In August 2008 a 16 strong Medsin delegation travelled to Jamaica for the IFMSA General Assembly.
Projects
Marrow boasted a great success from this assembly. There was interest from 15 countries into the work Marrow does. This means Marrow is on its way to becoming a transnationally recognised project. Marrow also achieved the Rex Crossley Award for The Best Project 2008.
Crossing Borders attended the Reprductive Rights and Peace sessions, where external speakers introduced medical peace work and tools to utilise the media to promote their project.
Other IFMSA member countries were impressed at how Crossing Borders is able to focus on education and campaigns as well as voluntary projects.
A successful Small Working Group on undocumented migrants made plans for international collaboration within the IFMSA, with the aim of making Crossing Borders an IFMSA recognised project, and eventually a internationally recognised project.
Campaigns
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines passed a policy statement relating to Research for Health Policy, and organised a Pharma Free presentation which was highly attended by IFMSA member countries.
Exchanges
IFMSA Exchanges are currently working on improving the academic quality of exchanges to give them more credibility within the UK. They attended the Professional Exchange sessions and discussed student objectives for the IFMSA exchanges. This is with the hope that more medical schools in the UK will be eager to take on this project.
As a result of discussions in Small Working Groups IFMSA Exchanges have decided to set aside a few exchanges each year to individuals who can demonstrate a real passion for a Medsin project or campaign in the hope they will share this enthusiasm with the local exchange officers in their host country.
Theme
In addition to sharing projects and campaigns, inputting into the organisational structure of the IFMSA, and receiving and giving training in organisational management the General Assemblies also aim to educate about their theme.
The theme of AM08 was Nutrition and Health. Some of the UK delegates attended an intense three day workshops relating to the theme.
Policy Statements
Ian Noble, Chair of the BMA 2007-2008 passed a policy statement which related to student debt on the completion of medical school. This sparked an interesting discussion during the plenary session relating to entry at medical school being on the merits of academic achievement, not the ability to pay for tuition.
Following the disruption of the democratic voting procedure during one of the plenary sessions, Ian Noble submitted and recited a passionate account of the unjust election procedure. This was a great achievement for Medsin as it proved that we strive to uphold our values and maintain the standards of the IFMSA. This received a lot of support from the plenary, and we hope this will have an impact on the structure and voting of subsequent voting sessions.
Training
Medsin-UK was able to strengthen its training network with one third of its delegation attending Training New Trainers and Training Old Trainers. This included an intensive workshop in organisational structure and management, with the trainers presenting a process for change in structure within the IFMSA to the IFMSA Executive Board.
Last updated on Wednesday 17 June 2009 at 14:51.
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