James Orbinski

It also explores the political context for medical humanitarianism and some of the challenges for humanitarianism in the 21st century.

James Jude Orbinski (born 1960 in England) is a Canadian physician, humanitarian activist, author and leading scholar in global health.

Orbinski attended Dawson CEGEP in Montreal, received a bachelor's degree in psychology from Trent University (1984), a medical degree from McMaster University Medical School (1990), and a master's degree in international relations from the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies (1998).

Following medical school, Orbinski held a Medical Research Council of Canada fellowship to study pediatric HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa.

In 1991, he began working internationally with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

After his first mission in Peru, Orbinski served as MSF's Medical Coordinator in Baidoa during the Somali Civil War and famine of 1992–93, and in Jalalabad, Afghanistan during the winter of 1994.

He was subsequently MSF's Head of Mission in Kigali during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, and in Goma, Zaire during the refugee crisis in 1996–97.

After extensive fieldwork with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), in 1998 Orbinski was elected President of the International Council.

In 1998, Orbinski received the Governor General's Meritorious Service Cross for his work as the MSF Head of Mission during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Orbinski was elected President of the International Council of MSF from 1998 to 2001.

As international president of MSF, he represented the organization in numerous humanitarian emergencies and on critical humanitarian issues including in the Sudan, Kosovo, Russia, Cambodia, South Africa, India and Thailand, among others.

Orbinski also represented MSF at the UN Security Council, in many national parliaments, to the World Health Organization, as well as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

He was MSF International Council president at the time the organization received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

Orbinski is also co-founder and chair of the Board of Directors of Dignitas International, a medical humanitarian organization researching and working with communities in the global south to increase access to life-saving treatment and prevention in areas overwhelmed by HIV/AIDS, and with Aboriginal communities in Canada to improve community-based care for diseases such as diabetes.

He is a strong advocate for increasing access to essential medicines for neglected diseases, particularly across vulnerable populations.

He accepted the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to MSF for its pioneering approach to medical humanitarianism, and most especially for its approach to bearing witness.

As MSF International Council president, he allocated the Nobel Prize money to launch MSF's Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines that year.

On September 11, 2001, Orbinski was in Lower Manhattan to present at a UN meeting on Neglected Tropical Diseases.

He witnessed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and participated in relief efforts for injured people ferried across the Hudson River.

From 2001 to 2004, Orbinski co-chaired MSF's Neglected Diseases Working Group, which created and launched the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi).

The DNDi is a global not-for-profit research consortium focused on developing treatments for tropical diseases of the developing world that are largely neglected by profit-driven research and development companies.

Since its inception, the DNDi has engaged in international advocacy for neglected tropical diseases, and developed and disseminated two antimalarial treatments, one new treatment against sleeping sickness, one new treatment against Visceral leishmaniasis, a set of treatments for Visceral leishmaniasis in Asia, and a pediatric dosage formulation for Chagas Disease.

These new drugs are now available to millions of people.

DNDi also has a development portfolio of over 30 lead compounds targeting neglected diseases.

Another 2002 paper in The Lancet that he co-authored analyzing the lack of research for neglected diseases has been recognized as "one of the most important scholarly articles that shaped scholarship in the field of global health in the post Second World War years."

In 2004, Orbinski became a research scientist at St. Michael's Hospital and professor of both medicine and political science at the University of Toronto.

The medical journal The Lancet recognized one of his co-authored papers on HIV/AIDS treatment adherence as among the 20 most significant medical research papers of that year (2006).

Orbinski's best-selling 2008 book, 'An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the 21st Century', recounts his experiences as a physician working for MSF throughout the 1990s, including a "harrowing personal account" as MSF Chief of Mission in Rwanda during the genocide.

It was also one of five books nominated for the 2008 Canadian Governor General's Literary Award in non-fiction and was selected as one of National Public Radio's 2008 Top Five Political & Current Affairs Books.

In 2009, Orbinski became an Officer of the Order of Canada and in the citation was recognized by the Governor General of Canada as a humanitarian practitioner and advocate for those who have been silenced by war, genocide and mass starvation.

He lives in Guelph, Canada with his wife and their three children.

'An Imperfect Offering' has been translated into five languages and has won the Writers' Trust of Canada's 2009 Shaughnessy Cohen Award for best political writing in Canada.

Orbinski was promoted to full Professor of Medicine in 2010 at the University of Toronto.

He was previously the CIGI Chair in Global Health Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs and Wilfrid Laurier University (2012-2017), Chair of Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (2010-2012) and full professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto (2003-2012), where he was the founding Saul Rae Fellow at Massey College.

Orbinski's current research interests focus on the health impacts of climate change, medical humanitarianism, intervention strategies around emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, and global health governance.

From 2012 to 2017, he was CIGI Research Chair in Global Health at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, and Professor of International Policy and Governance at the Wilfrid Laurier University.

Orbinski was the 2016-2017 Fulbright visiting professor on Health at University of California, Irvine.

Orbinski was the 2016-17 Fulbright visiting professor at the University of California, Irvine, and as of September 1, 2017, he is professor and inaugural director of the Dahdaleh Institute of Global Health Research at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

As of September 1, 2017, he is professor and inaugural director of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research at York University, in Toronto, Canada.

He remains closely associated with the University of Toronto, as founding Saul Rae Fellow at Massey College, Senior Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, and as Professor of Medicine at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.