Elyse C. Goncalves and Akshaya Ravi:

Harvard Medical School canceled a planned Jan. 21 lecture on wartime healthcare and a subsequent panel with patients from Gaza receiving care in Boston in response to objections that students would hear from Gazans impacted by the war and not also Israelis.

Course instructors and students were notified Tuesday morning that the events — scheduled for that evening — would not be held.

Medical School Dean George Q. Daley ’82 wrote in a Wednesday email sent to first-year students and obtained by The Crimson that his office began receiving complaints from students and faculty within days after the session was first publicized last week.

The guest lecture — by Tufts professor Barry S. Levy, who studies the public health effects of war — was an optional evening session of the Pathways 120: “Essentials of the Profession” course, a requirement for all first-year students at the Medical School and the Harvard School of Dental Medicine.

Students had organized the moderated discussion with patients and their families as a follow-up to Levy’s lecture, which was not focused specifically on Gaza.

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