Meet Dr. Aqsa Durrani, MSF USA's new Board President

Dr. Durrani is a physician and epidemiologist specializing in public health, pediatric emergency care, and humanitarian emergency response. She has worked in Sierra Leone, Gaza, Afghanistan, and many other places responding to conflict, natural disasters, and other crises. Her humanitarian work includes extensive frontline experience in clinical, educational, and strategic emergency response. Dr. Durrani has been an MSF USA board member since 2019.

Recently, Dr. Durrani sat down with us to talk about the places she’s been and the people she’s met along the way — and what keeps her going in the face of complex challenges. 

What brought you to MSF?  

I have been working in humanitarian aid for nearly the last two decades, but my journey to this started much earlier than that. My family experienced violent displacement when my parents were children. And that really impacted the way I saw life in the community of refugees that I grew up in, constantly surrounded by stories of families that faced perilous situations and had to confront what it meant to lose their social support system and rise above that.

I see myself in all of the communities that we work with. And I see my family, I see my parents. So it really makes this work personal for me.

So it was from a very young age that I knew that I would commit myself to working with these communities. 

What are some of the biggest challenges MSF is facing today?

Right now, MSF's work is particularly important because of the current geopolitical environment and the extraordinary circumstances that the communities where we work are facing. Things seem particularly bleak in many parts of the world right now.  

The breakdown of institutions around us has already impacted us and will continue to impact us. And that is something that causes a lot of our institutional dilemmas: how MSF can address this, and how we can advocate for a better system, because MSF is merely a part of a greater whole.

Of course, this puts a strain not just on MSF, but particularly on the communities that we work with who are already seeing the results of the global health funding cuts. But something positive that can come out of this is that we can reimagine the way we provide medical care in these communities. Local initiatives are being prioritized much more than they were before, which is really promising. 

What inspires you to keep going despite these challenges?

To me, there's no other option but to continue this work. I believe there is an obligation for us to show up for each other when we face difficult circumstances. And I really take hope from the communities we work with and the community that we have fostered within MSF. We hold our hope within people rather than institutions.

For me, working with MSF means being part of a community of people who are able to reimagine the world and what it could look like if there were dignity, if there were justice. Being able to hold hope in that community is really grounding in a time when institutions are not measuring up to what we had imagined them to be. 

How have you seen that sense of community in our work on the ground?

When I was in Gaza, I took care of a young woman who was the only woman who had not been amputated in her entire family. She was injured on her right leg and had multiple procedures before she was referred to our Doctors Without Borders hospital. She had been told that her leg could not be saved.  

My Palestinian colleagues all came together as airstrikes were happening all around us. They had multiple meetings about how they could possibly save the limb of this woman so her family had one person who could still walk. They took a multidisciplinary approach, including physical therapy, orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, mental health, and nursing.  

At the end of the day, after banding together and working together, after multiple procedures, they were able to save her leg. And she walks today.

What that meant for her family is immeasurable. But the dignity and compassion with which our staff approached the situation is remarkable. Those are the things that we sometimes can't see and can't show, but I felt it — I felt it among them and how much they took that care to heart. 

You mentioned independence. Why is MSF’s independence unique and how does it inform our work?

A lot of other large humanitarian aid organizations are government funded. And it's a unique aspect of MSF that we have supporters from all over the world, yet we are primarily private and funded by our supporters.

One of the things I've always admired about MSF is that, because we are independent, you don't have to give in or cut services based on whatever administration is in power. This independence is extremely important, especially in this time. We are able to adhere to the medical care that we believe in, which is evidence-based, and utilize our independence for good — not just in terms of the direct care we provide, but also advocating for a world in which public health is prioritized.