The National Day for the Libyan Physician

The health sector is a vital component of the growth and maintenance of every economy. When you examine any country’s annual budget, you immediately recognize that a large proportion goes to the healthcare sector. You may also see it is a part of expenditure and not of productivity. In other words, healthcare is a liability item when it comes to the budget. Libya is no exception.The goal of the health planners is to allocate the healthcare budget in ways that will ultimately result in a healthier society. In Libya, unfortunately, it is not clear how much of the budget goes to the health profession and health care delivery, and how much of it is spent on administrative issues. When you focus on the health sector you discover that it is really a significant mover of the productivity line. It is very simple. Healthy citizens are more likely to go to school and be educated. They are also more likely to have steady employment and be productive members of the society. That is not the subject of these comments. No one can deny that the Libyan physicians are on the frontline when it comes to criticism of the health services in Libya. I agree that they should be on the frontline. After all, medical schools in Libya started many years before the creation of other colleges for allied health professionals. They have a major share of responsibility in keeping our citizens healthy. It is also their responsibility to treat those who become sick. This requires a health system with a solid, transparent, ethical, and well organized structure. This is not the subject of my comments either. The purpose of my comments today is to draw attention to the Libyan physicians and recognize them once a year. I feel that they are busy with their work and the basic ingredients of life in a developing country. I also believe that they are relatively forgotten by society. What I would like to propose is the creation of a national observation for the Libyan physician. I think it is time to celebrate a Libyan Physician Day (Youm attabeeb alleebi) during which the Libyan physician is recognized in all health institutions at the level of the ministry, press, television, radio, as well as hospitals and rural health care units. During this day, we thank the Libyan physician for his/her hard work under diverse conditions and circumstances (1). During this day, we remind the physician of his/her duty toward humanity in general and Libyan citizens in particular. The physicians need to know that they have a moral and ethical (2) duty toward the Libyan citizen from birth to death. This duty extends to the poor and to the wealthy and it does not discriminate against colour, race, or religion of the citizen. This duty is purely humane and has no allegiance to political beliefs. We also remind the Libyan physician to extend his/her hands to colleagues in basic science, in different sectors of medical education, and the allied medical personnel. We all know that without nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, respiratory therapist, laboratory technicians, physicists and radiology technicians we can not perform our jobs. On this day, we inform the Libyan physicians that we love them and respect their field. The society and government should be united in providing them with decent living standards. The Libyan physicians are human and have needs and responsibilities toward their families and deserve a decent life. This acknowledgment by the society and the government gives them a moral boost. Hopefully, it would provide an incentive to work harder and to be creative to minimize the flux of the Libyan patients to the neighbouring countries for the treatment of simple ailments. I truly believe that the creation of a national day for the Libyan physician will be fruitful within few years of its initiation. It will certainly shed the light on this group of the Libyan society. It will remind physicians to give more consideration to interactions with members of the Libyan society. We hope the idea will find its way to the legislators to adopt and designate a day to celebrate the Libyan Physician.This day can be any time; however, I would propose selecting a day in the summer to enable the participation of most Libyan physicians while children are out of school. Such participation could be in the form of public health screenings and information about major diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes and breast cancer. Informational discussions of socio-medical problems such as substance abuse and drug addiction could also be included. It is my hope that my colleagues will discuss this issue, voice their opinions, and provide suggestions of other activities to commemorate our physicians on this day

PubMed Medical publications from Libya

Medical research and publications are the back-bone for advancing the medical field. We identified the Pubmed medical publications that are affiliated with Libya to shed some light on the contribution of this country's medical community to the PubMed database. All publications affiliated with Libya in the PubMed were counted over a five year period ending December 2006. We also used the same method to obtain data on the PubMed medical publications from Tunisia, Morocco and Yemen. Tunisia had the largest number of PubMed publications among the studied countries: 20.4 publications per million population per year and 7.2 publications per year per one billion US$GDP. Libya had much fewer publications: 2.4 publications per million population per year and 0.4 publications per one billion US$ GDP. The citation frequency for Libyan published research was very low compared to Tunisian and Moroccan related research. Conclusion: This preliminary analysis shows that medical research output in Libya is about twenty times less than in other countries with similar backgrounds, and that it needs to be enhanced

Libyan National Health Services The Need to Move to Management-by-Objectives

In the last four decades, there has been a substantial horizontal expansion of health services in Libya. This resulted in improvement in morbidity and mortality, in particularly those related to infectious disease. However, measures such as the national performance gap indicator reveal an underperforming health system. In this article, we discuss aspects related to the Libyan health system and its current status including areas of weakness. Overcoming current failures and further improvement are unlikely to occur spontaneously without proper planning. Defining community health problems, identifying unmet needs, surveying resources to meet them, establishing SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic and time specific) objectives, and projecting administrative action to accomplish the proposed programs, are a must. The health system should rely on newer approaches such as management-by-objectives and risk-management rather than the prevailing crisis-management attitude

Honesty, accepting criticism, common goals, and team-work spirit are the basics for building working teams; Editorial

As we start the New Year, we anticipate a very productive year that will include advancement in science and increased collaboration among the members of the medical community. This editorial consists of discussion topics/points that were brought up among the members of the ljm editorial office, which we would like to share with our readers

Libyan Medical Education: Time to Move Forward

Medical education is a key factor in the progress of any country. The advancement of any nation is based in part on this type of education. Medical education world-wide has improved immensely over the past two decades, having undergone major changes. The progress of developing countries can be judged based on how they incorporate this field of education into everyday life, and how this impacts the healthcare that is provided [1,2]