QU’s College of Medicine participates in the International Olympic Committee World Conference

The 7th International Olympic Committee (IOC) World Conference on Prevention of Injury and Illness in Sport was held in Monaco from February 29 to March 2, 2024. The IOC World Conference on Prevention of Injury and Illness in Sport is the premier international conference for those interested in clinical aspects of sports and exercise medicine. The symposium was open to 5000 attendees from around the world, including diverse faculty representing the pre-eminent international authorities in injury and illness prevention. This triennial conference scheduled ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics provides a unique opportunity for the global sport and exercise medicine community to meet face-to-face in the ideal environment that Monaco provides. Among the honorable guests visiting the conference were HH Prince Albert II of Monaco, and HH Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al-Thani, President of the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC), and First Vice President of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC), who participated in the meeting of the 141st International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session.

Yosra Magdi Mekki, a fifth-year medical student at Qatar University (QU), in collaboration with Aspetar Orthopedic and Sports Medicine Hospital, presented a 90-minute symposium on "Friend or foe? The role of Artificial Intelligence in the quest to protect athletes' health and prevent injury and illness". It is worth noting that the IOC only accepted 10% of the 400 proposals under its state-of-the-art symposium' category. Yosra spoke about wearing two hats as a researcher who combines her medical training from QU with expertise in developing machine learning and extended reality solutions for healthcare. She also presented her latest single-author article published for Cell, titled 'Physicians should build their own machine learning models'. Cell Patterns has seen contributions from the likes of Andrew Ng at Stanford, often known as the 'father of Artificial Intelligence'.

Yosra Mekki expressed her pride in her achievement stating, "It is an absolute honor to represent Qatar and my university on such an internationally prestigious platform. I was happy to learn at the conference that over the 21 years it has been running, very few medical schools and medical students participated. It is a privilege to collaborate with Aspetar, a leading sports medicine institution, as a future doctor interested in the field. QU's research support and mentorship emphasis played a huge role in sharpening my programming and computational research skills, alongside my medical school load. I would highly recommend it for physicians who come from multidisciplinary backgrounds."

Dr. Susu Zughaier, Associate Professor at the Department of Microbiology, College of Medicine at QU, summed up her journey of supervising Yosra's research saying, "Guiding Yosra Magdi Mekki from the beginning of her medical journey has been akin to cultivating a remarkable gift." Dr. Zughaier also added, "Yosra embodies the essence of a clinical engineer with her profound dedication to medicine and expertise in computer science. What sets her apart is her pivotal role in the advancement of AI in the field of healthcare." She also revealed that it was this nurturing of her unique talents that brought her to prominent international stages.

It is worth noting that both Dr. Susu Zughaier and Yosra Magdi Mekki are heavily involved in leading the national Qatar AI and XR in Healthcare Interest Group at QU.

In this context, Dr. Khalid Bashir, Head of Clinical Academic Sciences Department at the College of Medicine, QU, shared, "Yosra has not only excelled in her studies this year but has also enlightened faculty members on the application of AI in medical education. As a direct result, I have integrated AI into our teaching methodologies for the year 6 clerkship and intend to employ it in the final OSCE assessment."

Dr. Paul Dijkstra, Head of Medical Education at Aspetar, commented, "We feel honored to have been part of the diverse invited faculty from all over the world, representing the pre-eminent international authorities in injury and illness prevention. We are especially thrilled to, for the first time ever, present a symposium on "The role of AI to protect athletes' health and prevent injury and illness." I chaired this symposium that involved faculty from Aspetar; Dr. Pieter D'Hooge, Chief Medical Officer; Professor Marco Cardinale, Director of Research; Mr. Bart De Witte, the founding CEO of Hippo AI Foundation; and QU medical student, Ms. Yosra Mekki. Dr. Djikstra also added, "Based on the excitement in the room and feedback, this symposium laid the foundation for AI in the field and spotlighted important areas, including ethics, open source, leadership, and authentic collaboration, which will open the doors for the medicine and medical community to focus on and develop."