students expressed facing numerous challenges during their clinical training. Students emphasized the difficulties of obtaining permits to train at Jerusalem hospitals, including arbitrary permit rejections and long wait times. Significant delays, searches, and mistreatment at checkpoints during their commute to hospitals were particularly burdensome. The majority of students who participated in the focus groups felt that their education and quality of life had been strongly negatively affected by their experience trying to access hospital training sites.
Our findings suggest that medical students living and studying in the occupied Palestinian territories receive sub-optimal training due to ambiguous permit rules, barriers at checkpoints, and the psychological burden of the process. These results highlight the impact that military occupation has on the education and quality of life of Palestinian medical students in a setting in which there is regular violence and many health indicators are already poor.
巴勒斯坦被占领土上巴勒斯坦人的行动受到官僚主义和实际障碍的限制。迄今为止，尚无研究探讨巴勒斯坦医科学生在进入医院进行临床培训时所面临的障碍。本研究的目的是描述这些障碍，并了解它们如何影响巴勒斯坦学生的医学教育和生活质量。
采用便利抽样法，招募耶路撒冷大学四至六年级的医科学生参加焦点小组讨论。共有36名学生参与了讨论。对讨论记录进行编码，以确定主要主题。
巴勒斯坦医科学生表示在临床培训期间面临众多挑战。学生们强调了获得在耶路撒冷医院培训许可的困难，包括许可被随意拒绝和等待时间过长。在前往医院途中，在检查站遭遇的严重延误、搜查和虐待尤其令人负担沉重。参加焦点小组的大多数学生认为，他们试图进入医院培训场所的经历对他们的教育和生活质量产生了强烈的负面影响。
我们的研究结果表明，由于许可规定不明确、检查站的障碍以及这一过程带来的心理负担，生活和学习在巴勒斯坦被占领土上的医科学生接受的培训并不理想。这些结果凸显了军事占领对巴勒斯坦医科学生的教育和生活质量的影响，而当地经常发生暴力事件，许多健康指标本就不佳。
