Keep up to date with OxPal
To keep up to date with our programmes and content please join the OxPal Community WhatsApp group chat via this link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/FYRwwVKrqu3LE0Fu2W89Le
and follow us on Facebook , Instagram (@oxpal.medlink) and Twitter (@OxPal_Medlink)
Don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list, by completing the form on the website, to stay updated!
Adapting to the needs of Gazan Students
Looking to the future, OxPal is supporting Palmed’s GEM (Gaza Educate Medics) scheme, which aims to support Al-Azhar (AUG) and Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) faculties by delivering online teaching and mentoring and finding students clinical placements. Content delivered by the platform aligns with the curriculums of both AUG and IUG and is accredited by both medical school faculties, allowing students to continue their medical education before their universities can be rebuilt. OxPal have been asked to lead the Student Engagement Committee for the GEM scheme. We will be gathering feedback from 4 different channels, and have recruited representatives from each year group to help facilitate this. We are also looking forward to develop a platform to help fill in the gaps of medical education platforms, that Gazan students may be facing.
Medical Community Outside Gaza
Back in November 2023, amidst the destruction of both the medical schools in Gaza, we started gathering the medical students who were displaced outside of Gaza to find solutions on how to help them pursue their medical education i.e. clinical placements abroad. In January 2024, we started compiling a database of information on all Gazan medical students who are externally displaced and those who get displaced daily. Currently, we have over 200 students in our groups.
Moreover, we built a network of physicians in the UK, Jordan, Turkey, and others who collaborated with us to connect with the students, explore options, and provide inputs on how to execute. Also, our connections were with the deans of both medical schools of Gaza.
There were several barriers to finding clinical placements abroad for the students that will be accredited by their home universities – for example, visas and immigration issues. Our network expanded by connecting with more parties and associations with the same goal like the Oxford Gaza Group and PalMed Academy. The latest created a project called the Gaza Educate Medics Scheme (GEM) Scheme in which we are part of the Clinical Placements Committee.
OxPal Mentoring Programme
Our mentoring programme brings together Palestinian medical students and UK-based doctors in a supportive remote partnership. Now in its third year, the programme builds on two highly successful years, during which we received great feedback from both mentors and mentees.
We are fortunate to have dedicated doctors involved from Oxford, London, Manchester and other cities across the UK, offering their time, knowledge and guidance. Through these relationships, Palestinian students gain insight, mentorship, and encouragement as they progress through their medical journeys. Equally, our mentors consistently describe the experience as enriching and rewarding, offering them a meaningful way to give back.
As we continue into our third year, we are excited to keep growing and expanding the programme, reaching more students and welcoming more doctors each year.
Summer School 2026
OxPal is in the process of organising the 4th annual Oxford Summer School for Palestinian medical students. This programme will be held from 31st August – 11th September 2026, for thirty medical students from the IUG, AUG, PPU and AAUP medical schools, who have completed three years of pre-clinical studies and will be starting their first clinical year.
The Summer School is a life-changing opportunity for Palestinian medical students to learn from world-class tutors and facilities in-person in Oxford, providing a strong foundation for their clinical studies and building networks for their future careers. During the first-week, students will attend classes including case-based discussions, medical ethics, practical clinical skills, clinical consultation skills, and simulation training, attend a surgical skills course. The second week will provide students the opportunity to see these in practice whilst attending placements across a variety of specialties in Oxford hospitals. Students will also have the opportunity to join social events including dinners with the Oxford Ramallah Friendship Association (ORFA) and end the programme with a certificate-giving ceremony at OCIS.
OxPal is supported throughout by Dr Richard Harrington, clinical medicine tutors and consultants at Oxford. We’re very excited to run this Summer School again and look forward to giving as many students as possible this learning opportunity in the future!
OxCred (Oxford Crisis Education)
OxCred is a collaborative initiative formed by a coalition of organisations, including OxPal, OXSTAR, AMODISC, and Oxford Lifelong Learning, united by a shared commitment to supporting higher education in Gaza. Founded in January 2025 at the request of the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, together, we developed OxCred as a comprehensive and resilient educational platform designed to support academic institutions in Gaza — with the vision of extending to other conflict-affected regions in the future.
Given the healthcare crisis in Gaza and our longstanding commitment to medical education, our first initiative under OxCred is the Trauma and Orthopaedics course. The course was designed following extensive consultation with Gaza-based faculty, clinicians, and medical students, who identified this as a critical and urgent area of need.
We developed a curriculum based on the UKMLA, but mapped to both universities curricula. We chose a centralised curriculum, as this would allow for wider applicability for this course to be used in other areas in which there has been destruction to the medical education system.
Course Structure:
- Each subject is divided into 7 modules, each beginning with a curated reading list of open-access resources from the Bodleian Libraries.
- Each module includes multiple lectures (approximately one hour each), accompanied by three written cases. Each case features three multiple-choice questions (MCQs), serving as post-lecture quizzes.
- In addition to lectures and cases, students have access to a bank of over 750 MCQs, as well as a formative assessment consisting of 100 timed MCQs.
- Each module also includes a curated clinical handbook (PDF), providing multiple approaches to patient care and presentations that come up within the module.
- The course incorporates OSCE resources through collaboration with Geeky Medics and the University’s orthopaedic teaching department.
- The hosting platform allows students to download materials for offline use, ensuring continued access during internet or power disruptions.
Upon completion of the formative assessment, and following review of progress and engagement, certificates are awarded to students as evidence of their participation and clinical learning.
The course has been formally accredited by both medical schools in Gaza — Al-Azhar University and the Islamic University of Gaza — allowing students to fulfil key orthopaedics requirements within their degrees. This means that students who will engage with all aspects of the course, and complete the final assessments will have completed the necessary orthopoedics requirement for their degree. This is a requirement for Year 4 students in AUG and Year 5 students in IUG.
Virtual Reality and Medical Simulation Programme
We have secured the right for ALL medical students in Palestine to use world-leading medical-simulation software for free, turning powerful medical training software from financially inaccessible to a core area of training. We are taking the next steps to branch into nursing and hopefully integrate nursing VR into medical schools, starting with AAUP. We are also working to improve the current VR relationship with An Najah and gauging whether other universities would like to introduce VR into their curriculums.
We would like to thank OMS for providing this software, the medical schools for helping administer this project and our technical team for supporting students to make the most of it.
Obstetrics and Gynaecology Lecture Series
Over the past year we have launched two lecture series. One on Obstetrics & Gynaecology and the second on Paediatrics both of which were very popular amongst students. We are currently planning a new lecture series on clinical anatomy and are excited to launch it soon!
Collaboration with BTK and JOMI
OxPal are proud to have partnered with the world-leading Behind The Knife (https://behindtheknife.org/premium/trauma-surgery-video-atlas) surgery educational platform to provide high-quality trauma surgery videos free of charge to medical students and surgeons who are currently in Palestine (Gaza, West Bank or Jerusalem). Those who are currently outside Palestine are excluded, but there may be further opportunities in the future.
We are circulating the sign-up form on OxPal’s private Whatsapp and Facebook groups, please get in touch if you don’t have access to these!
OxPal are also proud to have partnered with JOMI Surgical Video Journal.
JOMI have published 230+ professionally-filmed peer-reviewed videos across general surgery, O&G, ENT, orthopaedics and more. Each video provides instructions from incision to closure with key animations and expert insight. These videos are intended to support learning on surgical rotations and foster interest in surgical specialities. JOMI have granted access to all their videos for medical students and doctors currently in Palestine
How to sign up
1. “Sign-up” for an account on the JOMI website >> https://jomi.com
2. Students and doctors in Palestine will be automatically granted access to all JOMI videos
We would like to thank JOMI and BTK for their collaboration for supporting students to expand their surgical interests.
Research programmes
We regularly collect and analyse data on ways to improve medical education and medical care in Palestine. If you think you could contribute to our data-driven approach or have ideas for research studies, please get in touch – oxpal.medlink@gmail.com
We are currently in the process of organising a research skill virtual course. More information will be uploaded soon!
We have previously run multiple courses on research & research methods, and videos of some of the lectures are available on our YouTube channel.