Sondra Crosby is an American
medical doctor
A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis ...
and Professor of Medicine at
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...
, specializing in
internal medicine
Internal medicine, also known as general medicine in Commonwealth nations, is a medical specialty for medical doctors focused on the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases in adults. Its namesake stems from "treatment of diseases of ...
.
She is also a faculty member of the Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights department at the Boston University School of Public Health.
Crosby is notable for being one of the first doctors allowed to travel to
Guantanamo to independently examine Guantanamo captives.
Crosby is notable for serving as the director of medical care at the
Boston Center for Refugee Health and Human Rights.
[
]
She examined over 300 torture victims at the Center.
Crosby is one of the authors of ''
Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by the US'', published by
Physicians for Human Rights
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a US-based not-for-profit human rights NGO that uses medicine and science to document and advocate against mass atrocities and severe human rights violations around the world. PHR headquarters are in New Y ...
.
[
]
According to Physicians for Human Rights Crosby has ''"written over 200 affidavits documenting medical and psychological sequelae of torture."''
In October 2009 Crosby submitted an affidavit following her examination of
Guantanamo's longest term
hunger striker,
Abdul Rahman Shalabi.
[
She stated that if he didn't receive more calories he would die.
Crosby was one of the first doctors outside the DoD who was allowed to examine Guantanamo captives.
In October 2012 Crosby wrote a letter about Tariq al-Sawah's medical condition to camp authorities.][
]
Crosby had examined al-Sawah on two occasions and described him as morbidly obese
Obesity is a risk factor for many chronic physical and mental illnesses.
The health effects of being overweight but not obese are controversial, with some studies showing that the mortality rate for individuals who are classified as overweight ( ...
, and laid out a treatment plan. His lawyer, Lieutenant Colonel Sean Gleason, said in March 2013 that camp authorities had declined to treat al-Sawah, and wouldn't even release his medical records.
In January 2018, Crosby traveled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London to examine Julian Assange. Assange's lawyers sent Crosby's medical assessment of Assange to Nils Melzer, the , who was critical of the treatment of Assange by the media and governments of the UK, Sweden and the US.
Honors and awards
* The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award, presented by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, 2008.
References
External links
Video - Sondra Crosby, MD
at Broken Laws, Broken Lives
Doctors Blast Guantanamo Treatment as Unethical
Truthout
Truthout is an American Nonprofit organization, non-profit Progressivism in the United States, progressive news organization which describes itself as "dedicated to providing independent reporting and commentary on a diverse range of social just ...
1 August 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crosby, Sondra
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Boston University faculty
Place of birth missing (living people)