New book edited by WCM-Q prof. examines GCC healthcare success story
The new book examines the rapid development of the healthcare sector across the GCC.
A new book exploring healthcare policy across the GCC, which was edited by a leading academic at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q), has been published.
Dr. Ravinder Mamtani, Professor of Healthcare Policy and Research and Senior Associate Dean for Population Health and Capacity Building at WCM-Q, edited the book, entitled Critical Issues in Healthcare Policy and Politics in the Gulf Cooperation Council States, which examines the rapid development and modernization of healthcare systems across the region, a subject he believes has received too little attention.
“The development of healthcare systems in the GCC in the past two decades has been remarkable, both in terms of scale and improvements in quality,” explained Dr. Mamtani. “This has been of enormous benefit to patients all over the region, yet the processes that have brought about this incredible change have barely been examined from an academic perspective.
“As such, we felt that there was a pressing need to understand how the politics of the region have created the conditions for high quality, state-of-the-art healthcare institutions to take root and flourish across the GCC, in part so that others might learn from and duplicate this extraordinary success story in other parts of the world.”
The book was published by the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS), Georgetown University in Qatar’s (GU-Q) premier research institute, under the guidance of CIRS director Dr. Mehran Kamrava. The book was co-edited by Dr. Albert B. Lowenfels, Professor of Surgery and Professor of Community and Preventive Medicine at New York Medical College. In addition to the introduction written by Dr. Mamtani and Dr. Lowenfels, the book features seven chapters contributed by leading healthcare experts from prestigious institutions all over the world.
Topics addressed include a historical overview of healthcare in the GCC, mental health, politics and healthcare, substance abuse, the profile of chronic disease in GCC countries, and human resources issues in GCC healthcare.
Dr. Mamtani and Dr. Lowenfels also penned a chapter on lifestyle diseases in the GCC and the book’s concluding chapter, the latter in partnership with Dr. Sohaila Cheema, Director of the Institute for Population Health and Assistant Professor of Healthcare Policy and Research at WCM-Q.
Dr. Mamtani added: “This book gives an extremely detailed and comprehensive account of the development of healthcare systems and policy across the GCC and is a useful guide for both academics and the general reader. We are extremely grateful to all of the contributors and very happy to have been able to collaborate on this project with our esteemed colleague Dr. Mehran Kamrava and his dedicated team at the Center for International and Regional Studies of GU-Q.”