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WELLESLEY, Mass. -- What's it like to be a nurse or doctor
working under wartime conditions? On Wednesday, Nov. 5,
from 12:30-2 pm in Pendleton East 239 at Wellesley College,
physician and writer Sheri Fink will talk about her experiences
in a lecture, "War Hospital: Surgery and Survival
in Srebrenica."
Fink is the author of a new book, War Hospital, A
True Story of Surgery and Survival, which details the work of
doctors and nurses who worked under siege in war-time Srebrenica,
Bosnia-Hercegovina. She has worked with the humanitarian
aid organization International Medical Corps to provide
relief to armed conflict and natural disaster victims.
Her most recent medical mission was to Iraq.
In April 1992, a handful of young doctors, not one of
them a surgeon, was trapped along with 50,000 men, women
and children in the embattled enclave of Srebrenica, Bosnia-Hercegovina.
There the physicians faced the most intense professional,
ethical and personal predicaments of their lives. Drawing
on extensive interviews, documents and recorded materials
Fink collected over five years, War Hospital tells the
harrowing – and ultimately enlightening – story
of these physicians.
"The experiences Dr. Fink has mentioned in her book
and has agreed to share with the Wellesley College community
should remind all of us of the consequences of a war on
medical and mental health, as well as on larger issues
such as ethics and impartiality in wartime," said
event organizer Seila Selimovic, a Wellesley College senior
and a native of Bosnia-Hercegovina. "Dr. Fink's speech
will remind us of the instability in Bosnia and will give
an incentive to think about other war regions, such as
Iraq, with different eyes."
Fink's book and lecture explore the applications of medicine
in wartime, asking questions about the ethics of medicine
in peace and in war, the meaning and helpfulness of humanitarian
aid in view of desolate medical conditions and the impartiality
of doctors.
Refreshments will be served at the lecture, which is free
and open to the public. It is sponsored by campus groups
including the Committee on Lectures and Cultural Events,
Balkan Express, Amnesty International and the Hippocratic
Society. For more information, contact BalkanexpressMail@wellesley.edu.
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