Newsletter 193

Contents

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

Power & Politics in Global Health, University College London, 25th-26th October

This year, the Medsin National Conference will revolve around the theme of Power and Politics in Global Health. Our aim is to inspire, empower and arm delegates with the knowledge and skills necessary to fight for global health equity.

Global health inequality is one of the most demanding issue of our age. HIV/AIDS ravages southern Africa, whilst in Europe it is a managed chronic disease. Malaria has been eradicated from most of southern Europe, yet it is still one of the biggest killers of under 5 children in many tropical areas. In 2008 food production reached an all time high, yet famines and food shortages raged across the world.

We all want to eradicate HIV, to stop TB and to have enough food for everyone. Each issue can be fought seperately, head on, by dedicated campaigners. And we are proud of Medsin's work on tackling these issue at home and aboard. Medsin's experience, however, suggests that these problems all share underlying causes, and require many overlapping solutions.

The 2008 Medsin National Conference programme will go straight to the heart of what connects all these issues together. Over 4 Plenaries, 16 speakers and 80 Workshops we aim to take a step back, and consider: Who controls our health? What is the impact of poverty on health? Why are some countries poor and healthy and others rich and sick? Why do pharmaceutical companies bend over backwards to meet the lifestyles of the rich but fail the needs of the poor? Why do some countries provide health for all, and others seem to leave their poor behind? What is the role of the media, religion and ideology in shaping our global health views?

In examining these questions, we hope to enable Medsin members to understand the injustices of global health, and to become leaders in finding future solutions.

Plenaries:

  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Status, inequality and class
  • Civil Society

Confirmed speakers include: Clare Short MP (Former Minister for International Development) Dr Richard Horton (Editor, the Lancet) Prof Nancy Scheper-Hughes (University of California, Berkeley) Elizabeth Pisani (Author, The Wisdom of Whores) Martin Wolf (Associate Editor, the Financial Times) Prof Maureen Mackintosh (Open University) Prof Richard Wilkinson (University of Nottingham) Prof Jonathan Wolff (UCL) Prof Colin Leys

And many more There will also be film screenings, a Global Health Futures Fair and a fantastic world music social.

Tickets are on sale at www.medsin08.org. There you can also choose your workshops for the conference.

Student tickets are £20 and Non-Student tickets are at £35. Tickets include lunch, the evening social and accommodation if required.

To find out more, please go to www.medsin08.org or contact nationalconference08@gmail.com

For a poster: http://web.mac.com/medsinucl/iWeb/Medsin%20UCL/Poster.html

or www.medsin.org/newsletter/193

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'SCREW THAT TABOO' Sexpression National Conference, Newcastle, 18th-19th October

This year the infamous Sexpression conference is being held in Newcastle on the 18th and 19th of October in Newcastle Upon Tyne. The theme is 'Screw That Taboo' and it promises to be an exciting, fun and inspiring weekend of workshops, speakers and sharing ideas. It is always a popular weekend with over 120 delegates last year from the UK and Europe. We would love to see you all there, whether you are a Sexpression/Medsex/Shag etc member, keen to join/set up a branch or are just interested in the field of sexual health.

Please look at our website www.screwthattaboo.com for more info and the application forms

don't be a fool, wrap your tool!

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Graduated? Afraid to leave the Medsin network behind? We are looking for a New Alumini Director

This is a call to all graduated Medsin members. If you feel you want to increase your involvement in the network, and feed your skills back into it, have you thought about being Alumni Director?

If you would like to help maintain and develop the alumni network, thus keeping in contact with your old Medsin friends, please contact committee@medsin.org

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Update contact details for Crossing Borders

I am the current secretary of national crossing borders. I am trying to update branches contact details, so can you please email me if

1) you are co-ordinating a branch and what they are doing, 2) if you want to set up a branch as we are keen to help.

Tehmina Bharucha tehminabharucha@googlemail.com

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Campaigns Day Event Team

This November the 15th Medsin Campaigns will be holding yet another Campaigns Day to train, inspire and excite those already having campaigned and those wanting to find out more.

Would you be interested in helping organise this day - dealing with the venue, speakers, NGOs, decorations and much more? Contact medsin.campaigns@gmail.com if you wanna get involved!

Anything Else:

Input into the NHS Constitution

http://www.nhs.uk/Constitution/Pages/Haveyoursay.aspx

The proposed NHS Constitution will establish the principles and values of the NHS in England. It will set out commitments to patients, public and staff in the form of rights to which they are entitled and pledges which the NHS will strive to deliver, together with responsibilities that the public, patients and staff owe to each other to ensure that the NHS operates fairly and effectively. Subject to legislation, all NHS bodies and private and third-sector providers supplying NHS services will be required by law to take account of this constitution in their decisions and actions.

The constitution will be renewed every 10 years, with the involvement of patients, public and staff. This means consulting widely and deeply with patients, staff and the public on our proposals for the constitution. To find out more about the consultation process download 'A consultation on the NHS Constitution'. For further details on how to submit your comments on the proposed NHS Constitution go to the section 'Have your say'. Comments can be submitted until the 17 October 2008

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Merlin Health Equity Debate

In Question: Health Equity

Merlin invites you to an interview between Professor Sir Michael Marmot Chair, WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health; Director, UCL International Institute for Society and Health and Edward Stourton Broadcaster and Merlin Patron

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

Date: 7 October 2008 Time: 6pm Venue: The Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1Q (nearest station Paddington)

The evening is free but participants are advised to register in advance as places are limited.

RSVP: ben.twitchin@merlin.org.uk

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REBUILDING TRUST; NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN EUROPE AND THE RENEWED ARMS RACE

MEETING AT EUROPARL . TUESDAY NOV 4 2008 13-15.30 hours

We are organising a meeting at Europarliament on afternoon Tuesday November 4 on REBUILDING TRUST; NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN EUROPE AND THE RENEWED ARMS RACE

Please may we ask you to write to your MEPS,to ask them to attend the meeting (details at www.medsin.org/newsletter/193). Also if you have the postcards about NWF Europe produced jointly by swiss affiliate and ICAN ,please could you send them to your MEPs with your letters? Postcards are available from Andi Nidecker ( andreas.nidecker@imamed.ch)

ALL ARE WELCOME TO JOIN THE MEETING BUT IF YOU WANT TO COME PLEASE SEND DETAILS TO ME OF YOUR

FULL NAME NATIONALITY DOB PLACE OF BIRTH PASSPORT NUMBER DATE AND PLACE OF ISSUE

please email them to me so I can inform Europarl in advance or they will not let you come in.

best wishes Liz Waterston a.j.r.waterston@ncl.ac.uk

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Launch of Global Health Watch 2

The Institute for Global Health at University College London, in collaboration with Zed books, invites you to attend the launch of Global Health Watch 2: An alternative world health report.

OCTOBER 16th, 2008 4.30 – 6.00 pm at Jeremy Bentham Room University College London, 30 Guilford Street.

Global Health Watch, an initiative of the People’s Health Movement, Global Equity Gauge Alliance and Medact, to bring together academics, civil society organisations and social movements to promote health and improve the performance of global health institutions. Over a hundred individuals have collaborated to produce the second report which consists of over twenty chapters, including chapters on the World Health Organisation, the World Bank and the Gates Foundation.

Speakers: Dr David McCoy, Co-Managing Editor and Steering Committee member of the Peoples Health Movement Professor Anthony Costello, Centre for International Health and Development, University College London

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Study Peace and Conflict Resolution in Europe

We wish to invite you to join a select group of 44 students from around the world in an intensive course in peace and conflict studies. All courses are taught in English, by leading specialist in their field from around the world, including Dr. Johan Galtung, one of the founders of the academic discipline of peace research and frequent mediator in international conflicts; Dr. Hossain Danesh, founder of unity-based conflict resolution and education for peace; international lawyer Dr. Richard Falk.

The EPU program is designed to provide students with the intellectual competence to analyze conflicts and their underlying causes, with practical skills in conflict transformation and peacebuilding, and with the motivation to do everything in their capacity to help create a better world. We seek to enable our students to help build a more peaceful, equitable and just global society, in harmony with nature. The Program was founded in 1988 by Dr.Gerald Mader, our President. It has so far educated about 1000 students from about 100 countries in peace studies and conflict transformation. It received the 1995 UNESCO Peace Education Prize. In addition, there are several academic excursions. For a course calendar, course descriptions and biographical notes about our faculty members, see

www.epu.ac.at

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The International Tropical Medicine Summer School annually organized by Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, Indonesia

This unique summer school aims to broaden students' knowledge in the emerging tropical medicine diseases, improve their ability to perform physical examinations, increase understanding of laboratory findings, and diagnose and treat in the modified Problem Based Learning (PBL) system.

July 6th – July 26th, 2009

Main topics: Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever, Malaria, Typhoid, Tuberculosis, Avian Influenza, Helminthes 350 EUR

Fee includes: Summer School academic activities Summer School merchandises 3 weeks stay at host family 2 times daily Indonesian meals

Applications will be opened from October 15th, 2008

The International Relationship Office Director Dr. M. Helmi drhelmi@fk.umy.ac.id / email: helmi@yahoo.com

www.fk.umy.ac.id

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People and Planet Shared Earth 2008 Conference

People & Planet annual conference, Shared Planet 2008, is to be held at Birmingham University on 21-23 November 2008. Shared Planet is the UK's largest student conference on world poverty, human rights, and the environment. You can find out more about Shared Planet 2008 here:

http://peopleandplanet.org/sharedplanet

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Royal Society of Medicine Conference: Violence, the Surgeon and the Modern World

The Royal Society of Medicine invite you to the conference Violence, the Surgeon and the Modern World. It will be held at the Royal Society of Medicine on 31st October, and will address some of the social, political and humanitarian issues of violence. Its object is to encourage surgeons to take a wider view of their role in tackling the effects of violence.

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Submit an abstract to the 36th International Conference of Global Health Council

Sending an abstract to the GHC (global health council) is a very big opportunity to you and all IFMSA to show the big work that we are doing and how students are working on global health issues. It is also a big chance to assist to the GHC conference that will take place during the 26th to 30th of May 2009 in Washington DC . You can send abstracts in three different formats: research, program or policy.

If you will submit an abstract it will be good if you contact me or Mr.Kyriakos, the Liaison Officer on Publi health-elect to lph@ifmsa.org

If you have any question on that I will be more than proud to answer you. For more info http://globalhealth .org/conference/

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"Clinical Trials on Trial"

Health and development NGOs, government officials, academics and selected others interested in the issue of Clinical Trials are invited to attend the HAI Europe one-day seminar on Friday, 21 November 2008 at the Berlin Mitte Town Hall (BVV Berlin-Mitte Neues Stadthaus), Germany.

The preliminary programme and registration form can be obtained from the addres below.

As you will see from the registration form, seminar participants will be asked to pay a 60 Euro participation fee to the HAI Europe office by the registration deadline of 10 November 2008. (Note: Those registering after this date will be charged Euro 100 at the door on the day of the seminar.) A reduced registration fee of Euro 30 is available for public health interest NGOs and students.

The seminar fee will cover refreshments and lunch during the day, and a background reader. Seminar proceedings will be put up on the HAI website (www.haiweb.org) as soon as possible after the seminar.

Information and registration is also available through the HAI website, (www.haiweb.org). Due to the importance of the event it is strongly recommend that you register as soon as possible

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Last updated on Thursday 30 October 2008 at 22:57.