Newsletter 180

Contents

National News and Events

Anything Else

Of The Month

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

Apply to go to Jamaica!

The IFMSA March Meeting will be held in Ocho Rios, Jamaica on 7th - 13th August 2008.

If you're interested in going to Jamaica, learning about global health, meeting people from other cultures and developing skills please fill in the application form available here and email it to the committee by midnight on Friday 19th April.

There are always many more applications than places. For that reason you should spend time on your application form - you need to sell yourself. Feel free to change the sizes of the boxes in the word document, but bear in mind that the National Committee have to read lots of forms, so it's not advisable to waffle.

If you have any questions please email Gemma and have a look at the work of IFMSA. All Medsin members are invited to apply to be part of the Medsin delegation attending this meeting

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Be on the National Committee

Why not think about dedicating those few spare hours a week to Medsin? Anyone can candidate for any position, the only exception being that the president must be a medical student. Experience in Medsin is desired but enthusiasm is much more important. If you're interested, contact the person in that role already to find out a bit more.

Gemma Owens, Medsin President, is more than willing to give advice and information for people who would like to know a bit more before applying. It’s a wonderful opportunity to change the world. Contact her here

Have a read of the official job descriptions, and of the current committee's take on their role here, and follow the instructions!

Next: Print and sign the form, appear at the Spring General Assembly on 26th-27nd April in Leeds, and tell the voting members (branches, nationally recognised projects and priority campaigns) why they should vote for you in 2 minutes.

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Marrow Expands!

Germany held their first marrow clinic recently and it was a big success! Go Marrow International! The expansion of marrow is always amazing news and we welcome the addition to our marrow family with embarrassingly big and gushy arms. If you have any international contacts and want to make a sister marrow in another country let us know because it will be a national effort to make international marrow work.

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Gerard's GHC Blog

The annual Medsin Global Health Conference took place this weekend in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford The conference was a massive success with over 450 students and 50 speakers, many of them world experts. The organising committee were able to use the “Oxford Pull” to encourage many huge names in the field of global health to attend the conference.

Over the course of two days there were two keynote speakers, four plenaries and over 50 workshops.

Gerard has been busy and blogged what went on: Part 1, and Part 2.

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Become a Medsin Trainer

This year, Medsin-UK is hosting a Training New Trainers (TNT) workshop, from the 18th-20th April 2008 and now is the time to apply.

The TNT workshop is an IFMSA-recognised course designed to train new trainers. Over three days, participants will be equipped with the skills and knowledge to design and deliver training workshops. Then, the following weekend, you will be putting your new training skills into operation at the Spring General Assembly.

The main TNT event will take place at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne on 18th-20th April. The SGA on the following weekend (which is complulsory to complete to course) is in Leeds on 26th-27th April.

Click here for more information and an application form

Daze

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Marrow Regional AGMs Update

  • 19th April 2008: South North-East at Leicester
  • 10th May 2008: North North-East at Newcastle

For more information about either, get in touch with Marrow

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Enormous Exciting Pharmaware Debate!

"This house believes that the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and doctors is detrimental to health"

With speakers including

  • Peter Mansfield - world famous Pharma campaigner all the way from Australia
  • Assoc. British Pharmaceutical Industry
  • .....and other exciting people!

Friday 25 April, 18:30-21:00, Leeds.

This event is perhaps going to lead to Leeds becoming the first pharma free med school in the UK, following the example of some in the US such as Penn State and Standford...witness policy change in action!! And all this the evening before the Spring General Assembly in Leeds so you'll be in Leeds anyway!!! so come along! For more information, contact Medsin Leeds

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SGA08

Medsin's National Spring General Assembly, for a great weekend of.....

  • Mass Debating,
  • Training,
  • Networking,
  • Elections of next year's national committee
  • More Voting, including the NAME CHANGE!

Saturday 26 April- Sunday 27th April 2008

And of course, socialising!

All of this is happening in lovely Leeds!!!!

How to get involved NOW:

  • Send you ideas for mini-meetings and discussions to the committee

For more information, contact the national committee

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Campaign Coordinator Applications - Open Now!

Want to be part of Medsin's enthusiastic, exciting and dynamic campaigns team? Medsin has a number of important campaigns, and we need people to coordinate them for the academic year 2008-09. NB - even those campaigns who currently have a coordinator will be up for re-election unless elected by their own general assembly this academic year

Campaigns:

  • Save Our NHS
  • Healthy Planet
  • Arms Trade
  • Universities Allied for Access to Essential Medicines
  • International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
  • Health Systems
  • Malaria and Neglected Diseases Campaigns
  • Save Our NHS
  • Stop AIDS
  • Water4All.
  • PharmAware currently holds its own GAs to elect a coordinator, so this position is not available.

To find out more about this campaigns please see www.medsin.org/campaigns or contact the current coordinators or jen - campaigns@medsin.org

Campaign coordinators are responsible for the overall running and organisation of their campaign. Depending on the particular campaign you're coordinating, this might be overseeing a team of people and working with branches where the campaign is currently running, as well as promoting the campaign within the network and recruiting more students to the cause. You're also likely to have some contact with other organisations and individuals who run similar campaigns. Campaigns coordinators are supported by the Campaigns Director on the National Committee and come together with other campaigns coordinators and Medsin members to form the Campaigns Team. The Campaigns Team works closely with conference organising teams to plan campaigning at Medsin conferences and support each other's campaigning with ideas and action throughout the year. Campaigns Coordinators also sit on Medsin's Activities Board with Medsin's projects.

So... all in all - it's a blast!

If you're interested - write a 200 word statement and send it together with your phone number and address to campaigns@medsin.org by midnight on Saturday the 5th of April You will then stand for election at Medsin's SGA in Leeds.

If you have any questions at all about this process, please don't hesitate to contact Pete or jen - campaigns@medsin.org

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Passionate about global health? Join the Think Global Team

Think Global is an International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (IFMSA) initiative project. It aims to educate medical students on global health issues and empower them to set up global health education projects in their countries.

The Think Global team is currently expanding. We are looking for people to fill the following positions:

* European Regional assistant
* Database coordinator
* Survey coordinator
* Web coordinator

Further information about these roles can be found here

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Anything Else?

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

Child Family Health International

Click here for more information.

Socially responsible, financially just, global health programs for Medical & other students of the health sciences in Bolivia, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Nicaragua and South Africa.

Attend CFHI's workshops on Socially Responsible Electives at the Medsin GHC; March 29th and 30th

  • Choose from 17 program sites around the world.

  • Programs are 4 to 8 weeks long & run every month of the year.

  • Clinical rotations with local preceptors in a variety of settings
  • Housing with local home-stay families (guest houses where home-stays are not available)
  • Spanish language instruction (including Medical Spanish) in all Spanish-speaking programs

  • Fundraising resources (including scholarships) available

  • Academic credit arranged upon request

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Global Health Council Membership

As an IFMSA member, you can sign up for free GHC student (associate) membership here

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IFMSA-WHO paediatric collaboration

  1. We are working on a joint collaboration between the WHO and IFMSA to find out how paediatrics is taught at different medical schools around the world.

We would really appreciate if you could take just a few minutes to fill in the online questionnaire about paediatrics teaching at your university. It can be found here

user name : pediatrics password : pediatrics

  1. We are also recruiting students to write evidence based medicine reviews during their SSM attachments. The research would be used to update a WHO pocketbook on child health. To find out more please visit here

If you are interested in finding out more about either of these projects, please email me at alasdair.ford@gmail.com

Thank-you Alasdair and Fina

Medsin-UK and Center for Indonesian Medical Students' Activities

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Another Essay Competition!

The Global Forum for Health Research and The Lancet are holding their third joint essay competition for the under-30s on the theme:

Climate change and health: research challenges for the health of vulnerable populations

Rules and guidelines

  • Authors must have been born on or after 1 January 1978.
  • Each author may submit one essay only.
  • Essays may be submitted in English or French and should be 1500 words maximum.
  • Essays must be based on the author's own ideas and not be derived from another source.
  • Essays must not have been previously published.
  • Entries are individual (i.e., the work of a single author).
  • They should include original, even provocative ideas and not be technical or academic texts: tables, charts and figures are probably not necessary; references should be limited.
  • Authors are free to be idealistic, passionate, to take established practices to task, albeit in a constructive fashion.
  • Within the context of research for health, the theme allows authors to include any aspect that interests them particularly – for example, extreme weather, natural disasters, fuels and energy, transport, water management, vectors, food production, demographics, urban planning, security.

Deadlines

  • The deadline for receipt of entries is 30 April 2008.
  • A shortlist will be announced by the end of June. Shortlisted authors will be asked to provide a high quality photograph and to confirm original authorship and date of birth.
  • The winners will be notified by the beginning of August 2008. The judges' decision will be final.

Prizes

  • A selection of shortlisted essays will be published in an anthology as well as on the Global Forum and Lancet websites.
  • Winners will be invited to take part (with all expenses paid) in the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health, which will take place in Bamako, Mali, from 17 to 19 November 2008.
  • Staff members of the Global Forum or of the Lancet or their immediate families are ineligible to enter the competition, as are authors of shortlisted essays published in 2006 and 2007.

For any questions, please contact: Susan Jupp mailto:susan.jupp@globalforumhealth.org

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Seminar on "Global Substantive Health Issues"

The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) will hold a seminar on "Global Substantive Health Issues" on 5 and 6 June 2008. The seminar will take place at the University of Warwick.

For more information, click here.

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In Question: The "Right to Health"

Merlin invites you to an interview between Professor Paul Hunt, the UN Special Rapporteur on the "Right to Health" and Edward Stourton, Broadcaster and Merlin Patron

Join us for an evening of questions and debate on the "Right to Health" and the opportunities for making it a reality.

Date: 9 April 2008 Time: 6pm Venue: The Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1Q (nearest station Paddington)

Please note that the evening is free but participants should register in advance RSVP: ben.twitchin@merlin.org.uk

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Of The Month

Marrow

ETHNIC MINORITY? MARROW NEEDS YOU.

Did you know that if you’re from a black or ethnic minority community, you are less likely to find a match from the bone marrow register?

For every 10 people needing a bone marrow transplant, only 3 will find a match from within their own family. The remaining 7 rely on unrelated donors: people like you and me, who have signed up to the bone marrow register.

What’s more tissue transplant is not random, but genetic – so patients in need of a transplant are most likely to find a compatible donor within their own ethnic community. The African-Caribbean community is the most likely source of a donor for an African-Caribbean patient, for example. The same is true for all of us - Chinese, Asian, Caucasian, Mediterranean, Jewish, whichever ethnic community we belong to.

Yet ethnic minority communities are severely underrepresented on the register, making it much harder for these groups to find a match when needed. This is why we urgently need donors from all ethnic backgrounds. So, if you are from a black or minority ethnic community, please give this some serious thought: your community needs you, and you might just need it one day. Marrow is one of Medsin’s projects; we recruit students and young people to the bone marrow register by running bone marrow clinics at universities throughout the UK.

To find out how to join the register, or for forthcoming clinic dates, email marrow@medsin.org or go to www.jointheregister.org

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Pharmaware

My name is Omar Jundi, I am the co-head of a group called PharmAware at Leeds University, which I'm sure you've heard of. In April we will be holding a big debate at the Medical School entitled "The Interaction between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry is detrimental to patient health." The talk will involve members of the association of the british pharmaceutical industry, a speaker from australia, and a member of the Leeds teaching hospitals trust.

After the debate there will be a vote held amongst the members of the medical school, and if we receive a positive result, a new policy will be enacted that will allow the implementation of a new policy, making Leeds the first 'Pharma-Free' Medical School in the country.

We feel that the current level of interaction with the industry undermines our profession, as there is a strong conflict of interest inherent in this interaction.

The debate is open to all, and will be held on the Friday of the weekend of the Medsin General Assembly, We invite all medsin members to come and take part in what will hopefully be a historic occasion!

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Last updated on Wednesday 02 April 2008 at 13:32.