A Field Guide to Doctors

First do no harm

Field Guide Vol. 252

Medicine has had a long and complicated history, but at its best, a doctor’s role is one of commitment, knowledge and profound impact. This week’s Field Guide is dedicated to the best of these professionals, who offer their expertise and compassion to help save lives around the world. From treating the traumas in Gaza, the resurgence of traditional healing in South Africa to famous literary doctors, join us as we explore the contributions and experiences of these medical professionals across the globe.

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A young man practices parkour in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah. 2022. Photograph by Khaled Omar. (Alamy Stock Photo).

Fear and Hope in Wartime Gaza

By Kira Brunner Don

This piece is published in collaboration with Coda Story as part of our Complicating Colonialism issue.

As early as the afternoon of October 7th, when word first broke of Hamas’s attack on Israel, Abu-Jamei had a troubling sense of what might follow. His house sits not far from the Israeli border, and he and his family fled on that very day with little more than the clothes they were wearing. After a short stay in a school in Rafah, they went in search of a better place to live. They ended up dropping their belongings on a piece of empty land near a bit of running water. Under the circumstances, this amounted to a luxury.

Despite Israel’s monthslong attacks on Gaza, the house that Abu-Jamei and his family left behind remained untouched all through the long months they stayed in the tents. The home was still standing the day they arrived safely in Egypt, the war far behind them.

But as Abu-Jamei knows better than most people, one cannot simply leave a war behind, and attempting to will away its psychic effects is an illusory trick. He has spent his career studying trauma, war, and the psychological damage caused by violence. As a psychiatrist, he began working with patients scarred by Israel’s 2014 war with Gaza. For the past decade, he has been the director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, a mental health service provider in Palestine that affords counseling and resources to countless patients in the region.