American University of Beirut

​National Level

• Bridging the Gap - Advancing an integrated NCD-humanitarian response for refugees and host communities in Lebanon 2021-2024. Reducing the burden of Non Communicable Diseases in Lebanon for refugee populations and vulnerable host communities; a partnership project between American University of Beirut, Ministry of Public Health Lebanon and World Diabetes Foundation in Denmark initiated in June 2021.
  
• Improving the Quality of the Implementation of the Essential Healthcare Packages by Health Care Professionals: This is a new project with the MoPH and World Bank, which started at the end of 2017 and continued to end of December 2018. Faculty members and residents in the department have assessed the quality of the implementation of the essential health packages in 75 primary health care centers and will design training including on-the-job training to the health care professionals based on the gaps identified in the assessment.
  
• Transitioning Practicing General Practitioners to Family Medicine Specialists : This is a new project that was launched in June 2018 and aims at transitioning 40 GPs working in primary health care centers to family medicine specialists. This is a collaboration between department of family medicine at AUBMC, Lebanese University and the MoPH. The department will be designing and delivering the training program. 
  
• School Health Services: the Family Medicine Primary Care Center is providing school health services to two public schools in its neighborhood. 
  
• Training of health care providers on clinical management protocols for the most common conditions in primary care (started in 2015): a joint project with the World Health Organization (WHO)- Lebanon Office and the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH. Several faculty members from the department as well as other academic family doctors delivered the trainings to health professionals (doctors and nurses) from primary health care centers in Lebanon.
• Mobile Clinic to Syrian Refugees: The Department of Family Medicine was leading the Mobile Clinic for Syrian Refugees, an initiative of the Faculty of Medicine between 2015 and 2017. Volunteers from the department and other departments at the American University of Beirut Medical Center provide medical consultations to Syrian Refugees in informal settlements on periodic basis. This project is in collaboration with beyond, a local non-governmental organization.
• Support to Integrated Service Provision at the local Level (2015-2017): a project with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on integrating service provision at the local level. Training and coaching of members from the community on identifying local community health priorities and developing action plans were conducted in different municipalities in the country. Participants were members of municipalities, public schools, primary health care centers and social development centers in different regions all over Lebanon. This was followed by a training of schools, health care centers and municipalities on the provision of comprehensive school health services.
• Emergency primary Health Care Restoration project: this is a project in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and supported by the World Bank. Faculty members in the department developed the health packages that are implemented in 75 health centers included in the primary health care network. This included as well several capacity building workshops to the health care professionals in these centers. This is an ongoing project since 2015. Currently, faculty members and residents from the department are leading the monitoring of the implementation of these packages by health care professionals in the centers.
• “Elderly Caregivers” certificate: The Department of Family Medicine developed and delivered a training on “elderly caregivers” in collaboration with Islamic Center in 2017. The aim of this training is to prepare individuals to provide care to elderly within the context of their homes. A first group received their certificates in May 2017. 
  
• Delivery of the Advanced GP Course – Essential Skills in Family Practice: this is a 6 months blended course that was developed by the department of family medicine in collaboration with the regional office of WHO in the East Mediterranean Region. The course was first implemented in 2017 to a group of 16 general practitioners from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
• Family Medicine Primary Health Care Center at AUB: Since 2015, the Family Medicine Residents Training Center has been recognized as a primary health care center by MoPH and joined its network. The center conducts several outreach activities including providing school health services to two public schools within its neighborhood.

Regional Level

• Development of the Advanced GP Course – Essential Skills in Family Practice: Members of the department worked with the regional office of WHO in the East Mediterranean Region (WHO-EMRO) on developing a 6 months blended learning course to improve the knowledge and skills of GP on service delivery. The course was developed in 2015 and it is planned to be implemented in several countries in the region in the coming period.
• Training of Trainers (TOT) on the delivery of the blended GP course: Members of the Department conducted several Training of Trainers (TOT) workshops on the blended GP course (Advanced GP Course – Essential Skills in Family Practice) in collaboration with WHO-EMRO in several countries in EMRO region during 2016 and 2017. During the year 2017-2018 Training was done for groups from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Iraq. 
  

​​Other Activities