May 18, 2008: Dubai Harvard Foundation for Medical Research (DHFMR) selected three journalists who traveled to Boston for a weeklong fellowship program offered by DHFMR. The DHFMR Science Writers and Journalists, held at Harvard Medical School (HMS) from May 10th to 17th, was conducted in association with the HMS Office of Public Affairs. The program is designed to give science writers, journalists and broadcasters the opportunity to increase the depth and breadth of their reporting on health care, medical innovation, and scientific research.
The three Fellows, Yomna Kamel, a freelance journalist and media studies instructor at Dubai Women’s College, Dr. Ali Singel, presenter of the Dubai TV program Vitamin, and Mohammed Nabil Spartali, a writer for Al-Bayan were chosen as the candidates who demonstrated strong writing and presentation skills, strong experience in journalism and media, and a high interest in healthcare and medical science.
Robert Neal, Associate Dean of Public Affairs at HMS, lead the five-day program. Each day was devoted to a specific area of science writing and reporting: basic research and discovery; clinical research and clinical trials; announcing medical innovation; health care policy, access, quality, standards, and licensure; and specialized and continuing medical innovation. Daily activities included interviews with HMS faculty, writing workshops, and visits to local media outlets and HMS-affiliated laboratories and hospitals.
The Science Writers and Journalists Fellowship Program is part of the Foundation’s mission to help drive a resurgence in scientific inquiry and discovery in the Middle East, and lead to innovations that will address the region’s most pressing health problems. The program will be held annually, in the spring, and the invitation for applications will be announced a few months prior to that.
Science Writers & Journalists Fellowship Program 2008 Participants
A UAE national, Dr. Ali Singel earned his MD in dermatology from the University of Wales College of Medicine in 1993, having received his MBCh from the National University of Ireland. He is licensed by both the Royal College of Surgeons and of Physicians of Ireland. He maintains a dermatology practice in Dubai and is Director of Medical Services of the Dubai Police force, holding the rank of Lt.-Col.
He hosts a popular television program called Vitamin on the Arab-language Dubai TV station (in 2005 one of the channel’s producers came to consult with him as a patient, and eventually asked if he would be interested in television work). Vitamin has completed 100 programs, and has increasingly brought health and medical issues to its viewers throughout the Arabian Gulf region. The content and subject matter of several of the programs have already affected the direction of the UAE’s national health policy. |
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| 2008 finalists: Mohammed Spartali, a journalist from Al Bayan, Dr. Ali Singel, anchor on Dubai TV, Yomna Kamel, freelance reporter. |
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| Fellows with 2008 Partners in Research Conference Delegates, at Harvard Club of Boston. |
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| Dr. Ali Singel and Dr. Sehamuddin Galadari, Assistant Dean and Associate Professor of Biochemistry, United Arab Emirates University School of Medicine, and a member of DHFMR
Scientific Advisory Committee. |
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| 2008 Fellows met with leading researchers and scientists from Harvard Medical School and the Middle East. |
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Yomna Kamel graduated from the American University of Cairo in 1995 earning a degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She joined the Gulf News as a staff writer, and then moved to the Middle East News in Cairo, before earning her MA in journalism from Cardiff University in Wales.
She returned to Egypt and worked as a freelance journalist, writing in English and Arabic, contributing regularly for the Cairo Times, Business Monthly, Al Ahram, etc., as well as writing on behalf of several Arab NGOs, for example: the Legal Aid Center for Human Rights, the Al-Nadeem Center for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture, the Dubai-based Environment Friends Association. Currently she teaches journalism and media studies at Dubai Women’s College; she also maintains a web blog, where many of her pieces on health, medicine and science are regularly picked up by other media outlets.
Born in Jaffa, of Palestinian heritage, Mohammed Spartali is currently a journalist for Al Bayan, one of the Arab-language daily newspapers based in Dubai, circulated throughout the UAE. He began his career as a teacher of English language and literature after graduating from the University of Damascus. He moved to Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, in 1980, and began to work on the Arabic version of Al Khaleej Times, focusing on the developing political structure of the UAE as a young nation (the seven emirates were united in 1971). In 1994, Mohammed moved to Al Bayan to focus on medical topics, interviewing doctors from around the Arabian Gulf region. In 2004, Al Bayan, in an attempt to bring medical and healthcare subjects to its readership, established a medical magazine, for which Mohammed has been a regular contributor. |
