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his daughter there [to the MSF hospital], the situation is safe. I told you I used to go to have surgeries [at the RSP] and be there by myself. If I slept there for one week or ten days, it didn’t matter for me if nobody from the family came [to visit]. There were thousands of people like me in a safe situation” (RSP15, Syrian, F). Another crucial aspect for participants was that of equal
(greetings, enquiries about their names and country of origin). Those who spoke some English would occasionally talk about their injuries, how they acquired them, and their progress after surgery. They also expressed curiosity about where I was from, what my country was like, and my family. In the first period of study I conducted daily observations of hospital life, following doctors and surgeons on their
The Introduction opens with a description of the book’s intent and my position as an anthropologist examining the humanitarian field. I introduce the story of one war victim – Ismael – who presents in microcosm the unique aspects of the patients in the MSF Reconstructive Surgery Programme (RSP). I go on to explore the invisibility of the war-wounded, especially those who have never participated in combat. The Introduction continues with a discussion on the delivery of humanitarian surgery, a specific field in the larger world of humanitarian aid. I touch briefly on the history of MSF surgical programmes and capture some of the history of MSF’s surgical practices, which go back to the very origins of the organization itself. RSP is a programme that reflects the cumulative MSF experience. The Introduction concludes with an in-depth description of MSF’s RSP in Amman, Jordan. Currently, patients in the RSP, who often sustain critical injuries years before they are admitted to the hospital, have various levels of disability or have lived with significant post-surgical complications. The Introduction explores several of the aspects that make the RSP unique. Among them are surgical procedures focused on functional improvements, the months and sometimes years-long rehabilitation undergone by patients away from their home countries, the scale of the programme, and the multi-disciplinary treatment provided.
being proposed. As a medical anthropologist I would be given the unique opportunity to carry out independent research centred on MSF’s Reconstructive Surgery Programme (RSP) for the victims of war in the Middle East. Working as an anthropologist in the humanitarian field, I would be joining a group of authors who have critically examined humanitarian practice, including those researching MSF. The
having anyone know. They did the surgery. I woke up from anaesthesia at home. It was prohibited to stay in the hospital [for long]. Father: We paid a big amount of money just to let him go into the hospital for one hour to
another occasion, a female patient asked to try on the nurse’s lab coat, which was allowed without any reluctance. Figure 8 The interior of the hotel. The part of the hotel where patients are located as they wait for their surgeries
in the MSF hospital, it became apparent that the impact was multidimensional. Very few patients reported receiving no benefit from the programme (some were disappointed with new scars or depigmentation after plastic or maxillofacial surgeries, and one regretted having a leg amputated). The vast majority of participants talked about the overlapping areas of improvement associated with physical, emotional
. After the Second World War, work in plastic surgery broke new ground ( Geomelas at al., 2011 ). Sir Archibald McIndoe, a pioneer in the field of plastic surgery, treated veterans, developing novel techniques, particularly for the reconstruction of faces damaged by burns. During this period, medical personnel were aware of the need to work not only on patients’ bodies; they knew they must prepare
policies were also introduced. Under socialism, gender reassignment surgery and the psychological therapy that goes with it were fully sponsored by the state. In the 1980s, a sexology unit in Warsaw hired a priest to help its transsexual patients to transition spiritually (Kościańska 2014b ). Since the early 1990s, however, patients have had to pay for their own surgery and therapy. Since 1989, the legal procedure has become significantly more complicated and requires a lawsuit against one's parents (Debińska 2013 ). Contraception and in vitro fertilisation were
middle classes but also for working-class women who have a different relationship to modernity, medicine, and consumer culture. Alexander Edmonds’ research on cosmetic surgeries in Brazil reveals that behind the democratization of plastic surgery among the popular classes is the shifting notion of rights, in which the “right to beauty” is interpreted as an access to specific goods and services (Edmonds 2007 , 371). According to Edmonds, this is a fundamental premise on which neoliberalism in Brazil functions nowadays, where the antidote to social exclusion is imagined