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.
OxPal Exeter-Palestine Medical Elective Scholarship
The OxPal Exeter-Palestine Medical Elective Scholarship, offered in partnership with Exeter College, supports a Palestinian medical student to undertake a clinical elective at the University of Oxford.
The scholarship provides financial and collegiate support, including accommodation, travel, visa and application fees, and a weekly living stipend.
Applicants must be clinical medical students at an accredited institution in Gaza or the West Bank, in their final or penultimate year of study, and must have been accepted onto the Oxford Medical Sciences Division’s centralised elective scheme.
The scholarship is available for electives in a range of specialties, including cardiovascular medicine, clinical neurology/ophthalmology, emergency medicine, clinical medicine, surgery and psychiatry.
For full eligibility criteria, application deadlines, funding details and information on how to apply, please visit the Exeter College scholarship page here
OXCRED (Oxford Crisis Education) Medicine
OXCRED Medicine is a collaborative initiative by a coalition of OxPAL, OXSTAR, Oxford Lifelong Learning and AMODISC established in response to the University’s commitment to supporting the development of educational resources for Gazan medical students.
The brief we developed was centred on delivering high-quality medical education tailored to the needs of medical students in Gaza. Their academic progress has been severely disrupted by the ongoing crisis and the resultant strain on the healthcare system. Medical students are now in frontline roles, with the responsibility of delivering critical care under immense pressure. Many displaced medical students have also suspended their studies entirely. Our goal is to ensure that those who fully engage with the programme can acquire the necessary academic content and competencies to meet degree requirements, resume their medical education, and support local health services. In doing so, we aim not only to provide structured teaching but also to support Gaza’s overstretched faculty.
Students who completed the course were able to:
- Demonstrate core clinical knowledge across 14 Trauma and Orthopaedics modules, each covering multiple conditions with expert-delivered lectures, accompanied by structured handbooks outlining structured recognition, approach and management of the covered pathologies
- Apply knowledge through over 750 MCQs, written case-based questions, and two timed assessments
- Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) guides for clinical examinations – which may be downloaded
- Access curated open-access reading lists aligned with global clinical guidelines
With the combination of these resources, students were given a strong foundation of knowledge and structured methodology when approaching patients with orthopaedic trauma injuries. The course delivered core information as well as multiple methods for students to apply their knowledge so they were comfortable with the core principles of Trauma and Orthopaedics.
A cornerstone of the course design was accessibility in low-connectivity environments. Recognising that students in Gaza face unreliable or limited internet access, all materials — including lectures, clinical handbooks, and examination resources — were made available for download and offline use. Upon full completion, students will receive an OxCred certificate recognised by their universities as fulfilling the written requirements for Trauma and Orthopaedics. Faculty adopted the platform as a trusted supplementary teaching resource, helping to ease pressure on an overstretched academic workforce. We are incredibly privileged to have the trust of our colleagues in Gaza to uphold their high standards of teaching delivered to their students – this is not something we take lightly. We must keep going forward and keep pushing to support and empower our colleagues, as the journey to rebuilding medical education in Gaza continues.
OXCRED was designed from the outset to be scalable beyond Gaza — providing a reliable, adaptable framework for delivering structured medical education in any setting where conflict or crisis has disrupted healthcare training. If you would be interested in gaining access to the platform please contact yumna.ahmad3@nhs.net
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!
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.