Razan Baabdullah, BDS, SM, FRCDC
Assistant Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at King AbdulAziz University
Alumni Perspective
by Christina Lively
I met Razan Baabdullah, BDS, MS, FRCDC, who graduated from the first cohort of the Master of Science in Media, Medicine program in 2023. Razan is an assistant professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at King AbdulAziz University. She is a clinical researcher and an oral and maxillofacial surgeon with a passion for education and healthcare innovation. She was in Boston for a conference, and we met to talk more about her work in media, medicine, and health.
C Lively: Tell us what you've been up to since graduation.
R Baabdullah: In addition to working, one of the initial steps as an academician involved infusing paintings, elements of arts and humanities, and fundamental concepts of social medicine into my lectures and teaching. I continued to work on my master’s research on using art to teach oral cancer screening.
During either the commencement or conclusion of a lecture or session, my students and I partake in an exercise centered on visual thinking strategies using paintings and even clinical pictures. We pose very specific questions, and these questions generate a lot of interactions and palpable energy – it is really fascinating. To deliver care, we as clinicians need to connect with patients, and this connection requires empathy. I’m a firm believer that cultivating empathy is achievable through the exploration of arts and humanities. Art also enhances diagnostic and communication skills.
I’ve also collaborated with a fellow professor at HSDM, Dr. Tien Jiang, to integrate the program I created at HMS (using art to teach oral cancer screening) into the pedagogy of dental students. Her background, work, and insights have been instrumental, and together we conducted a focus group and research. Our goal is to enhance this teaching method and undertake additional trials.
Because medicine is a social science, and I’ll echo Rudolf Virchow here: 'Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale,' I felt that it is a responsibility to contribute to the discourse on social medicine, which constitutes a substantial aspect of our master's program. So, since then, I have published several written pieces (including this one on Arts and Humanities in Surgical Education) on medicine, surgery, social medicine, and, of course, art. And I just love it! ‘Writing is like scratching an itch,’ as C.S. Lewis stated, and oh boy, we have lots of itches in medicine. So, I write.
Since the panel discussion 'From Local Innovations to Global Impact: Oral Cancer Screenings and Multimedia,' organized by the Office of Global and Community Health at HSDM, I have been working with Dr. Brian Swann and Dr. Hugh Silk (both faculty at Harvard and prominent leaders in integrating oral health into health curricula and various medical practices) to integrate an oral health program into the medical curriculum, which is why I’m here on this sojourn in Boston. We just had a successful oral health program. We are focused on devising ways to make oral screening exams accessible to everyone, aiming to scale the intervention across several domains instead of following a top-down approach.
The idea for my SM-MMH capstone project came from my time in residency. I saw that many patients came in with late-stage oral cancer. The survival rate really drops (from 86.6% for stages I and II to 69.1 and 39.3% for stages III and IV, according to SEER) as the cancer advances, so it is much better to screen people and catch signs early.
The old me would think ‘we need to do better in teaching patients more about oral cancer. We need more campaigns. Patients need to come to see their dentists regularly to get that screening done.’ But, that has changed since I joined the MMH program. I'm in the field of education, so teaching is something I enjoy and contemplate a lot. However, sometimes we find ourselves teaching patients when the system is not ready to screen those patients. At times, we focus on the wrong end. We may place excessive emphasis on patients' agency while overlooking other factors at play—some inherent obstacles in the system. While we've gained insights into health promotion theories, health behaviors, and health campaigns, which indeed proved effective, it is essential to first address the problem accurately.
That helped me look at the conundrum through very different lenses. In the course on Global Health: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Cares, Dr. Joia Mukherjee’s lectures, for example, made me realize we cannot just blame patients. Now this may seem obvious, but we discussed many case studies revealing that lots of the campaigns and reputable public health education are tailored to this very concept. I learned that we have an issue with access to health care, that there are many barriers for patients to getting care and that patients’ late presentation is just the tip of the iceberg. It is a consequence of a multifaceted problem. So, we have to put our fingers on the problem to be able to solve it.
It's just like in clinical medicine: you have to diagnose properly to be able to treat the cause of the medical problem, not just the symptoms. But before you do so, you need to examine the patient, run some tests, or do some procedures. In global health and social medicine, you also must learn how to ask the right questions to understand the root cause of the problem you are trying to solve.
In my research, I had to ask the following questions: Who presents with advanced oral cancer? Who has access to oral cancer screening, and who doesn't, and why? What precludes them from that? What are the barriers? Is it a knowledge gap on the dentist's part or the PHP's part? Is it disparity and racism perpetuated by healthcare providers? Is it an issue with guidelines and the ways in which they are set and implemented? Is it a policy-related issue? Are there disparities related to risk factors, with some groups having more exposure to risk factors and others suffering from slower access to healthcare or lack thereof?
All of these questions required extensive research and meetings with stakeholders and policymakers. Posing the right questions to solve global health problems is something that the program empowered me with because if you know how to diagnose a global health problem, you can apply that skill to solve many other global health problems.
C Lively: Please tell us more about your capstone project.
R Baabdullah: My master’s project is a self-paced, online virtual museum experience that teaches oral cancer screening. It can also be experienced in a small group with facilitation. You enter the main gallery, and you encounter six paintings. You click on a painting, and you hear a narrative about the figures in the painting. Well, you go inside a 3D painting, and you start interacting and responding to prompts. Those narratives have been written insofar as to tell a story about oral cancer. I worked with Dr. Marty Zeve (SM-MMH faculty) to incorporate elements of social medicine into the pieces. These narratives aim to evoke and foster empathy towards a person we examine holistically rather than just look at a dry and isolated clinical scenario. Stories were used to illustrate the social forces at work and understand complex social medicine concepts.
We want to teach critical thinking strategies that also aid clinicians in developing their observation skills. These competencies can help them screen patients and decide when to run additional tests or when to refer patients.
The program aims to enhance observation skills, delve into social medicine concepts, explore disparities in oral cancer, critically examine biases, gain insights into oral cancer, its signs, symptoms, premalignant lesions, and risk factors, and recognize the learner's crucial role in down-staging the disease, and then proceed to learn about the steps of oral cancer screening.
A Knowledge, Attitudes Practice (KAP) approach has been employed to structure the learning experience, which is supported by data regarding the KAPs of dentists and primary healthcare providers in oral cancer screening. The use of artwork is grounded in evidence and that is the PRISM model, which provides a framework with four epistemic functions to design a curriculum around mastering skills, perspective taking, personal insight and social advocacy.
The great thing about art is that it taps into emotions and addresses soft skills and sensitive topics, such as empathy, disparities, and socioeconomic status. And on top of that, it’s a cultural experience, and it’s so much fun. It alleviates the pressure of a traditional classroom and the weightiness of the topic.
What is so exciting is that there's a vast opportunity for improvement and iterative processes. Conducting trials, fostering collaborations with regulatory bodies, incentivizing this teaching program for healthcare professionals (who could receive continuing education credits), and further training healthcare providers utilizing this teaching program to screen for oral cancer to create more entry points for patients. Also, the AAMC has a dedicated section to the integration of arts and humanities into medical education, and that offers a wealth of research opportunities.
C Lively: What made you decide to apply to the Master of Science in Media Medicine and Health program?
R Baabdullah: So, before beginning my residency, I started a project called Oral and Maxillofacial Medicine and Surgery Society. Part of the project’s activities included public education around topics in oral surgery like implants, and oral cancer prevention through screening, maxillofacial trauma, etc. My goal was to create an evidence-based platform for the general public, but when I started residency, this project took a back seat.
And then, during my last year of residency, I came across the Master of Sciences in Media, Medicine and Health program, and then I was like, “Wow. It was as if this program was made for me because of the unfinished business.”
I've always thought that as healthcare providers, we have an obligation towards our patients and also towards the people that we teach, like our residents, and our students. The media has shaped our past and is certainly the way of the future, so it is good to incorporate media into education. You want to be sage when it comes to using the media.
Also, during residency, we learn a ton about the surgical part and the management part, as well as cutting-edge technology and the latest guidelines on how to manage diseases, so we become very proficient at that. However, I haven't thought or contemplated the ways in which we can socialize medicine, what it means to detect any disease at early stages or even before they start. We are so busy treating. I feel that engaging in health education and promotion is the responsibility of most if not all, healthcare providers.
The Media, Medicine and Health program encompasses layers of information that you have to understand about health. Anyone can simply film a video and talk about oral cancer, for example, or really any disease, but if you do not understand how to get to the root causes of the problem and analyze the issues surrounding it, then you are just creating another video on YouTube.
There’s also the Paul Farmer way [Paul was a physician, scholar, and advocate for health in resource-poor settings. Read more] of understanding global health challenges through concepts such as ‘accompaniment’ and ‘preferential option for the poor.’ If you practice global health and social medicine in areas where resources are scarce, you get to create media projects with that knowledge in mind. This is puissant, because regardless of your geographical location, when confronted with a health epidemic or issue, you acquire the savoir-faire to diagnose the problem on medical, social, political, and economical levels, then collaborate with stakeholders, and customize the treatment accordingly.
C Lively: What surprised you the most about the program?
R Baabdullah: One thing that surprised me was how eclectic my cohort group was. Some people came with a health background and others more from the art/creative world with an interest in health.
I thought, “Oh, wow, that's so neat. Everyone has a niche of their own and they're so good at the things that they do. “
It really was an eye-opening experience for me to learn about diverse pursuits that folks are engaged in, especially in spheres other than medicine.
As I mentioned earlier, the global health and social medicine component truly drew me to the program. You learn about cool media modalities; it certainly equips you with the tools needed to execute a media project and imparts insights into storytelling. But it also helps you make your message more potent and impactful, in my opinion, because you learn about medical anthropology, social medicine, and global health. You have the opportunity to research the preventive aspects of the equation, barriers to prevention and access, the implications of political economy, blind spots, biopower, engage in biosocial analysis, social theories, and understand the ramifications, both intended and unintended, of certain health guidelines and policies.
An enriching aspect of the experience lies in the opportunity to glean insights from distinguished figures in the field: Dr. Arthur Kleinman, Dr. Ann Becker, Dr. Salmaan Keshavjee, Dr. Jason Silverstein, and Dr. Marty Zeve. You acquire insights from specialized physicians on how to engage in the medical specialty of your passion, with a focus on fundamental principles, such as care, the true essence of public health, and the integration of medicine into the social fabric.
C Lively: What advice would you give for current or prospective students?
R Baabdullah: I think one of the most crucial aspects is to leverage the resources provided by the SM-MMH program and by Harvard. But also the resources extend beyond material things and include the people around you, so foster relationships with these great minds. I remember faculty member Dr. Suzanne Koven (Associate Professor of Medicine and Lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine) saying on the first day of class, “Look around. The people sitting next to you, those are your allies in the years ahead.” These individuals have already demonstrated great qualities and compassion from day one, exuding inspiration and genuine eagerness to assist and help, and to this day they continue to support and cheer for one another.
People are also exceptionally generous with their time. I spent plenty of sessions with Christine O’Malley (American film producer and documentary filmmaker) and Dr. Gaël McGill (faculty and Director of Molecular Visualization at the Center for Molecular and Cellular Dynamics at Harvard Medical School, and founder and CEO of Digizyme) presenting my project and asking questions about the best possible ways to create a learning experience that is both pleasant and effective in communication, getting my message across, and designing a layout that is intuitive for the user.
The second thing is to really explore your interests. Dr. Neal Bear [Neal Baer, the program co-director) said that the first semester of the program is about exploration. This allowed me to go beyond just working on an education project and to delve into these different areas and experiment with different mediums. We learned about design thinking, solution journalism, writing op-eds, health-source hacking, video editing and documentary filmmaking, motion graphics, visual narrative, graphics and comics, plays, VR, and other media. So, allow yourself to get exposed to all the different types of media and see which ones align best for the work that you're doing.
I took a course called Training The Eyes with Dr. Joel Katz. And another one at MIT called Extending the Museum and using it as an educational space. These classes were just phenomenal because we spent days upon days in museums surrounded by art and crafting stories to communicate science. So, really, you want to harness this exploratory mindset, and this place is a great way to do it.
As a surgeon, you are trained to always have a plan, and you also always want to have a backup plan. You visualize every step before making an incision. In the class on Illness Narratives, Dr. Suzanne Koven said, “In your first draft, you don't have to worry or think about the end or what the piece is really about - just write.” And I have written a lot before that class but have always written in the same manner I cut. So, that advice was a nice change of rhythm. At 641 Huntington Ave., I found that time was carved out to explore and create space for creativity, alongside long, long nights dedicated to turning in assignments and group studying.
And I will conclude with what Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” So, explore, examine, and venture out and just like that, you will learn what best resonates with you and what doesn’t.
C Lively: Thank you for speaking with me today.
R Baabdullah: Thank you.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Learn more about the Master of Science in Media, Medicine and Health degree program.
