The Human Face of War

Abstract

Annals Early Access article

In this issue of Annals of Family Medicine, we have published 4 articles discussing the impact of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on family doctors and patients in the region. These articles were written by academic family doctors, members of our global family medicine community, all of whom have recent or ongoing experience living and working there.

The first article, by Dr Dikla Agur Cohen and Dr Merav Sudarsky, is a research study examining the impact on clinician well-being of caring for patients experiencing conflict-related trauma.¹ Two other articles, one by Dr Therese Zink, Dr Beesan Maraqa, Dr Ameed Taher, Dr Husam Dweik, and Dr Ahmad Abu Hadwan,² and the other by Dr Dikla Agur Cohen,³ are commentaries. The first commentary is from the perspective of Palestinian family doctors and the second from the perspective of Israeli family doctors, on the toll that the conflict has had on their communities. The final article, by Dr Jeffrey Borkan, discusses the impact of war on family medicine practice more generally and extends beyond this specific conflict.⁴

We anticipate that some readers may interpret our decision to publish these papers as “supporting genocide” or “siding with terrorists.” Others will call us out for not taking a side. Our hope is that these articles move beyond these sound bites and false dichotomies to reveal more of the complexity and the impact of this conflict. Our decision to publish these papers was based on the idea that it is important to remember and support and give a voice to our colleagues and their patients who are living and working under these horrifying conditions.

It is easy when reading news stories, walking by protests, or listening to politically charged discussions to forget that there are regular people living in this war zone. There are clinicians and staff who risk their lives to show up for work every day trying to care for their communities, families welcoming new babies, and individual patients just trying to manage their diabetes or get help for their anxiety. We hope that those who read these articles will read with an open mind and consider the conflict from a new perspective.