Check out the next Medical Network international conference, titled

Prevention of Violence in Communities, Schools and Other Institutions

taking place in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, 2-6 June 2004!!!

Health Bridges for Peace project

IRSS founded the Health Bridges for Peace (HBP) project in 1996 to create sustainable programs for conflict management and community reconciliation through the integration of health care delivery with conflict management. The first HBP field program was in the former Yugoslavia. Through this program, IRSS helped to launch the Medical Network for Social Reconstruction (the Medical Network) in the former Yugoslavia. Founded in 1997, the Medical Network is a region-wide peacebuilding NGO with a diverse, representative governing council.

The Medical Network convenes conferences and engages in a range of health-care delivery and social reconstruction activities. Emphasizing inter-ethnic cooperation, we have brought together more than five hundred health care providers, physicians, government health officials, health administrators, psychologists and academicians from all parts of the former Yugoslavia. Through conferences, training workshops, community meetings and other projects, the Medical Network has promoted professional exchange, training, and joint humanitarian assistance projects in a variety of areas, including: war-trauma recovery; special issues in refugee medicine; social reconstruction in cooperation with other professional groups (e.g., police, teachers, social workers); health care for the war-injured physically challenged; and special issues of war-affected children.

The 2002 Medical Network international conference, titled Community, Health, and Human Security, took place in Igalo, Montenegro, 14-16 June 2002.   Last year's conference, titled Violence, Mental Health & Society, took place in Crikvenica, Croatia, 26-29 June, 2003.  The most recent Medical Network international conference, titled Prevention of Violence in Communities, Schools and Other Institutions took place in Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, 2-6 June 2004.

The Medical Network has also reached out to physicians from other war-devastated areas. Physicians from the North Caucasus and from the Middle East have participated in Medical Network conferences and programs in the former Yugoslavia. IRSS personnel and Medical Network physicians have traveled to the North Caucasus to promote the Health Bridge strategy. The North Caucasus has an active humanitarian assistance organization (ARD/Denal) which utilizes Health Bridge principles. Dr. Gutlove serves as a founding Board member. ARD/Denal engages in a variety of cooperative public health projects including: developing a regional network on tuberculosis control; cooperative centers for psycho-social rehabilitation; and a cooperative program for prosthetic assistance to amputees in the North Caucasus.