In an inspiring move to bridge linguistic and educational gaps in healthcare, Osmosis from Elsevier, a leading platform for medical education, has teamed up with Chain of Education, a global social enterprise focused on equitable learning opportunities.
Using the Amara.org platform, volunteer health professional students from Chain of Education are translating select health education videos from Osmosis’ extensive library into multiple languages.
Led by Dr. Amin Azzam, MD, MA, Health Professions Education Consultant to Osmosis from Elsevier, Psychiatrist, and Professor at University of California Berkeley School of Public Health and University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, and Mohammad Kabakibi, Founder and Executive Director of Chain of Education, this collaboration aims to significantly broaden accessibility for students worldwide.
Mohammad Kabakibi:
“I like to think of this brilliant trio partnership as an actual chain of education, whereby healthcare students and professionals who can caption in Arabic would help those who need it. Thus, I feel it is a supply chain of education and competencies. This is also helping us advance knowledge as it is more of a health literacy intervention. How wonderful it feels when we use our science and healthcare knowledge to solve social problems and shape positive impact. What our healthcare people are doing aligns well with the Hippocratic Oath ‘… do good, do no harm …’ Osmosis from Eslevier is such a noble platform that is helping us make this impact. We cannot thank Amara.org enough for making things incredibly easy on our busy healthcare students and professionals who contribute their time to this project. I strongly recommend Amara.org for such projects. Such an agile and easy-to-use platform :)
Dr. Azzam, some healthcare students, and I have launched a research project about this public health intervention. We’ve been expanding our footprint in multiple conferences in the United States, including the University of California San Francisco 2024 ATXpo conference and 2023 University of California San Francisco School of Medicine Education Showcase conference. We want more people to learn about this and hopefully inspire them to reduce barriers in their own ways. We are also working on other research dissemination relevant to our intervention. For example, we are currently conducting a study evaluating the impact of these captions on the students who are doing the captioning. We hope to evaluate the impact on viewers of the captions in a future study. At Chain of Education, on an individual level, we launched another intervention, a research cohort to train those who are having barriers and access to learn research and I can’t not associate both interventions, as our journey to reducing barriers in healthcare initially started with our partnership with Osmosis from Elsevier and Amara.org and now it’s flourishing to many interventions, like the research cohort and another mental health stigma reduction in Middle East countries, to name a few!”
For Osmosis and Chain of Education, this is more than a project—it’s a mission to ensure that no student’s potential is left untapped due to language limitations. This is a public health intervention that is providing tremendous benefit to our healthcare community. To heal with all skills and competencies! For Amara.org, it’s another step towards improving how educational platforms approach accessibility.
Addressing Language Barriers in Medical Education
This initiative is an expansion on the collaboration between Osmosis and Chain of Education during Syria’s civil war: Syria’s medical students volunteered to translate Osmosis videos into Arabic, and in return, all medical students in Syria received free access to Osmosis videos. Building on this successful approach, volunteers who contribute to translations on the Osmosis/Chain of Education Collaboration team on Amara.org receive free access to an Osmosis subscription.
By making health professions education multilingual, Osmosis and Chain of Education are tapping into a critical need: equitable access to learning. This effort will enable students, patients, and family members – especially those in underrepresented and resource-limited regions – to better understand and retain complex topics such as anatomy, pharmacology, and clinical skills.
A Focus on Impact
The Osmosis/Chain of Education Collaboration team on Amara.org is initially prioritizing Arabic, Portuguese (Brazilian), and French, with plans to expand to other languages over time.
The team has grown to over 70 members, with more than 120 videos translated into Arabic alone.
This partnership is a testament to the power of collaboration in addressing systemic challenges in education and healthcare. By uniting their strengths, Osmosis by Elsevier and Chain of Education are not only breaking down language barriers but also inspiring a more inclusive and well-prepared global medical workforce.
Mohammad Kabakibi adds:
“Shoutouts to Professor Azzam for his tremendous support and mentorship on this project, Shiv Gaglani, Osmosis from Elsevier Co-Founder & CEO and Caleb Furnas from Osmosis for their brilliant support towards our students, Dr. Yara Shhab for her constant efforts in reducing healthcare barriers with us, Erin O’Driscoll from Amara.org who facilitated the logistics and made our captioning seamlessly easy, Elie, Dr. Mohammad Homsi and Firas Jaber for their beautiful administrative efforts, Perla Nafeh for her research efforts, and the amazing 50+ healthcare professionals and students that make our mission in reducing barriers in healthcare education a reality. This is an inspiring team from multiple countries with resilient individuals, who have been always doing good to our healthcare community. Thank you!”
Looking Ahead
Through initiatives like these, the future of medical education looks more inclusive and innovative than ever. Together, Amara.org, Osmosis from Elsevier and Chain of Education are proving that learning and healthcare knows no borders. We need your help! If you are a healthcare student or professional who’d like to contribute, you can apply on the Osmosis/Chain of Education Collaboration team page on Amara.org, or reach out to chainofeducation@gmail.com.
Article by Erin O’Driscoll.
