The Health Professional as Human Rights Promoter: Ten Years of Physicians for Human Rights (USA).

The founding of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) arose out of concern within the scientific and medical community about the human rights violations affecting their colleagues and the severe health effects of human rights violations on the general population. PHR, as a membership organization, has pioneered the field of the activist health professional in human rights, through its many missions documenting violations both of human rights and of humanitarian law; its advocacy efforts; and its educational programs. It identifies new challenges and effective strategies to protest abuses, engage governments and professional colleagues in dialogue, and support likeminded health professionals who work in situations in which their obligations to their patients are often overridden by their obligations to States that want to hide human rights violations.