Global Health was at the core of the 2025 Congress of ISNAR-IMG, the French National Union for General Medicine Residents). More than 50 global health experts and over 1000 physicians gathered at the Gran Palais Convention Centre in Lille to attend the event between the 6th and the 7th of February 2025.
The Congress, held on a yearly basis, is entirely organised by the 15 residents members of the Union board and is free of charge for all general medicine residents of France. This year, our recent MGH graduate Atika Bokhari, was among the organizers.
Discussions were held around panels and workshops in an interactive format. The ambition of the organisers was to walk on the fine line between illustrating the complexity which is inherent to global health and engaging young health professionals taught in a strictly biomedical approach to health.
Inviting health professionals as well as sociologists, biomedical engineers, decision makers, was of importance to the organisers, as it deeply contributes to widening the horizons.
Invited speakers shared their expertise on the macro level as well as on -the-field:
- Dr Cedric Dassas, Emergency Medicine Doctor from Doctors without borders, Mrs Sandrine Simon, Health and Advocacy Director at Doctors of the World, and Dr Dennis Falzon, Tuberculosis Program Director for WHO Regional Office for Europe, who discussed on the global burden of disease, the role of international humanitarian agencies as well as pandemic preparedness.
- Dr Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, Research Director at the National Centre for Scientific Research and author of “Atlas of migrations”.
- Dr Marie Wicky, Medical Director for the Fight against Tuberculosis Mobile Unit of the Samusocial de Paris.
Many other topics were discussed among them: health of care professionals, eco-responsible practice and medical prescriptions, the planetary health approach, inequalities in access to healthcare and mental health.
As a global health researcher with a medical field background, I trust that this summit planted the seed of the global approach in the minds of medical residents all over France. Discussions combined the “macro” challenges of global health as well as practical on-the-ground tools and educational material. This is to show once again that it is mandatory to make a transdisciplinary, global effort to reach the Sustainable Development Goals of 2030 and that it starts from the ground up.
Dr. Syeda Atika Bokhari