Why MedGlobal?

MedGlobal works in difficult to reach areas, devastated by war, natural disasters, famine, and ethnic cleansing, where individuals have poor access to healthcare and many NGOs choose not to venture.

Mission

MedGlobal’s culturally diverse teams respond to the world’s humanitarian crises by partnering with local communities to provide innovative, sustainable, and dignified healthcare.

Vision

To create a world without healthcare disparities.

How we Started

MedGlobal was founded in June 2017 by physicians who are experienced in humanitarian medicine to address the health needs of the most vulnerable across the world.

What we do

MedGlobal provides free, sustainable healthcare services to refugees, the displaced, and most vulnerable in crisis areas and low resourced countries worldwide.

MedGlobal deploys healthcare volunteers, supports local partners and medical providers with training, funding, technology as well as donate medical equipment, medications and supplies. These services provide life-saving and life-sustaining care, based on needs-assessment and best practices, to the most vulnerable around the globe.

Our Programs

Disasters and Emergency Response
Healthcare Services
- Infectious disease
- Non-Communicable Diseases
- Maternal and Child Health
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support
Training and Education
- Critical Care
- ICU Nursing Care
- Empathy
- Helping Babies Breath
- Point of Care Ultrasound
Building Healthcare Infrastructure
Public Health and Epidemiology
Nutrition
Quality Improvement

Since 2017, MedGlobal has deployed more than 627 medical volunteers in 229 missions to 15 different countries since its inception. MedGlobal has donated more than $1,000,000 of medications, medical supplies, and equipment. Our medical volunteers have donated more than $4,536,897 of professional medical services, with over 35,556 hours of service, and provided dozens of training courses to local healthcare providers.

Our Core Values

Humanitarianism

Striving to alleviate human suffering, protect life and health, and ensure respect for the most vulnerable regardless of their backgrounds while embracing universal humanitarian principles.

Diversity

Believing that the diversity of the volunteers and staff enriches the organization and makes it easier to connect with the populations served globally.

Cultural Competency

Accepting, and striving to understand, the differences in cultures, beliefs, and values of the populations served without prejudice or judgment.

Volunteerism

Embracing volunteering and giving at all levels. Medical professionals are encouraged to give their time, skills, knowledge, leadership and charity to those in need.

Professionalism

Expecting the highest conduct of medical professionals based on best practices, quality care, and evidence-based guidelines.

Partnership and Collaboration

Sustaining the organization’s impact by working together with and training of local partners.

Purpose & Operating Principles

MedGlobal provides sustainable healthcare services to refugees, the displaced, and most vulnerable in crisis areas and low resources countries worldwide by deploying diverse short term volunteer medical missions and partnering with local organizations.

We are committed to implementing our missions based on the following operating principles:

Sustainable Impact

Rendering positive, measurable, and sustainable impact on our beneficiaries by providing quality, free, immediate, relevant, lasting, and life-saving healthcare services to populations who may not have access to such services and collecting data to analyze the outcomes.

Intense Leverage

Leveraging every dollar raised or donated through incorporating volunteerism of highly skilled medical professionals, in-kind donations, the use of technology and innovations and training.

High Visibility

Achieving high visibility for our work and partners through our active presence on multiple platforms including online and social media, digital marketing, smart advocacy, and earned media.

Board Members

Dr. Zaher Sahloul, President

Bio

Co-founder, President

Dr. Zaher Sahloul is a Critical Care specialist at Advocate Christ Medical Center and Associate Professor in Clinical Medicine at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

He was instrumental in providing medical relief to help the civilian population in his homeland of Syria, especially in devastated Aleppo. He is on the advisory board of the Syrian Community Network and the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has written widely about the medical and humanitarian crisis in Syria and is a recognized Muslim speaker in the interfaith circles.

In 2016, Dr. Sahloul was awarded the Chicagoan of the Year for risking his life in medical missions to Aleppo. He also received many other awards including the “Heroes Among Us” award by American Red Cross, Dr. Robert Kirschner’s Award for Global Activism by Heartland Alliance Kovler Center 2017, the Commitment to Change Award by the National Immigration Justice Center for his commitment to human rights, and the Shine a Light on Global Refugee Crisis and annual humanitarian award by UNICEF Chicago 2017.

In 2017, he co-founded MedGlobal and currently serves as its president.

Dr. John Kahler, Vice President

Bio

Co-founder, Board Member

Dr. Kahler is a general pediatrician who was Chief Medical Officer for a municipal Federally Qualified Health Center in Joliet, Il until his retirement in January 2017. He received a B.A. from the University of Illinois and an M.D. from the University of Illinois in Chicago. He did his pediatric training at the Cook County Hospital in Chicago, where he practiced for the next 34 years, serving the underserved of the metropolitan Chicago area. He then moved to be Regional Medical Director for a large Federally Qualified Health Center in Chicago and became its Chief Medical Officer.

For 25 years, he has had an interest in global health and has participated in humanitarian work. For the past three years, his humanitarian work has been concentrated on the Syrian Diaspora.

In August 2017, Dr. Kahler helped found MedGlobal and he currently serves as MedGlobal’s Chairman of the Board.

Dr. Hena Ibrahim, Interim Executive Director, Secretary

Bio

Interim Executive Director, Board Member

Dr. Hena Ibrahim is a Pediatrician based in Chicago. She completed her residency at Cook County Hospital and is currently in private practice at Saint Anthony Hospital where she also served as Medical Director of Ambulatory Services.

Dr. Ibrahim began her medical relief work in 2016, assisting Syrian refugees stranded in Greece along the Macedonian border. Since then, she has participated and led medical teams to various countries including Jordan, Bangladesh and Pakistan and began MedGlobal’s Rohingya refugee program in Bangladesh in 2017.

Dr. Nour Akhras, Treasurer

Bio

Board Member

Dr. Akhras is a pediatric hospitalist and pediatric infectious disease physician in the suburbs of Chicago. She has been involved in global medical work for the last 6 years to Turkey, Greece and most recently, Yemen. She also served on the infectious diseases committee of the Syrian-American Medical Society, helping develop antibiotic protocols that have been distributed to field hospitals throughout Syria.

Moeen Saleem, MD

Bio

Board Member

Dr. Moeen Saleem is a physician, specializing in Cardiac Electrophysiology at the Advocate Medical Group in the western suburbs of Chicago. He received his M.D. at the University of South Carolina and did his residency in Internal Medicine at Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s, where he was chief resident and completed a fellowship in Cardiology. He did a fellowship in Cardiac Electrophysiology at Northwestern Memorial, University Hospital.

Tracy Ibgui, RN

Bio

Board Member

Tracy Ibgui is a registered nurse with extensive experience in neonatal ICU nursing and case management.

Her humanitarian nursing experience began in 2010 in Haiti after the earthquake and has since participated in medical missions around the world. She is a human rights activist and has served as a member and on leadership teams of various human rights organizations.

Janet Lin, MD

Bio

Board Member

Dr. Janet Lin is an associate professor of emergency medicine at the UIC College of Medicine. She holds an affiliate appointment in the division of community health sciences in the UIC School of Public Health.

Lin is an expert in disaster preparedness and response. She has developed emergency response plans at the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System for situations ranging from flu outbreaks to tornadoes and other weather events.

She travels extensively to help international communities prepare for and respond to disasters. She is working in Haiti to empower community members to reduce disaster risks and improve the delivery of health care.

She is the director of health systems development in the Center for Global Health at UIC. She heads the international emergency medicine fellowship program in the UIC College of Medicine, which trains postgraduate physicians to practice and do research in international settings.

Inam Hussain, MD

Bio

Board Member

Dr. Hussain is a board-certified Anesthesiologist and currently a Board Member of MedGlobal. Formerly, he was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees for Islamic Foundation North in Libertyville, IL from 2013- 2015 a member of the BOT for IFN from 2010 – 2015; a member of the BOT of International Medical Relief from 2012 – 2015; a member of the Syrian American Medical Society in 2014; a member of the IMR Medical Mission “Save a Smile” to the Sudan in 2012; a member of the Helping Hands Medical Mission to Bangladesh in 2008; the co-chair of the Helping Hands Medical Mission to Kashmir to provide earthquake relief from 2007-2008; a member of the Board of Directors of the Human Development Foundation in Schaumburg, IL from 1997 – 2000; and a member of a medical mission to Kosovo in 1997.

Ted Barnett, MD

Bio

Board Member

Dr. Barnett is a critical care physician. His professional life has been spent primarily in academics — at the University of Illinois, the University of Hawai’i, Medical College of Wisconsin, Louisiana State University and the University of Central Florida. He has participated in international medical work since 1989 and refugee work since 1993 working in more than twenty countries. He earned a Master’s degree in Medical Anthropology at the University of Hawai’i. He was given the Governor’s Community Service Award and the Distinguished Service Award from The American College of Chest Physicians and was awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar fellowship in 2008 to teach and conduct research in Nepal. He currently lives in Melbourne, Florida.

Leonard Rubenstein, MD

Bio

Board Member

Leonard Rubenstein is a lawyer who has spent his career in human rights and now focuses particularly on health and human rights, especially the protection of health in armed conflict, and the roles of health professionals in human rights. At Johns Hopkins, he is a core faculty member of the Center for Public Health and Human Rights and the Berman Institute of Bioethics. Prior to coming to Johns Hopkins, he served as Executive Director and then President of Physicians for Human Rights, as a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and as Executive Director of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law.

Mr. Rubenstein’s current work includes advancing the protection of health facilities, patients, and health workers in situations of conflict, advancing refugee and migrant health and rights, exploring the ethical responsibilities of health professionals to advance human rights including in situations of violent conflict. Mr. Rubenstein founded and chairs the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition.

Why MedGlobal?

Mission

Vision

How we Started

What we do

Our Core Values

Purpose & Operating Principles

Board Members

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