Diaspora Diaries

For paediatric neurologist and scientist Rand Askalan, 2002 was a pivotal year. That fall, she would not only start her residency to add the designation M.D. to her PhD, she would venture into one of the most dangerous territories on the planet.

The battle of Jenin raged that summer along the West Bank in the Middle East. Television images of bulldozed villages, panic stricken wounded men, women and children flooded the airwaves. "I decided I could no longer just sit, watch TV every day and cry," says Askalan, whose Palestinian roots made watching the tragedy unfold particularly painful.

"I waited for a couple of months, thought of packing up and going on my own, but I was discouraged. Then I was told Doctors of the World Canada was thinking of sending a mission," she says. Askalan joined the Canadian arm of the international team of volunteer doctors known for emergency medical relief and humanitarian assistance to populations with restricted access to health care.

"Even with all our flags we were shot at," says Askalan, who helped physicians from Canada and around the world support ambulance teams held up at military checkpoints along the bank. Askalan returned to Canada after spending six weeks in Jenin, determined to continue providing whatever medical assistance she could to the Middle East.

Long days and nights honing her skills as a young medical doctor lay ahead for Askalan. As a wife and mother of a two-year-old son, her life was already filled with responsibilities and challenges. However, like the distaste for controlled borders that drove her to help refugees in her family's former homeland, Askalan would not construct borders around what she could accomplish in Canada or abroad.

In 1995, Askalan and her husband made Canada their home. The couple fell in love with the country when they came on a 10-day visit in 1992. Both from the Middle East, they were looking for a home where they could find peace and raise a family. After completing her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge in England, Askalan and her husband packed their bags and migrated to Canada.

Askalan began her career as a research fellow at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto that year. After completing her medical degree at the University of Toronto in 2001, she became a paediatric neurology resident at Sick Kids Hospital. Today she is one of a select group of professionals who combine clinical work with science research at the hospital, where she treats children with neurological disorders and is studying the impact of strokes on the developing brain.

Despite her demanding professional and family commitments as the mother of two boys, she has upheld her promise to continue helping those abroad facing restricted access to medical care.

With the lessons she learned from her experience and the contacts she made in Jenin, Askalan established the Canadian Association for Medical Relief (CAMR) on her return in 2002. The small organization, which she now heads, provides medical care where a lack of finances or expertise restricts access. "We try and provide medical care no matter what kind, bringing the care to the patient or meeting them somewhere in between," says Askalan.

CAMR has so far brought two children to Canada from the Middle East who have received life-saving surgery for congenital problems. It also facilitated the treatment of a child with severe burns at a Boston burn unit and supported another who was flown to Egypt for an operation. The not-for-profit organization has also bought medical equipment, including an anaesthesia machine and another to test hearing, for the people of Nablus.

In addition, Askalan, who lectured in Biochemistry at Sultan Quaboos University in Oman, Jordan from 1998-1990, has used her vacation time to teach Palestinian students at a medical school in the suburbs of Jerusalem. "They have difficulty retaining faculty especially foreign faculty and I participate in a program that brings in neurologists to teach for 2-3 weeks at a time," says Askalan.

She manages what most would regard as a gruelling schedule. Passionate about her medical and scientific work in Canada, she regards her international endeavours as a way of honouring her parents and giving back to her people. "I feel a duty and obligation to go back and have them benefit from what I have to offer and what I have to give," she says.

Askalan also says she has more to give today because of what she has learned living in various parts of the Middle East, Europe and Canada. She is proud to be Canadian and says she feels safe and welcome in Canada.

"Here they want you to retain your identity and not be ashamed of it." However she adds, since 9/11, she has seen people's attitudes change. Her hope is that Canada's perspective on multiculturalism will remain.

A scientist, physician, wife and mother of two, Askalan regards herself as a global citizen, someone who takes the best from many cultures to help others. She says she hopes more countries will take advantage of the language skills, knowledge and expertise of people like herself.

"Helping people like me who are in the developed world use their skills to help the developing countries is one way to cut waste and provide greater efficiency," says Askalan. "Too many times we find problems because what is provided by the developed world is not what people need, resulting in the waste of resources and money," she adds.

Askalan plans to obtain charitable status for CAMR shortly. She also hopes to raise funding from the private sector to facilitate between three and four projects a year. In the years to come, she plans to expand her international work beyond the Middle East.