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by Krista Glen and Allison Kozicharow
On June 24, 2003, WiRED International launched its first Medical Information
Center (MIC) in Iraq. Now, five years later, WiRED celebrates the anniversary
of this launch, having installed more than 30 MICs throughout the country
and video conferencing facilities in four Iraqi cities.
Dr. Gary Selnow, WiRED's founder and executive director, describes that
first day: "When we opened our MIC in Baghdad's main hospital,
doctors, nurses, and students were standing four deep in front of the
computer terminals waiting to access information. People have told
us that Iraqi surgeons often looked up the latest techniques and procedures
on a MIC computer as they planned their operations."
The MIC and its program—funded, in part, by the U.S. Department
of State's Bureau of International Information Programs—have provided
computer technology and training to thousands of physicians, nurses,
and medical students throughout the country. This innovative program
links these Iraqi professionals to hospitals and medical databases worldwide,
as they repair a medical infrastructure.
"WiRED's costs in Iraq have been kept down, through in-country
purchase of much of the computer equipment, as well as contracting locally
for computer and communications maintenance. Iraqis have proven to be
very resourceful in re-entering the information age," said Dr. Suellen
Crano, a WiRED board member.
The first MIC inaugurated a 10 workstation computer center with a 130
disk CD-ROM health education library at the Medical City Center of the
University of Baghdad, the largest teaching hospital in Iraq. At the
inauguration, Dr. Selnow said this is a "first-of-a-kind center
that will give Iraqi physicians the information they need to catch up
with medical developments after more than a decade of isolation."
MICs, at that time, were equipped with computers and databases—digital
medical libraries—that supplied information to local health workers.
WiRED no longer supplies on-board medical libraries, finding that
even 200 Gigabyte hard drives are no longer adequate to deliver the
latest medical knowledge. Today, Internet connections are necessary
to provide health workers access to the most complete medial databases.
WiRED made history in January 2006 with the successful test of the first
telemedicine center in Iraq. Technicians in Baghdad interacted with physicians,
teachers, and WiRED supporters at San Francisco State University for
over one hour via real-time audio and visual technologies. This was the
first of four WiRED telemedicine centers in Iraq. They allow doctors,
nurses and medical students to learn, teach, and diagnose illnesses with
the international medical community.
Video conferencing facilities are part of WiRED's telemedicine (T/M)
program. The Iraq T/M program, which resumes this summer, will run live
video conferences between Iraq and the United States and the United Kingdom.
Also, the program will carry live in-Iraq continuing medical education
programs operated by the Medical Alliance for Iraq (MAI). MAI is a group
of American physician volunteers who travel to Iraq to conduct educational
sessions. The MIA is lead by ophthalmologist, Dr. Michael Brennan. Dr.
Larry Ronan, at Harvard, and Dr. Bud Alpert, a San Francisco physician,
also work closely with the MAI.
The seminars conducted with the United States will take place among
a consortium of medical institutions donating time to assist Iraqi colleagues.
The consortium includes the Arizona Cancer Center (University of Arizona);
California Pacific Medical Center; Children's National Medical Center;
Harvard University; Johns Hopkins; San Francisco State University (nursing);
University of California, San Francisco; Washington Hospital Center.
In addition to providing lectures and seminars, many of these facilities
will offer Grant Rounds to Iraqi medical schools in Baghdad, Basrah,
Erbil, and Mosul. WiRED installed the necessary equipment and provides
support for the satellite connections and operation of the program. WiRED
also organizes the schedule.
U.S. Government support for this project has been augmented with
funding from the Medtronic Foundation, the Christopher Reeve Foundation,
Pfizer and many individual donors with a concern for the Iraqi people.
Since we began working on healthcare-related projects in Iraq in early
2003, with strong support of the Iraqi medical community and with the
help of our volunteers and partners, we have maintained that—in
addition to fortifying the practice and study of medicine—our efforts
to assist the Iraqi medical community provide some of the most powerful
examples of American generosity, compassion, and goodwill. WiRED pledges
to continue our work with Iraqi healthcare professionals.
Layout by Brian Colombe.
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