Women as Medics

In the medical community, respecting a patients social and religious concerns are of utmost importance. To be more specific, a study highlighting Muslim patients and cross-gender interactions in medicine reveals that Muslim women prefer to be treated by female doctors due to personal and cultural reasons such as modesty and avoiding physical contact between the sexes. Often, the wishes of female Muslim patients aren’t met due to the shortage of female doctors around the world, and specifically in the United States. I am committed to solving this problem by creating an online platform where young women from around the world can learn more about the field of medicine and can converse with each other on imperative medical issues, potentially finding a calling for themselves in medicine. 

Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world with almost 3.5 million followers in the United States. As physicians encounter diverse patient populations with different religious practices as well as cultural values, they have to adapt their patient relations. In Islam, due to modesty standards, many women prefer to be treated by a female physician. However, in the United States alone, 70% of Muslim doctors are men. These barriers for Muslim female patients may cause delays in the medical care they need. In a study detailed in the Journal of Women’s Health, 250 Muslim women were surveyed and fifty-three percent expressed delays in medical care seeking due to a lack of female clinicians. Modesty concerns continue to serve as barriers to adequate care for female patients. In a study detailing cancer beliefs, twenty-five percent of Arab women surveyed emphasized being uncomfortable during clinical breast exams. Preference for female obstetrical providers often prove to be obstacles in providing competent reproductive healthcare to treat Muslim women. Hence, it is imperative that more young women pursue a career in the field of medicine to aid in solving this disparity. 

Women as Medics is an interactive platform for young women to participate in monthly global chats; through which Muslim girls from all over the world come together and discuss a specific topic for that month. The topics can be agreed upon by everyone in the discussion forum beforehand. Through a Harkness-type approach, girls will feel free to share their thoughts with minimal judgement or prejudice. Topics specific to communities around the world will be welcome and solutions addressed. Girls can have a chance to share their interests and  potential research projects to be seen by all; this will inspire more girls to embark on their own journey to solving problems in their community. At the beginning of every month, a topic is chosen and a specific week is designated to introduce the topic and its background. For the next three weeks, girls can discuss specifics about the topic such as what particular groups are most affected, how the problem is growing or how it is being solved. Women as Medics is an interactive home away from home where young women come together in a comfortable setting to inspire each other to be the solutions for their communities and the world. 

Women as Medics serves Muslim women of all ages, now and in the future, who are more comfortable with a woman doctor-- we gear their wishes and begin to create a setting where teenage girls can dream and plan to be doctors. We serve the potential aspirations of young girls around world who wish to be a doctor but won’t know where to begin to make their dreams real. Early on, girls begin their primary education on the same footing as their male counterparts, yet gender disparity begins to escalate later on as they go on to pursue professional education. To this extent, it has been reported that 70% of American Muslim doctors are men. The voices and dreams of girls will be protected and nurtured in Women as Medics, allowing for profound and emergent discussions addressing critical health problems. Also many girls are subject to inadequate care due to cross-gender restrictions in their communities. Girls will be engaged in meaningful discussions, sharing their adversities, and inspiring each other to learn more about medicine. Through the cultivation of a new generation of female doctors, the needs of nearly half of the world’s Muslim population will be met. 

The lack of women doctors continues to persist because girls are not continuing their education. We aim to increase the participation of girls in formal education by preparing them to have the inner confidence and the joy to learn so that they choose medicine when the time comes. By providing a bridge for women to inspire them to continue their education, they can tackle problems that effect their community in specific such as nanotechnology or artificial grafting. Women as Medics will make sure that nobody falls of the bridge that could lead them to pursue medicine in the future.

Currently there is no platform where girls from around the world can have objective discussions about challenges they face in their communities that could be addressed through their participation in medicine. There are many platforms on the internet that allow for leaders such as doctors and medical students to express their opinions on issues in the field, but there is no outlet for girls in high school, college, or even middle school to talk to each other about what they think. We at Women as Medics keep their dreams alive--producing more women doctors! We listen and inspire, can console when times are tough, fostering profound discussions, civic engagement and inspiration. For many girls, once their dreams are spoken, pursuing medicine can become a passion project that drives them to be doctors, to apply to medical school, or to study molecular biology or biochemistry in college. Ultimately, a generation of young inspirited girls can not only aim to help their communities, but also help Muslim women overcome to obstacles they face in healthcare. There have been countless studies conducted by institutions regarding the barriers that Muslim women face due to restricted corss-gender interactions. However, little has been done to solve this problem, and my solution is one the first steps that will be taken to address the complications in healthcare that many Muslim women face. More women doctors is what we grow in our garden.

The core technology of my solution is an online chat platform: Discord. This platform can be easily accessed on the internet as well as can be downloaded as an app. By creating a “Women for Medics” server, we can create sub channels including a general channel where everyone on the server can chat about the topic of that month. Other subchannels would include chat for suggesting topics for discussion for that month. In addition, there will be different sub channels for every geographical location whether it is a country, state or a country. As our outreach grows, more sub channels will be added and expanded to accommodate more geographical locations so the people in those chats can talk about the pressing issues in their specific communities. Young women who want to participate in the chat can register through our website by filling out a google form or an interest form or email us. Screenshots of the chats on discord will be periodically posted on the website so everyone who visits the site can see a glimpse of the discussions inspiring them to join the chat as well. Ultimately, as more young women join the chats, more profound discussions will take place which will excite another generation of young women to begin their journey in healthcare to settle the enigmas in the medicine and offer doctors for Muslim women with whom they will feel comnforable with. 

Discord (https://discord.com) is a platform that allows for easy communication between people around the world with adaptable servers that can be specialized for organizations and ventures. The Women as Medics server be able to enlist new members effortlessly and can give every member an equal chance to freely communicate with others. Our interactive chat group network will build friendship and camaraderie inspiring young women wanting to actualize their dreams. Dreams of participating in medical solutions to their problems will  lead to new pathways that will lead to higher education. Pathways lead to possibilities. Through insightful discussions, Women as Medics inspires young women to take the path to medicine if that be their dream, and we provide the encouragement and scientific medical literature on what medicine will look like in the future so that the girls will be ready. “If I can do it, you can do it!” The power of friendship and community is what the bridge of Women as Medics is made of leading many young women around the world to abridge their interest onto formal education. More importantly, in the current pandemic, it has become increasingly important to build relations through online platforms that could empower people without having to step outside of the comfort of their home. The opportunity to talk to people has become sparse, so Women as Medics wants to not only provide a way to learn remotely right now, but also build connections across the world.

The traditional ideologies that exist in many communities, and unfortunately in many Islamic societies, is that education should be granted to women to a certain extent because men can use this education further to improve other aspects of society. While it is true that predominantly educating men can lead to significant improvement in healthcare for all, it simply neglects the idea that the same women who were discouraged from pursuing an education are now subject to less than exceptional healthcare. The only solution to this disparity is to empower and stop degrading women in educational aspects because in the end, it will eventually negatively impact them. 

My solution is built around positive reinforcement and encouragement that could empower girls to be confident in their learning. In many communities, support for girls to pursue education from households or societies is minimal or simply nonexistent. Our solution is essentially a home away from home for these girls so they can learn about medicine and other biological sciences without any cost or expense to their families or themselves. The obstacles that Muslim women face are very urgent because in emergent cases, their care should not be delayed due to a problem that can be easily solved through the involvement of more young women in medicine. By talking about and understanding medical topics and medical research, we can engage more girls to participate in medicine or biological sciences outside our chats in their school. Profound interest will lead girls to seek clinical internships or study biological sciences in college or pursue lab research positions, all which will lead to more engagement in any aspect of medicine. We will produce more women doctors and change attitudes toward women in medicine, so they can not only provide adequate care to women concerned about modesty, but also advance the medical field through their contributions. The first Muslim nurse and surgeon Rufaida Al-Aslamia aimed to provide inclusive care to other women in Medina. During her time, she trained other women to be nurses and serve in health care. We aspire to continue her initiative and create new Rufaida’s.

The website as well as the server is in the process of being set up, and as soon as both are functional, we will start enlisting girls in the nearby communities, and begin reaching out to high schools and middle schools and mosques across the country and internationally, enlisting young women in monthly chats. Our goal in the next year is to enlist between 50-100 girls who will become an integral part of the initiative and will partake in the monthly discussions. In the next five years, we will enlarge our membership. We want to expand to roughly between 1000-2000 girls in the next five years. As of right now, we will soon be in contact with Dina Khattab who will spread news of our initiative in the Muslim community in Egypt and Dubai to encourage girls to join the discussions as well. 

Over the next year, we want to develop a fully functional website along with a “Women as Medics” discord server with at least some participation in nearby communities around New Jersey and hopefully nationwide engagement. We will begin advertising the platform at local mosques and schools to foster interest and increase participation. Over the next five years, we want to expand our outreach on a global scale enlisting girls from around the world including different demographic groups consisting of different education levels as well as different nationalities. We want to see the people who participated in the chats to pursue education, whether it is a high school diploma or a medical school education, in medicine, or to see them beginning to volunteer at local hospitals or healthcare facilities. Most importantly, our goal is to see a spirit of innovation and change develop in young women so they can do their part in improving healthcare for women like themselves. 

A prevalent obstacle is the mentality of inferiority of women in formal education and the workforce which is unfortunately still prevalent around the world. In a study, it was revealed that females from a Muslim background in the Asian sub-continent are disadvantaged in the educational sphere from the beginning of primary education. In other parts of the world, women are disadvantaged later on in their education when boys continue to overtake the girls in receiving professional education. This trend is a result of old fashioned ideas that dictate that women are bound to domestic spheres, and they can’t be doctors, or not as good as a male doctor. Equally important, in “Winds of change: Muslim women education”, an associate professor in India states that financial constraints and lack of awareness are one of the leading causes of inconsistent education of Muslim girls in India. Ultimately, women need to be able to recognize and understand their rights to receive an education, and they need to be reassured and empowered enough to do so.

The platform will be available to girls all over the world, and with global engagement comes obstacles such as varying time zones.  

Women as Medics aims to help inspire young women to continue a science orientated major for college. We will introduce topics such as molecular biology and biochemistry on the monthly chats. Through discussions, members will learn more about these topics which in the end will instill passion and foster interest in scientific fields in medicine such biomedical engineering and healthcare professions. Barriers of lack of awareness will be overcome through simple and free flowing discussions. Beliefs and prejudices about the extent that women should be able to pursue their education do exist in many communities. The mentality of an entire community cannot be changed in the matter of a few months, this is why Women as Medics will aspire to connect with individual families and convince them to support Women as Medics at home and in their community. Change begins with one person at a time, so when we recruit a new member in the chats, we have just started another journey with not only an individual but with a family who can make spread our ideas in their community. As young women begin to be inspired to pursue a career or education in medicine, they will

As we expand our platform on a global scale, people with different time zones will participate in the chats. To ensure that every individual has a comfortable time to express their ideas, we will discuss one topic for a whole month, so girls can have multiple opportunities to talk in the chats.

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Currently, there are three people working on my solution team. 

As a Muslim American in America, I am aware of the restrains that Muslim women experience as a result of modesty and minimal contact between the sexes. Without a doubt, in such an advanced medical community in the United States, it is astounding that simple medical care is a challenge for these women. As a Muslim women in today's society, I have personally seen the lack of female doctors effecting women in my community. My passion for this project stems from my own experience, and I aim to fix this problem beginning in my community onto other communities in the world. I aspire to pursue a career in the medical field in the future, and one of the problems that I aim to address is this disparity. Throughout high school, I have has the opportunity to engage in clinical environments as well as grown to love biological sciences. Before I can begin directly participating in medicine, I want to create a pathway for girls like me in this generation and those in the coming generations, so they can be confident in their journey early on. This confidence and focus can lead to great accomplishments. 

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We are an Open Science and equal access non-profit organization. Our platform offers free connectivity to our members as well as a 24-hour community network to anyone interested in our initiative. 

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MIT Solve 2020 will give us a stage to advocate for young women to become doctors, to help Muslim women all across the world. We are extremely grateful for this platform as it would enable us to have a global outreach and will spread our message beyond our capabilities. 

The solution technology would be the latest technology in worldwide communication. Currently, we intend to use Discord, but as our platform grows, we would want to move to a more formal and specialized program. Marketing and media exposure would allow us to spread our message out even further than just our local communities. 

https://www.imana.org

IMANA is an organization that aims to provide equal medical relief to underprivileged communities. As of right now, they have treated over 2.5 million patients and have organized over 150 medical missions. In hopes of partnering with them, we will be able to employ our capabilities in their medical missions and engage more students in their initiatives.