Newsletter 173

Contents

Action of the Week

The new Thai minister of Public Health will probably soon review the previous government's decision to issue 4 more compulsory licences on cancer medicines. This issue was an important one for Medsin members last year, when student campaigners from the Stop AIDS Campaign managed to persuade the UK Government to publicly support Thailand and their use of legal compulsory licences. On behalf of Thai civil society, MSF Belgium would like to ask for your support once again by signing your name onto the following letter (at the bottom of this page) to convince the new Thai government to stand firm to its predecessor's decision to issue compulsory licences to increase greater access to medicines. Please copy and paste the short note below, and email it to kakablue@yahoo.com by February 15, 2008.

Dear Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul,

My name is ....................., and I am a member of Medsin (www.Medsin.org), a network of students in the UK with an interest in global health and advocacy. I would like to add my signature to your letter to the new Thai minister of Public Health regarding the government's decision to review their compulsory licences. I fully support your requests and wish you luck.

Yours, .............

For more information, click here

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National News and Events

Anything Else

Website and News

The website is for YOUR events being held by YOUR branches, projects and campaigns. It is really, really easy to submit events and news, so please do, and let everyone know what wonderful things you are up to! Join in Medsin discussions at http://www.medsin.org/discuss

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National News and Events

International Health Partnership E-vote

An urgent call for votes! Anna Mariot has sent an e-mail from Oxfam regarding Action For Global Health's concerns with the participation of civil society in the roll-out of the International Health Partnership. There is some background in the attachments, and at the page here.

The deadline for submission is midday 14th Feb, so let your voting member representative know your views NOW!

We need to send the network's response by Thursday afternoon, so the sooner you vote, the better.

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Life Under Israeli Occupation

There will be a talk from Dr Asad Khan, entitled "Go And See the Truth For Yourself, I Did" - Life Under Israeli Occupation: through the Eyes of a Doctor

Dr Khan is a Specialist Registrar, Respiratory Medicine, Wythenshawe Hospital

The talk will be on Wednesday March 12th at Halifax Central Library at 7.00pm.

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Cambridge Climate Events

The Student Climate Project's Tour of Climate Action will see events at campuses around the country in 2008. The first of these events will be held in Cambridge, 15th-17th February. For more information, click here

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Global health conference 08

400+ students, 50+ speakers – one weekend!

The annual, national Medsin Global Health Conference is being held in Oxford on the 29th-30th March (weekend after Easter), so pencil it into your diaries!

Exciting and dynamic lectures, within the plenary themes of:

  1. Tackling HIV/AIDS in Resource-Poor Settings
  2. Disaster Relief and Emerging Epidemics
  3. International Aid – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
  4. Mental Health in the Global Community

Also featuring 60+ interactive workshops – with the widest possible choice of themes – to educate and to inspire!

Eminent speakers from America, Africa, WHO, UN and across the UK.

For only £15 (£30 for non-students)! Including two free lunches, and a mini- ball with food at the beautiful Oxford Union!

More details to follow soon – including how to get your ticket – but for now just make sure you keep that weekend free!

Contact xin-hui.chan@medschool.ox.ac.uk or joel.raffel@medschool.ox.ac.uk for more.

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KCL's Mini Conference

On Saturday 8th March 2008, King's College London will be hosting a day conference on the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the medical profession. The final debate will be entitled "This house believes that pharmaceuticals have an undue influence on the practice of medicine". The day will commence at 10am and finish at 5pm. For further details, please contact kcl@pharmaware.co.uk.

Event: KCL's mini conference What: Workshop Host: PharmAware When: Saturday, March 8 at 10:00am Where: KCL

To see more details and RSVP, click here

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WaterAid Talks

WaterAid event: Lajana Manandhar from Nepal will be speaking at:

  • University of Leeds (Roger Stevens Building) on Monday 18 February, 6.30 – 8.30pm.
  • Manchester University (Stopford Building) on Tuesday 19 February, 6.30 – 8.30pm.
  • Bristol University (Queens Building) on Thursday 21 February, 6.30 – 8.30pm.
  • SOAS, Brunei Gallery, London on Monday 25 February, 6.30 – 8.30pm.
  • University of Edinburgh, (Appleton Tower) on Tuesday 26 February, 6.30 – 8.30pm.

The WaterAid website also have a page for the event which is kept up to date.

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Regional Conference Dates

For Your Diary:

  • South-West Regional Conference - 16th February, Bristol

  • London Conference - 23rd February, King's College, London

  • Midlands Regional Conference - 23rd February, Nottingham

  • Scottish Regional Conference - 1st March, Glasgow

  • Northern Regional Conference - 15th March, Preston

For more information see here.

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South East Medsin Regional Conference

ACCESS DENIED Refugee and Asylum Seeker Access to Health Care in the UK Saturday 23rd of February, 2008, 9-5pm Harris Lecture Theatre, Guy's Campus, King's College London

Many of you might already be aware that the government is implementing proposals to withdraw free, non-urgent primary or secondary healthcare from failed asylum seekers. (Please note, people with perfectly legitimate claims to asylum are rejected by the home office on a daily basis, a failed asylum seeker is not necessarily a bogus applicant). The motivation behind this?

"To ensure that living illegally becomes ever more uncomfortable and constrained until they leave or are removed" (Home Office, Enforcing the Rules 2007)"

Come to the conference to hear the leaders in the field of the Refugee debate and Human Rights tell us who is going to have to pay the price for this proposal, what the alternatives are, and what we can do about it.

To learn more click here, where you can also buy your ticket! Tickets are £5 including lunch, or £8 including lunch and a masquerade themed social with live music in the evening...

E-mail us for more information.

I hope to see lots of you there!

Chloe

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Represent Medsin in Croatia

What?

We are now calling for applicants for the 5th European Regional Meeting (EuRegMe5) of IFMSA. The theme of the event will be Organ Donation and Transplantation. 5 members of Medsin will get the opportunity to attend the meeting, to be held on the Brijuni Islands, Croatia on the 10th - 13th April 2008.

How?

To apply for a place at this meeting please fill in the application form which can be found here and send it to the national committee by the 14th February 2008.

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Global Health Conference Voting Session

This is a call for bylaw changes, policy statements, motions, etc for the GHC2008 voting session. The deadline for submission is midnight on 7th March. Hits and tips on submitting something can be found here.

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Global Health Forum Lectures

The Global Health Forum provides a platform for debating topical global health issues. Broadly, our topics concentrate on public health in the developing world, health within deprived communities in the developed world and issues relating to the ethics of health and healthcare. We run a weekly lecture series in which these important issues are presented by world experts and then questioned and discussed by the audience…you! This is a great opportunity to really explore things not covered in your course but which many of us are deeply interested in. Our talks are accessible to all. No baseline knowledge is needed, just an interest in the reasons underlying the massive discrepancy in public health across the world. All lectures take place at 6.30pm in the Sir Alexander Fleming building in South Kensington and there is free food!

  • February 19th - Private Public Partnerships
  • March 14th - Effects of deforestation on drug sources
  • March 11th - Chernobyl/Hiroshima effects and aftermath

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GHC2009 bids

With the Medsin Global Health Conference 2008 nearly upon us, it's time to start thinking about whether your branch could host the GHC2009. The deadline for submission of applications is the 7th March 2008, and applicants will be voted on at the GHC08 in Oxford. All the paperwork (1 whole form!) can be found here, and for more information, please get in touch with the committee.

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Anything Else?

The following aren't officially affilliated with Medsin, but we thought you might be interested.

Interested in knowing more about Conflict, Peace & Human rights?

Medical Peace Work have launched an online free course for Medical students (and anyone who is interested). MPW is an organisation dedicated to using health and medicine to promote peace. Their course covers 8 modules:

  • Module 1: Understanding peace and conflict
  • Module 2: Medicine and Human Rights
  • Module 3: War, weapons and strategies of violent conflict
  • Module 4: Structural violence and the underlying causes of violent conflict
  • Module 5: Peace-Health Interventions in Armed Conflict
  • Module 6: Refugee and Migration Challenges
  • Module 7: Inter-personal and self-directed violence

If you use it and have any thoughts, the creators would love it hear about it. Please leave comments on the site.

Enjoy!

Pete

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Opportunity to attend Global Health Short Course 2008 at Imperial!

Monday 23rd June - Friday 4th July 2008

Global Health Short Course for medical students is potentially running from Monday 23 June - Friday 4 July this year! Held by Imperial College and Medsin-Imperial, this course will consist of lectures and small group work on topics including poverty and development, equality and health economics, policy and trade, infectious diseases, maternal and child health and the impact of war and conflict. These are very interesting topics, and whilst there will be structured teaching, there will also be plenty of time for participant discussion and debate. Leading experts with years of experience from Imperial College, Medact and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine have been invited to lecture.

This promises to be an exciting new course, the very first of its kind to run open to medical students! The course fee is estimated at £60 (depending on level of interest) and will include a certificate of course completion.

If you are interested in taking the course, please reply to Anenta. This is in no way binding, but will provide an idea of the level of interest.

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Last updated on Tuesday 12 February 2008 at 23:10.