Joining the dots between the classroom and hospital

This week we caught up with Dr Mona Ibrahim. A medical Doctor from Sudan, Mona has just started her new role as a Research Officer at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at Oxford University after the successful completion of the Masters in International Health and Tropical Medicine.

Mona, who describes herself as “a happy human, with a touch of sarcasm”, gives us a snippet of her life in Oxford, the differences in the learning cultures and her vision in ensuring universal health coverage is a reality in Sudan.

Mona completed her medical degree from the University of Medical Sciences and Technology in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. As part of her training, she took up a life-changing internship at the Um-Dawanban hospital in the outskirts of Khartoum.

The Um-Dawanban hospital covers the town of Um-Dawanban along with four villages in the area, providing medical facilities for a population of 500,000 people. A community with distinctive features from the other predominantly inhibits each village. Mona experienced a beautiful diversity of cultures, traditions and beliefs within the simple building of the Um-Dawanban hospital.

Mona treated patients with nutrient deficiencies, common infections and some who had injuries from road accidents.

“As a doctor in that region, it was interesting to see how such a diverse set of people had binding commonalities. Everyday at sunset, all the hospital staff- from cleaners to financial managers would come together at the doctor’s office and have coffee and tea together. Those were my favourite moments; it felt like we were family”

Mona Ibrahim

However, one thing that stood out for Mona was the clear discrepancies between what she had studied and what she was observing at work.

“As students, we were taught the most idealised version of Medicine. We became very familiar with books that highlighted the latest evidence-based management guidelines. However, with little to no management skills at the hospital, the official international guidelines were nothing but a pretty poster on the wall.”

Mona Ibrahim

The gap between the ideal and the reality became Mona’s career-focus and she decided to apply for the MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine in Oxford.

The MSc in International Health and Tropical Medicine is a full-time one-year course that explores a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach to health in resource-limited contexts. The aim of the course is to develop an understanding of the major global health problems in resource-limited settings and study potential solutions from different disciplinary perspectives such as the ethics, social determinants of health, mathematical modelling and economical evaluations.

The diverse student network of the course, leadership and communications training provided and international placements offered were particularly attractive to Mona.

Moving to Oxford for her graduate studies was an adventure in itself for Mona. It was the first time she was living by herself amongst other lifestyle changes. The student-led learning and emphasis on critical appraisals was quite different from her previous training, and the college system was both novel and confusing. One of her toughest challenges to overcome in Oxford was the need the match the high expectations and to fit in.

However soon Mona learned to question things like people’s positions, contextual factors and even her own opinions and inherent biases. She learned to embrace her quirky self and to keep pushing to become a better version of herself.

“The knowledge I’ve learnt was just one of many benefits I’ve gained from this course. It taught me to consider the depth of underlying issues that surround health problems. My colleagues came from all around the world and from a range of career backgrounds- it was fascinating to hear their perspectives and see how they solves problems differently. The diversity was beautiful. This environment encouraged me to think at a larger scale, instead of simply seeing a problem through my medical scope”

Mona Ibrahim

Since completing her degree, Mona has started working as a Research Officer for the UKRI GCRF Accelerating Achievement for Africa’s Adolescents (Accelerate) Hub embedded in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at Oxford University. Supported by the Global Challenges Research Fund, the aim of the Adolescent’s Hub is to improve outcomes for 20 million adolescents in 34 countries across Africa. Mona is responsible for the Hub’s engagement with the United Nations Development Program to ensure that policy makers consider the evidence provided by the Hub.

“I believe in my country and in its potential. Through the next few years I aim to become qualified enough to work in health policy. I would like to promote the strategies encouraging universal health coverage and health-in-all policies. I know that Sudan will grow, prosper and become a great nation- I hope to be a part of that.”

Mona Ibrahim