Wired International and the International Organization for Migration www.iom.int have collaborated with our hospital to develop an electronic library—the Medical Information Center. This facility, on the fifth floor of our hospital, is one of ten Medical Information Centers installed by WiRED and IOM in Iraq.
Dr. Wadhad Mahbuba is the manager of WiRED International’s Medical Information Centers in Iraq. The Iraqi physician describes here how the four original Centers, which were installed in mid-2003, are operating today. He offered this account in a conversation with WiRED’s Gary Selnow who is working in Baghdad.
A Second Front in The War on Terrorism
In mid-March, 2004, as part of its effort to provide all medical schools and key hospitals in Iraq with the latest medical information, WiRED International outfitted six medical schools and teaching hospitals with its computer-based Medical Information Centers.
The award for the best charity Website was presented on December 22, 2003, by Jim Collins, Affinity’s Chief Marketing Officer. WiRED International was selected from among 263 nominations to win the Grand Prize.
Sponsored by the International Professional Interest Section of the Public Relations Society of America, the meeting drew media and communication specialists from around the county to examine global communication problems that surfaced after the World Trade Center attack and swelled after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
WiRED returned to the Balkans in December 2003 to open two Medical Information Centers (MICs) in Montenegro. The new Centers, underwritten by The Medtronic Foundation, are in the Medical School in Podgorica and in the Danilo I Hospital in Cetinje. The Centinje Hospital is the oldest hospital in the country, this December celebrating its 130th year of continuous service to the people of Montenegro.
On November 24, 2003, in collaboration with the American Federation of Teachers, WiRED installed a computer training lab in the Ahmadiyya Muslim School in Sierre Leone. The facility, which is the first of its kind in this post-conflict, west African country, will introduce some 5,000 students to a technology that will be critical for the economic and social development of this impoverished region.
On August 7, 2003, WiRED International launched a seven-station Medical Information Center at the University of Leon School of Medicine. The facility will serve 1,300 faculty, students and medical professionals. Leon, the second largest city in Nicaragua, is located 15 miles from the Pacific Ocean.
The room at the Al Kadhymia Teaching Hospital in Iraq had bars on the windows, lots of electrical outlets, and plenty of space to accommodate computers. I was traveling with an American computer technician and an Iraqi physician in May on a project sponsored by the U.S. Department of State to create medical-information centers at teaching hospitals and medical schools throughout the country.