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Presentation at the Nusantara Conference on Medical Issues from the Islamic Perspective Kuantan Pahang Malaysia 14-15 September 2019 by Professor Omar Hasan Kasule Professor of Epidemiology and Bioethics at the Faculty of Medicine King Fahad Medical City and Chairman of the Institutional Review Board and the Human and Medical Ethics Committee.
Integration of Islamic values into medical education, training, and practice is a prerequisite for quality healthcare in Muslim communities. No community or civilization can succeed without basing its development on its own values. We can now see the fruits of efforts integration starting in Malaysia more than 20 years ago. Integrated medicine is being taught to doctors and nursing and we have several Islamic or shariat compliant hospitals. We are looking forward to integrated healthcare systems including health insurance, integrated research, and integrated pharmaceutical industry. Integration of Islamic values in the medical faculty ensures integration of those values in the hospitals by future doctors. The integration has 5 components. Conceptually we need to teach the Islamic concepts of life, death, disease/illness, and treatment. We then need to teach basic medical sciences as evidence of the well-coordinated and well-proportioned perfect creation by Allah and that life processes follow the physical laws (sunan Allah) that the creator set. After that, we need to teach the Islamic ethical and fiqh aspects of diagnosing, preventing, and treating disease. After that, we need to teach the Islamic concepts of a healthy and balanced family and community and how dysfunctions are the root causes of many human diseases. The future of integrated medicine is very bright not only for Muslims but for the whole of humanity because Islamic values are universal and not parochial. It must also be understood that integration is putting values in scientific medicine and not inventing a new type of medicine.
TAUHID IS THE BASIS FOR INTEGRATION
• Tauhid is the basic paradigm of Islamic thought (fikr), civilization (hadharat), and knowledge (ma’arifat).
• There is one Creator (tauhid al rubuubiyyat) for the whole universe therefore everything living or non-living and every phenomenon must have meaningful integration with everything else because the source is the same
• We will focus on the integration of Islamic values (qiyam islamiyyat) in medicine in the knowledge that there are other forms of integration
• Integration of Islamic values into medical education, training, and practice is a prerequisite for quality healthcare in Muslim communities. No community or civilization can succeed without basing its development on its own values.
PIONEERING MALAYSIAN ROLE IN INTEGRATION IN MEDICINE
• We can now see the fruits of efforts integration starting in Malaysia more than 20 years ago. Integrated medicine is being taught to doctors and nurses and we have several Islamic or shariat compliant hospitals.
• We are looking forward to integrated healthcare systems including health insurance, integrated research, and an integrated pharmaceutical industry
• We also anticipate an Islamic integration in the area of public and community health. This will have the most impact because we will apply Islamic values to solve social root causes of disease and injury
INTEGRATION IN THE MEDICAL SCHOOL: 5 components of integration
• Epistemology/philosophy: conceptually we need to teach the Islamic concepts of life, death, disease/illness, and treatment.
• Basic sciences: We then need to teach basic medical sciences as evidence of the well-coordinated and well-proportioned perfect creation by Allah and that life processes follow the physical laws (sunan Allah) that the creator set.
• The Islamic ethical and fiqh aspects of diagnosing, preventing, and treating disease. Professional ethics and etiquette are taught at this stage
• Islamic concepts of a healthy and balanced family and community and how dysfunctions are the root causes of many human diseases.
PROBLEM WITH THE CURRENT COMMUNITY HEALTH CURRICULUM
• Community health starts with community diagnosis followed by programs that deal with the obvious and external manifestations of the problem
• Community health should be more about establishing the normal and not diagnosing and dealing with the abnormal.
• We need to remove root causes of addiction by strengthening community institutions before treating addiction
A NEW APPROACH TO TEACHING COMMUNITY HEALTH: Family institution
• Gender
• Family as a Natural Social Unit
• Marriage
• Parents and Relatives
• Children
A NEW APPROACH TO TEACHING COMMUNITY HEALTH: community institutions
• Masjid
• Ukhuwwat
• Takaful
• Shuura
• Maal (economic system)
A NEW APPROACH TO TEACHING COMMUNITY HEALTH: community problems
• Life-Style
• Sexual Perversions
• Addiction
• Poverty
• Violence
A NEW APPROACH TO TEACHING COMMUNITY HEALTH: community actions
• Dawa
• Enjoining the good and forbidding the bad, amr & nahy
• Social change, taghyiir ijtima’e
• Professional and Occupational Organizations
• Social Welfare and Disaster Relief Organizations