YAY we’ve all arrived safe and sound Our…

YAY we’ve all arrived safe and sound!

Our delegates are as follows:

SCOPH (Standing Committee on Public Health): Alex Elliott-Green, Beth Hall, Katie Evans (Marrow), Jonathon Gaughran (Marrow)

SCORA (Standing Committee on Reproductive Health and AIDs): Anya Gopfert, Hussein Mohamedbhai

SCOME (Standing Committee on Medical Education): LJ Hughes, Mark Sherlock

SCOPE: (Standing Committee on Professional Exchanges) Charley Peal, Alex Norway

SCORP (Standing Committee on Human Rights and Peace): Charlie Grain

Presidents’ Workshop: Elly Pillavachi

With the entire Medsin-UK delegation now in Jakarta, spirits are high and everyone is feeling bright eyed and bushy tailed in anticipation of the unbelievably exciting 5 days that are to follow. We as a 12 member crew could not be more thrilled to be attending this year’s “Health Equity and Disparity (within MDGs)” themed General Assembly, where we hope to gain a deeper knowledge, exchange ideas with fellow students from over 70 countries and as a body of passionate medical students, move one step closer in becoming a generation of doctors that lead the way in global health.

Last night’s opening ceremony ushered in what is to be a wonderful General Assembly, with a display of Indonesia’s cultural dances and music.7.30am of course came all too early, but our jetlagged grogginess was soon obliterated by the bubbling anticipation to attend our Standing Committees.

SCOME (Standing Committee on Medical Education):

With the celebration of MM11 Opening Ceremony eating well into the night, only a few hours sleep were snatched, but a delightful Indonesian breakfast well and truly compensated. Mark and I (LJ) trotted off to our first ever Standing Committee on Medical Education. Introductions to the group and a series of energizers kick started our SCOME experience and a brief overview of what was to come in the next few days was presented. In groups of 5 we discussed the role of students in medical education, commenting on the context and levels of involvement we as students should have in medical education, how we can keep motivated and the potential impact we aim to elicit on completion of our SCOME sessions.

SCOPH (Standing Committee of Public Health)

Today was a hugely exciting day, in the SCOPH session. The theme of the session may seem mundane at first glance developing a Strategy Plan for SCOPH. True, at first doesn’t sound that exciting however this was a great development with the standing committee and it is the first step to making their activities sustainable.

After initial introduction and energizers, we worked on an issue map of the themes and this was led by the UK delegation facilitated by me, Alex Elliott-Green, who discussed sustainable campaigning and the other by Jonathan Gaughran on collaboration and support of activities. The other delegates had so many insightful comments and together we contributed the first steps to developing this strategic plan.

We left the session motivated and enthused after meeting loads of amazing people and being introduced to new ideas and we are all looking forward to tomorrow in which we are all facilitating small working groups on 1) International Advocacy, 2) Pharmaware and 3) Sustainability in Activities. These small working groups feed directly into our objects.

The social activity on schedule was an Indonesian Cultural Night, displaying any array of the impressive multicultural talents we have at this GA. We all let our hair down and celebrated the closure of day 1 with our new friends!

The future of advocacy and positive change in the IFMSA?

The future of advocacy and positive change in the IFMSA

Friday 13th August, 2010

One week after the conference comes to a halt, Jonny writes of just some of the progressive choices made by IFMSA members at the August Meeting 2010 conference, and of the choices available to students around the world to mobilise behind a platform for global health advocacy.

Few words can do justice to the experience of an IFMSA GA experience – exhilarating, exciting, challenging, an assault on all the senses, dynamic and empowering – this conference proved to be all this and more!

As my fourth and possibly last GA though, I can see what I believe to be a new trend spreading across the global network of students: people are talking about it, they are anxiously debating it, many are excited about its prospects.

What is this new thing?

It’s called advocacy, and actually, well, it’s not new to the IFMSA at all.

I want to share a story of how the IFMSA can and even arguably is spreading progressive practices around the world, and of how we now stand at a defining crossroads towards a new future in medical student activism.  It is a story of pressure, of collective engagement, and of how students in all countries can be armed with the tools and the motivation to fight for justice in global health.

Before this year I was Campaigns Director for Medsin-UK, a role I relished in being able to support a range of campaign groups and actions around the UK.  I looked on with awe, as friends and others around me rose to a range of challenges and lobbied, marched and mobilised in a will to change health policies in the UK and abroad.

When it came to the IFMSA however, I no longer felt as comfortable as I was campaigning back home.  Attitudes to advocacy ranged from a hesitation to become ‘political’ to an impression that it had no place in a health professional’s toolkit for improving patient or community health.  Then there was the layout of the General Assembly itself. With so many parallel sessions, committees, positions, events, promotion opportunities and more to tactically move between and delve into, how were we to have an influence amidst a whole variety of other people trying hard to promote their own cause?

At various points, I struggled to see any way in to influence this great behemoth organisation of 1.2 million medical students.  Challenging such an inert body to change its policies seemed tough, and somewhat detached from my remit of delivering campaign actions to Medsin branches around the UK.

In short, I wondered whether my input was making any difference.

Now of course we have overcome this feeling of apathy before, right? How many of us have encountered a disempowered student in need of all the enthusiasm and solidarity our Medsin network can provide them?  So of course, I and others on our Campaigns Team did what we could, and put together some ideas for how we could champion Medsin-UK campaigns, and promote advocacy at all levels in the IFMSA.

So on I went to my first IFMSA conference in Tunisia, the March Meeting 2009.  We travelled with the hope of promoting campaigns on climate change and health, strengthening health systems, and promoting water and sanitation for all.  Our energies were dispirited when we became embroiled in debates on pharmaceutical funding in the IFMSA, an issue Medsin has strong policy on yet not our core issue of the conference.  Our plans may have not been perfect, but we tried hard to promote other countries joining in calling for policy change in these and other areas.

I was reminded this month at the GA in Canada of an intriguing story of my 1st GA, by a friend I met at the March Meeting in Tunisia that year.  His name is Unni Gopinathan, a medical student from Norway, who has in fact recently been elected as an IFMSA official for the next year.  Unni told a story of how he became involved in climate change campaigning, of how he and others walked up to a Medsin-UK stall and were confronted by this picture:

Healthy Planet poster on show at March Meeting 2009 Project Fair. Credit: Mustafa Abbas, Healthy Planet Coordinator

Unni and others were immediately taken aback, climate change, a health issue?  Sure enough, several prominent voices in the health and medical profession had given their backing to such a statement.  Having looked for a campaign issue for some time, several of the Norwegians returned home to plan out how they could mobilise behind this campaign in advance of the Copenhagen climate change meeting in December.

Unni’s story, of how one encounter can yield a multiplication of actions, and of how a new campaign was created (“Klima=health” – only later did it dawn on me that “klima” means climate!) seemed to me to testify to the opportunities in global movements such as the IFMSA.  In only a space of weeks, the Norwegian medical student group was able to rally supporters through petitions, talks, and online campaigning, before they captured the attention of the Minister of Environmental and International Development himself and were given the opportunity to meet with him.

Norwegian medical students meet Erik Solheim, Minister for Environmental and International Development, to discuss Climate Change and Health in advance of the COP15 UN Climate Change negotiations.

The Norwegian Medical Student Association, in tandem with a whole range of other medical student groups, were pivotal in the IFMSA’s attendance and arguably step forward to engage with the UN Climate Change conference.  We were there as well, if any of you happen to remember reading our Medsin@COP highlights and experiences.  This story I feel is significant if we understand change can take a long time in coming, but when sold in a way that people can relate to can suddenly, dramatically and sometimes even immediately snowball to the extent that enthusiasm & passion for a new order are demanded.

Medsin members mobilise in support of the IFMSA delegation at the UNFCCC COP15 conference, Copenhagen, December 2009.  Credit: James Chan.

Reaching a consensus on an issue, or achieving unanimous support for a new direction in any organisation requires hard work, a vision for what that new direction can bring to the organisation, and a chartered course of how these dreams can be embedded in the organisation’s culture and system.  Medsin-UK has tirelessly campaigned for years for global health & campaigning to be available to students around the world, and has made great headway in supporting the vision of the IFMSA as a world-class platform in medical student representation, community development, and global health education & advocacy, and the fruits today are now self-evident.

But something tells me a new fire and passion has been lit, and that IFMSA members have a new found appetite for advocacy in their own countries, all the way up to the global level by the IFMSA leadership.

There were so many highlights for me personally at this GA in particular: watching as new countries stood to rapturous applause as they jubilantly thanked everyone for their acceptance into the IFMSA (Argentina particularly!), delivering a 3-day training workshop on climate change, health and advocacy and seeing over 20 students leave the workshop determined to use their voice for positive change, supporting a UK delegation of some of the country’s most inspired and inspiring student leaders in promoting Medsin-UK’s work, and supporting the work of others around the world throughout the GA, listening to Professor Ronald Labonte affirming the socioeconomic, political and underlying conditions that shape health, and of the need for physician advocates to engage with the political process to improve patient & community health in his key note speech one evening, listening to the new Executive Board of the IFMSA placing Policy and Advocacy at the centre of its strategic plan for the year after a series of discussions throughout this year, ABOVE ALL meeting so many people passionate about health improvement, determined to work hard and build connections with others around the world, and returning to their country with a new found enthusiasm for their activities.

There are a whole host of things the IFMSA already does, and can with the right mix of passion and collective will improve in future.  In advocacy though, our medical student federation has proved it can rise to a challenge.  Out of an exhilarating week of discussion and debate, we have proved there to be both demand and support behind advocacy as a tool to improve health, and to shaping the education structures that train and graduate medical students.  The choice now facing our friends, compatriots and colleagues in now over 100 countries is how it can build on this enthusiasm, and transform the IFMSA into the world’s largest, most progressive network of students, representing all cultures and countries, ultimately making itself known to all as a champion for a fair, just and more healthy world.

The world and students worldwide shall watch on with hope this year, as this once far-fetched dream will over the coming months I believe be made a reality.

Jonny Currie

Medsin-UK National Coordinator 2009/2010

Day 4: Party in the Plenary: Global Medical Students take on the world, their way!

Students sharing ideas and inspiration at the Projects Fair, where medical student organisations around the world display their local projects, many of which are community action projects promoting health and tackling health inequalities.

What an incredible atmosphere – after days of candidate presentations, deliberations, and heavy campaigning from all sides, the doors to the Plenary room are locked, and 600 medical students from nearly 60 different countries party (as only medics know how) while the votes are counted for the Team of Officials of the IFMSA at the 59^th General Assembly in Montreal, Quebec.

The energy in this GA seems endless. Although officially we’re only 4 days in, to everyone here it’s more like a week: with workshops starting at 8.30, and plenaries running till 3am – then partying the rest of the night until the next day’s work begins – sleep is a distant memory. In this intense atmosphere, friendships that span the world are forged, and a new generation of medical students with a truly global perspective marches on towards a brighter future.

Yesterday, despite a particularly sociable evening at the National Food and Drink Party the night before, contracts for nearly 10,000 research and clinical exchanges were signed by our tireless National Exchange Officers (NEO’s)  at the Contract Fair. Meanwhile, the Presidents of every National Member Organisation (NMO) met to debate all the changes to the by-laws and all the elections, which are now being voted even as I type. Other delegates met in the Standing Committees, which meet every morning to debate and work on the IFMSA’s core interests of Public Health, Human Rights & Peace, Reproductive Health (including AIDS), and Medical Education. Medsin-UK has spread its delegates across all six Standing Committees, and we’ve been actively inputting into all of these

One of the most exciting things about bringing together so many excited minds together from all across the world in one place is the synergy of ideas that can spark whole movements. One example is Medsin-UK’s Global Health Education Project – a home-grown project which works to increase global health education in medical curricula throughout the country. Similar efforts are being made elsewhere, and at a Project Fair stall we held we were able to make connections with such projects in countries such as the Netherlands, Australia, and Canada. In time, we hope, a Global Health Education Network may grow out of this, spanning countries and continents, and allowing the sharing of ideas.

Canada’s NMO, CFMS, already has been undertaking work on Pre-Elective Training – a key component of global health education, allowing medical electives overseas to be ethical, sustainable, and educational. The UK likewise has been making inroads in this area, such as the University of Dundee’s Medicine in Malawi Project. The natural step is to link these diverse projects up, saving on duplication of effort. CFMS have developed a national curriculum to be included in Pre-Elective Training, and are looking for other countries to share any guidelines they have already developed – with the hope of developing an internationally agreed set of learning objectives.

But perhaps the most important benefit of these gatherings is to make the individual, personal connections, between like-minded students of different nationalities, races, and religions, united in a common goal of promoting health and fighting the perennial diseases that afflict mankind. The party atmosphere in the room could only happen at a student conference – and yet the subjects being debated are no less weighty than those of our more senior counterparts in other international organisations. The unique combination of youth, enthusiasm, energy, and passion provides an inspiration for all to whom the future of global health, faced as it is with failing Millenium Development Goals, catastrophic climate change, and global insecurity, seems at times overwhelming.

The music stops, and the doors are closed – the results of the votes are about to be announced. The night is young, and the future starts tomorrow.

Day 3: exCHANGE THE WORLD amongst other things…

Today’s blog (admittedly, yesterday’s, but there ain’t much time when you’re fixing the world) comes from our very own Paul Reidy, National Exchange Officer for Medsin-UK.

Day 3 of the IFMSA general assembly and the delegation is still going strong. Today sees the highlight of the general assembly for the Standing Committee on Professional Exchange (SCOPE) with the manic contract fair taking place, where the National Exchange Officers for each National Member Organisation (NMO) try and sign all 10,000 or so, of the exchange contracts for the following year. It was an amazing experience with so many countries wanting to sign contracts with the UK. It’s not an exaggeration to say that there is a tangible sense of grief amongst countries each time we have to say no to one of them!

We ended up signing 63 contracts today with 23 NMOs, and we as well as most other countries, hope to increase this number dramatically for next year.

*shameless plug* any Medsinner wanting to get exchanges started up at their medical school get in touch with Charley or myself at exchanges@medsin.org!

Contract fair was followed by small working groups for the 6 Standing Committees, which is my case was working on the future vision of the SCOPE exchange programme. Had a really productive session working with Medsin’s partners in The Netherlands & Catalonia working out how to include global health at the heart of the exchange programme. Stay tuned on Thursday to see how the IFMSA responds…

The evening session brought no rest with two Medsin projects ‘EuWHO’ and ‘Marrow’ in contention for the Rex Crossley prize, the award given to the best project within the IFMSA network. Ewan, on behalf of Marrow and myself on behalf of EuWHO, presented the projects to the 9 person jury and underwent some tough questioning. The UK has an envied reputation for excellent projects with Marrow winning the award on several prior occasions and other Medsin projects including ‘Crossing Borders’, under the direction of the lovely Jen, being among this year’s finalists. Fingers crossed for the results during Thursday’s closing ceremony.

Not being a huge fan of sleep or having any deficit to catch up on at all…, we finished the evening backing up El Pres at the plenary (after a brief spot of socialising with the delegations resident journalist Ben Warner) which finished at the rather respectable hour of 3.10am. Factoring in a post plenary dance (I kid you not – think UN plus Eurovision!) bed  was reached at the rather early hour of 4am. Three and a half hours until it all starts again…

In the Plenary Voting Session of the IFMSA listening to the future officials of the Federation and their plans & dreams!

Day 2: Raising the Voice of the IFMSA

In today’s update, Ben Warner reflects on his two hectic days of Medsin campaigning for campaigning.

Our ‘Campaigning, Climate Change and Health’ workshop at the Pre-GA: representatives from Denmark, UK, Australia, Norway, Taiwan, Indonesia, Canada, Malta, France, Sweden, Peru, Colombia, USA, Iceland, and Venezuela learn how students can influence policy locally, nationally, and internationally and make positive changes for climate change.

Day two of the 59^th General Assembly of the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) and I’m sprawled on the floor at the back of a vast plenary room; around the central stage are three long tables arranged in a horseshoe, at which sit the representatives of medical students from over 90 countries, while motions and amendments flash up on the screen. Right now, IFMSA-Iraq is presenting its candidature to join the IFMSA. It’s incredible to think about the sheer global extent of this organisation, and the fantastic potential of bringing together future health-care professionals from so many different cultures and backgrounds. All this, organised by students, still in the midst of their studies.

If we can do all this, why do bodies like the UN seemingly achieve so little, time and time again, in addressing global challenges which we all recognise?

The IFMSA has existed for over 50 years, and is officially recognised as the global representative body of medical students to the UN and the World Health Organisation (WHO). It has a long history of its members engaging in positive community action to tackle public health challenges in their home countries, and its Standing Committees (which oversee its core work) include ones on Public Health, Human Rights and Peace, and Reproductive Health including AIDS.

Medsin-UK has brought a delegation of 12 to this GA, and we’ve tried to spread ourselves across these Standing Committees; I’ve been attending SCOPH, the Standing Committee on Public Health. The IFMSA is an enthusiastic bunch, and every session opens with an ‘energiser’ – much running around and noise-making. SCOPH-ians are particularly lively, and many wear their Standing Committee’s colour of orange. Then follow talks and sessions, ranging from Primary Health Care (delivered by an inspirational Family Doctor from the USA), to rural health care to antibiotic resistance. Fran, another Medsin-UK delegate who is joining me in SCOPH, delivered a session yesterday on how to campaign, and the role of advocacy in Public Health.

Campaigning and advocacy is something that Medsin-UK has traditionally been very strong on. Advocacy is one of our three pillars of our network (along with education and community action), and over time our members have achieved successes ranging from the StopAIDS campaign (which has culminated in the creation of the UNITAID Patent Pool), to Universities Allied for Access to Essential Medicines (UAEM) which is encouraging our universities to ensure drugs which come from their research are priced affordably for poorer countries which are dependent on these drugs.

Medical students have a unique role with respect to advocacy. As future health care professionals, we have a duty to our future patients’ health, and many of the inequities in the social determinants of health have political or social root causes. Furthermore, our education and training allows us to identify these causes and to analyse evidence on them. Indeed, as Fran pointed out in her presentation, many doctors use advocacy on a daily basis in their individual consultations – synthesising their understanding of scientific research and ‘pitching’ it to their patients to encourage healthy actions, whether that is to take a medication or to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Nonetheless, campaigning is not a concept that is universally acceptable, and attitudes differ from one culture to another. As such, the IFMSA has traditionally been reticent to publish policy statements or to take a stance on many public health issues that could be construed as campaigning. One of the aims of our delegation to this GA is to up-skill IFMSA members in campaigning and to open up the conversation on this vital tool to the improvement of health worldwide.

The IFMSA speaks for 1.2 million medical students. When it speaks, the whole world can hear; at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December 2009, 5 medical students from the IFMSA were the only representative of the entire health-care profession in the talks, of 20,000 negotiators and heads-of-states.

Perhaps the vast potential in this huge plenary room could one day be realised – perhaps 1.2 million students could not simply speak – to themselves, across their horseshoe tables, discussing their by-laws and amendments – but could shout, to the world, decrying the man-made health inequalities and the greatest global health crisis of the 21^st century: climate change.

Day 1: Kirsty and Samantha blog on Human Rights & Primary Care

It’s Day 1 (officially, yesterday was arrival day!) of the August Meeting and Samantha Roper and Kirsty Dolphin (pictured left) tell all about the Standing Committee on Human Rights & Peace.  Come back soon for further updates about the conference!

Day one of AM2010 in Montreal and day one of our first ever IFMSA General Assembly! Having been ridiculously keen and started our day in the swanky hotel gym we arrived at the SCORP meeting just on time. The facilitator Diego takes pity on us early arrivals and we are exempt from the highly humiliating song and dance ‘reward’ for late arrivals.

The SCORP session began with an interactive discussion with a very enthusiastic American family practitioner Dr Richard Roberts (see his biography below). The theme of primary healthcare was an inspiring one for any medical student considering a future as a GP. Topics covered included:

• The importance of a strong primary care structure and its power to decrease mortality rates.
• Blurring the professional relationship between doctors and patient regarding texts, e-mails, phone calls and social networking websites.
• How to entice doctors into primary care where it is considered a less prestigious career.
• Is the way we operate primary care in the UK ethical, do we think that GPs should be paid extra upon reaching targets and can this steer care away from a patient focussed approach?

Following a quick break we partook in a training workshop about reducing HIV/AIDS related stigma by a World AIDS Trainer from UNAIDS. Separating into groups, willing volunteers agreed to role play a stigmatising situation regarding an HIV positive worker. The discussion that followed thought about ways in which we students can target this stigma and change the viewpoints across the globe.

Have you got any ideas or contributions for us at the General Assembly? Please feel free to e-mail your thoughts:

kd101@leicester.ac.uk

samantha.roper@students.pms.ac.uk

Biography for Dr R Roberts

Richard Roberts is a Professor and past Chair in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health in Madison. Since 1987 Dr. Roberts has practiced in Belleville, a rural community of 1900 people. A family physician and attorney, Dr. Roberts provides the full scope of family medicine services: he delivers babies, cares for patients of all ages, performs endoscopy and minor surgery, and attends patients in the home, nursing home, and hospital, including those in intensive care units.

A past president of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and the Wisconsin Medical Society, Dr. Roberts has worked closely with a wide range of physician groups focusing on quality, including service as a director on the boards of the American Medical Accreditation Program (AMAP) and the Commission on Laboratory Accreditation (COLA). He has been a member of more than two dozen guidelines panels of groups.

At the international level, Dr. Roberts is President of World Organization of Family Doctors (Wonca). Professor Roberts’s scholarship has focused on practice redesign, patient safety, quality improvement, and the development of decision support tools such as guidelines to improve clinical care. He has authored more than 150publications, been an investigator on a dozen grants, and given more than 600 presentations. After receiving a B.A. in philosophy and a law degree from the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Roberts matriculated to George Washington University for his medical degree. He completed a family medicine residency at UCLA-Santa Monica. Professor Roberts is a Fellow of the AAFP and the American College of Legal Medicine. He was a Fellow in the Kellogg Foundation national leadership development program.

Medsin-UK arrives in Canada!

Good day from Canada!

Thirteen of us from across the Medsin network arrived today in Montreal, Quebec for the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA) August Meeting 2010, full of excitement for the chance to share solutions to a range of public health and healthcare problems facing countries in the global North and South.

The International Federation of Medical Student Associations (IFMSA) is an international network of 97 medical student associations from 89 countries all across the world.  Broadly speaking, their mission is to create culturally aware medical students, to introduce future physicians to issues & challenges global public health and by grassroots projects & international activities to confront the transnational inequalities that pervade our global society.

Over the next few days, our delegates (see below!) shall be feeding back the fruits of their work by blogs, videos, photos and generally any other social media we can get our hands on!

Read our:-

Press Release for our attendance at the international conference

Make sure to come back each day to be introduced to our delegates, and get in touch if you have any ideas or comments on what you read and see!

The Medsin@AM10 Delegation