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Tarik Sammour
81bc4f6b106f81d1da610d5c1522e1c9fd229ae0e52ab905fe2ccd2e846a864c
Associate Professor, University of Adelaide. Colorectal Surgeon, Royal Adelaide Hospital + Adelaide Private Surgeons

Healthcare Funding: Why we spend more and get less.

This is from my recent keynote at #tripartite2025 where we discuss why healthcare funding is failing, and how #Bitcoin fixes this.

https://youtu.be/4M-T8WVqwdo

This South Australian business has stopped using the annoying stickers on fruit, and started laser engraving their logo instead.

Great idea! 🟠

And stick with it through the often very temporary difficult times...things are much better on the other side.

25 July 2025

Open letter to the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) re the situation in Gaza.

Dear Colleagues,

As concerned members of the global medical community, we write to collectively speak out against the escalating man-made humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. The ongoing conflict has resulted in widespread violations of international law, including documented war crimes, severe violations of children’s rights, and deplorable mistreatment of healthcare workers, compelling us, as members of a profession bound by principles of humanity and justice, to speak out.

While independent journalists have been prohibited from entering Gaza, reports from reputable organizations, including the United Nations (UN), Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the International Criminal Court (ICC), provide undeniable evidence of systemic abuses. The UN has documented deliberate widespread attacks on civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and schools, constituting potential war crimes under international humanitarian law. Amnesty International has detailed the use of unlawful lethal force and the blockade of essential supplies, such as food, water, and medical aid, contributing to the humanitarian disaster. MSF has reported targeted attacks on healthcare facilities and personnel, with over 1000 health workers killed, and many others detained or harassed, severely undermining the right to healthcare.

Recent publications in The Lancet further highlight the magnitude of this crisis: A July 2024 correspondence estimated up to 186,000 deaths, including indirect deaths from disease and malnutrition, while a January 2025 study estimated 64,000 deaths from traumatic injuries alone, with approximately 60% being women, children, and the elderly. The mass displacement and concentration of 1.9 million people has only exacerbated famine and communicable disease outbreaks. First-hand accounts from surgeons, including our Australian colleagues, offer further confirmation of these distressing realities. For the past four months, blockades have severely restricted food aid from entering Gaza, resulting in widespread starvation among patients and medical professionals treating them. This dire situation, compounded by relentless mass casualty incidents at aid distribution sites—where, according to reports from Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) fellows, civilians have been deliberately targeted—has rendered it nearly impossible for medical personnel to carry out their critical duties effectively.

The ICJ has found that the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza and the occupied territories violate international law, citing policies that risk genocide. The ICC has issued arrest warrants for senior government officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, reinforcing the need for accountability. The actions of the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) violate the Geneva Conventions and betray the rights of children to safety and dignity, as enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The deliberate targeting of medical personnel and destruction of health infrastructure is an affront to our shared values as surgeons dedicated to preserving life and alleviating suffering.

We, as leaders in surgery across Australia and New Zealand, cannot remain silent in the face of such injustice. Indeed, we have a moral duty to denounce these actions and advocate for accountability. We urge the RACS and relevant surgical subspecialty societies to publicly condemn the ongoing atrocities and demand immediate protection for healthcare workers and civilians in Gaza. Our collective voice can amplify calls from the global community advocating for unfettered access for independent humanitarian organisations and journalists on the ground, the release of all hostages, and a sustained ceasefire.

Thank you for addressing this urgent matter. We trust our profession will respond with the courage and integrity that defines the practice of surgery and its commitment to our shared humanity.

Yours sincerely,

Signatories below, on behalf of concerned surgeons from Australia and New Zealand.

https://openletter.earth/open-letter-to-the-royal-australasian-college-of-surgeons-racs-re-the-situation-in-gaza-7ac5d76a

Just saw Superman and it really is awesome.

Top marks for:

1. Nostalgia factor (Christoper Reeve vibes)

2. Amazing villains (very good acting + CGI)

3. Relevance to modern day America (good + bad)

4. The awesome puppy (#kryptothesuperdog)

If you are a #Surgeon working in Australia or New Zealand, please consider signing this letter.

We have colleagues there now. They need help.

https://openletter.earth/open-letter-to-the-royal-australasian-college-of-surgeons-racs-re-the-situation-in-gaza-7ac5d76a

P.S.

I will be making the case that medicine does heal, just like housing does provide shelter, but that the current funding models are causing critical failures across both systems.

Happy to debate conspiracy theorists too! 😅

All welcome.

Join us on TribeTalk tonight!

https://x.com/i/spaces/1gqxvjaQlapxB

#DocChain #AUStriches

Public message from a colleague on another app today.

How great is this?

#docchain

I see you took the "American" out of the handle?

Is this because you identify as something else now?

Replying to Avatar Saifedean Ammous

Dr. Hisham Ammous: Life as Clinical Surgery

Sept 1, 1944 - June 6, 2025

Hisham Saifedean Rashid Ammous was born in the village of Atteel in Palestine on September 1, 1944. After finishing high school in nearby Fadiliya school in Tulkarem, he moved to Saudi Arabia to work as a school teacher, then to Kuwait to work in the electric company. Unsatisfied with his career, he decided to become a doctor, and applied for a scholarship from the Jordanian government to the University of Madrid in Spain, through the Spanish embassy in Jordan. He moved to Madrid without speaking a word of Spanish, but graduated as a surgeon with distinction in 1976. After that scholarship, he practically never needed, asked for, or took anything from anyone until his last day.

In his five decades as a surgeon, Dr. Ammous must have performed over 20,000 surgeries across Spain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Palestine, Brazil, Lebanon, and Libya. He relished his work as a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. To his profession and mission, he was the most devoutly dedicated man. He lived for surgery. Come rain, shine, snow, checkpoints, military invasions, cranky kids, genocide, or regional war, he found a way to make it to Al Makassed Hospital in Jerusalem almost every day, braving countless Israeli occupation checkpoints and dealing with the young criminals manning them and getting all of their life's meaning from the impunity they have to make the lives of innocent Palestinians hell. He became a regular traveler to wars and refugee camps to perform surgeries. He worked nonstop all day for days on end in warzones. He went to Gaza for surgeries after every Israeli mass slaughter over the years, and was desperate for the current genocide to end so he could return. His favorite 'vacation' was to visit me in Lebanon and perform dozens of free surgeries for destitute refugees.

His discipline was supernatural. He was never late for anything in his life, and was never disorganized. No matter what life threw at him, he relentlessly pursued his mission and was always prepared. His doggedness, determination, focus, and obsession will sound insane to most people, which is why most people will never perform 20,000 surgeries or do anything remotely as important with their lives. In his wake, hundreds of messages have poured in from people remembering how he helped them with his kind generosity, healed them with his skilled hands, and made them laugh with his legendary searing wit. Among the most amazing stories I heard was that he gave his patients’ families the keys to his hospital office so they could sleep in it and not have to drive through hours of checkpoints every day.

His supreme motivation in life, and the thing that gave life meaning for him, was to give his children a life better than the one he had, and he dedicated himself to it until the very end. He never ceased repeating this lesson to me, and he exemplified it every day. All his time, attention, and interests revolved around improving the lives of his children. He understood the whole of our human civilization rests on the foundation of people investing in giving their children a better life, and this was also the most profound lesson I learned from years of studying economics, and the central theme and most important lesson of my third and best book, Principles of Economics. For teaching me this lesson before I could read, that book was dedicated to him.

He is survived by his two sons, Ahmad and me, his daughter Dana, and three loving grandchildren who lit up his last ten years. Nothing can compare with the joy his grandchildren brought him. No money or accomplishment by him or me could have made him happier than my 2 year old making ever more outrageous demands for gifts as she tries to discover if there is anything he won't get her. His joy around her convinced me that the best thing you can do for your parents is to give them grandchildren. It seems offensive that life could be this simple and banal, that mere reproduction is the secret to its satisfaction, but he showed me it was true, and far from banal. We humans are wired to spend our lives seeking reproduction, and having it shape our happiness and satisfaction, because we wouldn't exist otherwise.

In my 44 years of life, I never recall seeing him bedridden with illness, and after five decades of caring for patients and children, he must have dreaded the thought of being on the receiving end of the care of others.

Dr. Ammous passed on the first day of Eid Al Adha, while taking a nap, after having called his friends and family to exchange Eid greetings. He died suddenly and immediately, and almost certainly felt nothing, and never had to suffer any serious illness or confront his impending mortality.

He lived blissfully immersed in his life's mission until its very last second. And he succeeded in it completely and perfectly. He gave his children everything they needed until they needed nothing more from him. The only consolation in his passing is that until his last minute he was strong, cheerful, healthy, sharply-dressed, and eagerly looking forward to seeing his grandchildren in a few days and giving them the many gifts he bought for them, and looking forward to vacationing this summer with his family in his beloved Madrid.

In his passing, he deprived his loving children of the chance to provide him a tiny fraction of the love and care he provided them for decades. This was a man determined to contribute more to this world than take from it, and to give his children everything. And he accomplished his life's mission clinically, like his surgeries.

Alla yir7amo.

Can #Bitcoin Cure Modern Medicine’s Sickness?

Always great to chat with the wonderful nostr:nprofile1qqs043gn588da502h36q0sffjay9m69mk28dmm805qtgzl7g6n6q0fgpp3mhxue69uhkyunz9e5k7qg4waehxw309ajkgetw9ehx7um5wghxcctwvsqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dstwv2yh!

https://youtu.be/6M0XztM6AlQ?si=EEXbfNV7cPUq2nQJ

#DocChain ANNOUNCEMENT 📣

Doctors Helping Doctors is hosting a free online educational session to discuss and answer all your Qs about #Bitcoin.

14th May 2025.

6.30pm Adelaide time (7pm Sydney time).

30mins presentation

1 hour Q&A

Zoom link released closer to the date.

The Israeli govt has killed more than 30 times the number of civilians and children as Hamas has.

They did this using US tax payer money.

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/please-compare-the-total-numbe-j2DEI3bERfWsTfpf0Sctig#0

Good haul from the 'ol backyard today!