2nd euromeds 2010
DESCRIPTION
In this Euromeds edition you can find an article about the EMSA Taskforce. If you are a local coordinator of your FMO you probably got an question- naire from them. Who are they and what are they precisely doing? And why is it so important that you need to fill in that ques- tionnaire? Read more about this in their article. As part of the EMSA working group you will brainstorm and share ideas with other WG members. BEST BUDDY PROJECT EMSA MACADONIA SUMMER SCHOOL ATHENS EMSA TASKFORCE romeds. 9TRANSCRIPT
This among other great arti-
cles in this Euromeds edition.
Once again I would like to
thank everyone who wrote an
article for their contribution.
Looking forward to your arti-
cles for the next edition!
Europeanly yours,
Jeetindra Balak
Secretary General 2009/10
Me resting in Vienna
Dear EMSA members,
Much has happened since
the last Euromeds edition!
EMSA had two very good and
important meetings. One of
them is the EMS Council 7
which took place in Vienna,
Austria. The other one is the
National Coordinators and
Enthusiasts Meeting (NCM)
which took place in Istanbul,
Turkey.
Both meetings were very good
organized by an OC.
It was fantastic to meet moti-
vated students from all over
Europe at these meetings.
You can read more about the
EMS Council in this Eu-
romeds.
During the NCM EMSA mem-
bers also had the chance to
take a sip of EMSA’s newest
project, the training system!
With great guest trainers we
held 9 trainings at the NCM in
Yeditepe!
In this Euromeds edition you
can find an article about the
EMSA Taskforce. If you are a
local coordinator of your FMO
you probably got an question-
naire from them. Who are
they and what are they
precisely doing? And why
is it so important that you
need to fill in that ques-
tionnaire? Read more
about this in their article.
E D I T O R I A L
0 9 / 1 0 S E C O N D E D I T I O N
E U R O M E D S
European Medical Students’ Association
OFFICIAL NEWSLETTER
I N T H I S
E D I T I O N
E M S A
T A S K F O R C E
2
B E S T B U D D Y
P R O J E C T
E M S A
M A C A D O N I A
3
E M S C O U N C I L 4
H O W T O B E A
K İ C K A S S
S T U D E N T
5
E M S C O U N C I L 7 6
S U M M E R
S C H O O L A T H E N S
7
M Y M E X İ C A N
T R İ P
8
Z İ M S 9
C P M E M E E T İ N G
R E P O R T 1 0
E M S A G A
A T H E N S 1 1
A N O U N C E M E N T S
Call for EMSA Working Group
Do you want to be more active for
EMSA on international level? If so,
our new Working Group might just
the thing for you!
As part of the EMSA working group
you will brainstorm and share ideas
with other WG members.
Other than that you will also be
actively supporting and working on
EMSA projects. WG members will
very often be project managers as
well s coordinators and will work
closely with the EEB on all strategic
interests of EMSA.
Do you think a position in the EMSA
Working Group is something for you,
contact the EEB for more
information!
Call for Euromeds writer
committee
EMSA is looking for members for an
Euromeds writers committee! As it
is hard to collect articles for the
Euromeds everytime (even though
people are allowed to write about
almost everything), EMSA came up with
an idea. We want to create an
Euromeds writer committee!
As member of the Euromeds writer
committee you will write articles about
subjects that you like, and articles that
suit for example a special edition of
Euromeds.
If you are creative and if you like to
write articles, please mail me at
[email protected] for more
information!
486 kg, 1.220 cm, 7 brains
Begotten by the GA„s plenary in
Heidelberg in September 2009, born
on the 25th march 2010, EMSA is
proud of her youngest offspring: The
taskforce for the future cooperation
with the International Federation of
Medical Students„ Associations
(short: TFTFCWIFMSA).
Lively, committed, savvy and with
the wilful intent to have an objective
and precisely analysing eye on the
relation between our organisation
and the IFMSA, five appointed
mahatmas from five different
countries plus two representatives of
the European Board (mahatmas as
well, of course!) have started to
elaborate recommendations for the
EEB regarding EMSA„s positioning
towards the IFMSA. Part of the
council of the Seven are
Ania Dobek , Warsaw, Poland
Atanas Banchev , Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Christoph Philipsenburg , Heidel-
berg, Germany
Maciek Gryziak, Warsaw, Poland
Özge Koc , Istanbul-Yeditepe, Turkey
Sietke Postema, Groningen, the Neth-
erlands
Verena Thiel, Munich, Germany
In regular, productive AND efficient
skype-meetings we agreed to start
our job by analysing the
organisational structures of both
IFMSA and EMSA at the same time
as we try to figure out what the
situation and the mood concerning
the relation of the two is like in the
FMOs. And therefore we essentially
need your help! Whether you are LC,
NC or even an emeritus EEBie,
we„ve designed a questionnaire that
is to be filled-in online especially for
you! We would like to encourage
every LC to start a discussion based
on this questionnaire in his/her
local group and to answer our
questions representing the whole
group„s opinion, because whatever
we recommend in the end and
whatever the EEB decides, the
success largely depends on if the
active members of EMSA are willing
to support it.
The next step of the masterplan will
consist of drafting possible
s c e n a r i o s o f c o o p e r a t i o n
(considering the information you will
have given us) and evaluate them.
Finally, we hope to be able to
present the fruit of our work already
at the next General Assembly in
Athens.
Background
The IFMSA is a world-wide operating
organisation representing medical
students„ of 97 countries (January
2009), founded in 1948. EMSA,
founded in 1991, is active in
geographical Europe and currently
represents medical students of 26
countries. It is obvious that the fields of
action of two similar medical students„
organisations must overlap somehow,
e.g. in the question of the justified
representative of Europe„s medical
students towards the WHO and other
organisations as well as similar and
parallel-existing projects in the field of
medical education and other fields of
action. For some time, members of
both organisations have been
discussing options of collaboration to
avoid and resolve this ambiguous
situation, yet it has been a difficult
process to approach the two
organisations. As one step to find out
the best way these two organisations
can cooperate, EMSA has decided to
make up the TFTFCWIFMSA during the
General Assembly 2009 in Heidelberg.
Christoph Philipsenburg
EMSA Taskforce
FLTR: Ania, Atanas, Christoph, Maciek, Özge,
Sietke and Verena
E M S A T A S K F O R C E
Page 2 E U R O M E D S
Page 3 E U R O M E D S
B E S T B U D D Y P R O J E C T — E M S A M A C A D O N İ A
Imagine being blind and not being
able to see all the beautiful things
the world has to offer…Close your
eyes and just for a moment put your-
self in a position of an orphan, a
child with no one out there in the
world, except his roommates, shar-
ing the same destiny. And now be-
sides all of this, think of yourself as
someone who is continuously unwel-
comed everywhere and also often
part of the others‟ people jokes. The
life can be very cruel and unfair
sometimes…
Trying to convince this kind of chil-
dren that the world isn‟t such a bad
place to live in, a group of medical
students, members of EMSA-
Macedonia, after finishing their
training lesions with professionals
(the main teacher of the school and
also the school a psychologist), or-
ganized a project named “Best
Buddy Project”. This project had only
one major aim, to improve these
children‟s life and socialization, as
well as to increase their self-esteem.
In order to achieve this, the students
started visiting the children twice a
week or sometimes even more, on a
regular base, in a period of two
months.
I was also part of the team and di-
rectly involved in the project. There-
fore I would like to share mine and
the others‟ experience, trying to
make you feel the energy and emo-
tions we all experienced and devel-
oped during that period of time.
We worked with a group of around
20 children, all of them attending
primary school, for people with dis-
abilities in this case-sight impair-
ment. I remember as it was yester-
day the first day we went to the
school. A group of smiley faces wel-
comed us as we entered the school
yard. Little frightened and excited at
the beginning, the children didn‟t
need a lot of time to start communi-
cating with us. Each of the students
chose his/her buddy among the chil-
dren. In fact, it was more a sponta-
neous two-way matching than a one-
way choice.
The first day we all introduced our-
selves and they did the same. They
were so happy. I am really not capa-
ble of describing the feeling, so sin-
cere, so pure, and so special in any
way. Our mutual connection and
understanding were becoming
deeper and more promising with
every additional visit. We organized
their outdoor and indoor activities,
trying to offer them something new
and interesting all the time we spent
together. Once we took them to the
city moll, where they all could have a
nice and relaxing evening in the
main candy store, having the chance
to taste some of the newest cakes
and sweets. And all of this was com-
pleted by the music produced by
store‟s band, dedicating a song spe-
cifically to our new friends. There
was also a time we took them to the
new and trendy Action Park in our
city, where they could enjoy all the
games and activities provided there
and maybe for the first time experi-
ence the happiness of being enter-
tained just like other “normal” kids.
Besides the social program we also
had a plan of how to fulfill their
school time. We organized classes of
reading, singing, studying, and in
that way we tried to make their regu-
lar everyday life more interesting.
We also managed to improve their
creativity skills by organizing lessons
of drawing, painting and
creating some products.
The time passed and the
end of our project arrived.
For the closing day we ar-
ranged a small theatre
where the main actors
were our little friends.
Some of our colleagues,
professors and friends also
took part in the event, all of
them surprised, happy and
satisfied from all what we had done.
That was maybe the end of the pro-
ject but at the same time a great
beginning of a beautiful friendship,
which brought many new perspec-
tives in our lives. We still arrange
visits and try to spend at least part
of our free time playing with the chil-
dren and proving them they matter
to us.
I hope that the story won‟t end here,
only on this piece of paper. This at
the same time is a message to all of
you medical students, to use your
knowledge and background provid-
ing support to this kind of children in
your countries. Believe me, you
won‟t regret it and you‟ll have an
experience you will never forget.
Vera Stankovic
EMSA-Macadonia
Dreams
New regulations within Europe make
it increasingly easier to work and live
in other countries of Europe. This
ensures that for many people "their
dream" can come true by buying a
house in a vivid village in Italy where
the sun shines even brighter and
longer...or a small cottage in the
mountains in Austria, where life is
more quiet and nature is magnifi-
cent ...or maybe a houseboat at a
beautiful lake in France...
Doctors are also having dreams and
for them it is easier to earn more
money in wealthy European coun-
tries. Besides that, "city life" is very
appealing, with nearby restaurants,
cosy bars and shops and of course
the enhanced career opportunities!
However, these dreams do have a
downside, because while many doc-
tors leave for more prosperous coun-
tries and for the exciting city life,
there is a risk of a shortage in poorer
European countries and rural areas!
As a consequence of this, "Access to
Healthcare" might be limited in some
situations.
The EMS council in Vienna was all
about the right of 'Access to Health-
care ".
Some of the topics discussed in-
cluded "free movement of doctors in
Europe" and "unregistered migrants
and rights to Healthcare."
“Free movement of Medical Doc-
tors in the EU"
A new European law to accomplish
the statement "New European La-
bour Markets, Open to All, with Ac-
cess for All" makes this mobility pos-
sible. Since the 70s, the EU has
worked hard to equalize Medical
Education for medical students and
to make certificates and diplomas
valued in different European coun-
tries (Bologna process).
Primarily, physicians from Central
and Eastern European countries are
attracted to the rich Western and
Northern European countries. West-
ern Europe has already caused a
"brain drain" from countries of the
continents Africa and Asia in the
l a s t f e w d e c a d e s .
Currently there is no absolute short-
age within poorer European coun-
tries due to the emigration of doc-
tors. One of the reasons for this is
the present language barrier. Yet,
this situation might change in the
future...
Motives for migration can be attrib-
uted to various push-pull factors.
Push factors which may cause
health professionals to leave their
country are low payment, poor work-
ing conditions, lack of health care
resources, limited career prospects,
economic instability, a hazardous
work environment and the preva-
lence of infectious diseases like
HIV/AIDS.
Pull factors which make a country
attractive to health professionals
are better payment (and thus the
possibility to provide for relatives),
better working conditions, a well-
equipped health care sector, good
chances for further qualification,
positive career prospects, and politi-
cal and economic stability (1)””
LIkewise, limited access to Health-
care could exist in rural areas,
which are less attractive due to re-
duced career prospects and less
facilities.
Solutions: Opinion dr. Jörg
Pruckner- Vice President CPME
(Austria)
During the EMS Council, Dr Pruck-
ner, Vice-President (Austria) of the
Standing Committee of European Doc-
tors attended our discussion. Dr. Pruck-
ner also works as a GP.
His advice regarding the impending
shortage of professionals in rural areas
was that it should be more possible to
combine working in a rural area and
living in the city. For instance physi-
cians could work for a few days a week
in a rural area and the other days they
could live in the city or even work there.
He also claimed that the rural areas
should be enriched with more social
facilities to make them more appealing.
Also he pleaded that doctors who
worked in a rural area should receive a
higher wage. "In Austria, doctors who
are visiting patients in the mountains
receive a higher salary. The mountains
can not be reached by car, only by foot,
therefore there salary is only fair, be-
cause they work harder."
In addition, a fund within Europe was
also discussed. More wealthy countries
could support poorer European coun-
tries with this fund, to equalize the
salaries of Healthcare professionals
and to guarantee the quality of Health-
care in whole Europe.
Dr Pruckner stated as well, that mo-
mentarily there is no crucial "brain
drain" within Europe.
However, we have to be prepared for
this in the future.
Unregistered Migrants
The Global Commission on Interna-
tional Migrants estimated in 2005 that
most likely there are between 4,5 and
8 million unregistered migrants living in
Europe. Problems arise when they are
seeking for medical help. Patients do
not dare to visit a doctor because of
their fear of being emigrated and
E M S C O U N C İ L — L İ M İ T A T İ O N S O N A C C E S T O H E A L T H C A R E
Page 4 E U R O M E D S
because of the high costs, which they
can not afford.
This brings situations with terrible
consequences, not only for adults, but
also for children.
Doctors of the World, better known as
Médecins du Monde, initiated in 2008
an European network, called „HUMA
network‟. It aims to improve access to
Healthcare for unregistered migrants
and asylum seekers. They con-
tacted EMSA to support their decla-
ration. This declaration will be dis-
cussed during the General Assem-
bly of EMSA. During the EMS Coun-
cil we discussed how Europe can
improve „‟access to Healthcare‟‟ for
these under-exposed patients
(www.huma-network.org).
During the General Assembly of Sep-
tember in Greece, we will vote upon
the resolution of the EMS Council.
When approved, it will be presented
to our partners.
Micky Las van Bekkenkom
Medical Ethics Director 2009/10
References:
1. Buchan J. Migration of health workers in
Europe: policy problem or policy solution? In:
Dubois CA, McKee M, Nolte E, editors. Human
resources for health in Europe. Maidenhead:
Open University Press; 2006. p. 42-62.
2. Gerlinger T, Schmucker R. Transnational
migration of health professionals in the Euro-
pean Union. Cad Saude Publica. 2007;23 Suppl
2:S184-92.
Page 5 E U R O M E D S
H O W T O B E A K I C K - A S S S T U D E N T
A guideline for clinical clerkships
There comes a time in the life of every
medical student when rotations in the
hospital are due. In Germany you get
matched up in teams of two to five
students and then you are sent to a
ward to spend your morning there.
How you spend the morning depends
from the commitment of the ward,
some actually have a doctor waiting
for you, eager to tech you, others
are surprised to see students and
leave it up to you how to pass the
time.
Anyways here are some instructions
on how to make your stay during
clinical clerkships as comfortable as
possible…
Gender
First of all be a male. I know eman-
cipation and equal rights are sup-
posed to be long passed issues of
the late 60‟s, but let‟s face the fact:
Nothing makes you seem as compe-
tent as being male. Your position gets
even better if you happen to be the
only man in your student group and
finds its perfection if the women sur-
rounding you are pretty blondes. To
put it in a nutshell - no studying what-
soever could ever make you seem as
smart as such a lucky catenation of
facts.
Punctuality
I know rotations in the hospital start
early… but yet it is not always the
early bird that catches the worm.
As studying medicine in a quite de-
manding task calculate your powers
well. Only a well rested doctor who is
alert and a awake is a good doctor.
Therefore sleep as long and as much
as you can. If that means you will be
running late, don‟t worry- you just
have to do it right. Never arrive at the
ward only five minutes late; you might
bump into the last doctors leaving the
changing room just while you storm
in. If you run late go ahead and allow
yourself to have an extra cup of cof-
fee. So if you arrive round about half
an hour late the morning conference
will be just over and you wait outside
and just pretend to you were the first
one exit the room. Another possibility
is to pretend that you were at the rest-
room, or an even better option is to
carry around a tablet with blood ex-
aminations and pretend you just
came out of the patient‟s room.
During the ward round
This is a great opportunity to impress
the chief resident. If you not happen
to have any extraordinary knowledge,
do not worry you still can make a
good impression. It is quite easy, lis-
ten to what the chief talks about with
the other residents. Then pick up a
difficult expression you overheard
during their conversation. (That is a
crucial point where most mistakes
can be made so caution!) Choose a
word that is for sure a medical ex-
pression which was not discussed
during lectures or classes, and ask
a question about it.
E.g. “What does ECF-A mean?” You
can be sure the chief resident will
give you an extra credit to be soooo
interested in the eosinophilic chemo
-tactic factor of anaphylaxis….
The name tag
You want to be remembered…. But
only for the good things. So here is
the trick: wear a name tag , a big
name tag, so that your name is eas-
ily readable even for a nearly blind
professor. Whenever you ask an
“intelligent” question, accomplish
some work or bring some cake, be
sure to wear it. But if you ask a criti-
cal question, stumble in late or
messed up a procedure and have to
confess it now, flip the nametag to
the inside of your pocket.
You see clinical internships are not
so hard as they seem. Just behave
right and everything will go well.
Vroni Koeppen
EMSA NC Germany
Page 6 E U R O M E D S
From dusk till dawn
It was... Different.
Coming to the venue was an adven-
ture in itself. Arriving second was
strange. Being ne of two participants
that actually arrived for the next cou-
p l e o f h o u r s w a s f u n n y .
The rest of the day was cool. Shifted
the opening ceremony, had a short
EEB meeting, had some laughs...
Mostly at the expense of Ejafjolajo-
kul.
Island should enforce a „No smok-
ing“ law...
Many of us had to... Adjust our travel
plans. But those of us that made it to
Vienna, had an amazing experience!
If I were asked to pick my favourite
day, it would have been the first
working day... The brainstorming ses-
sions, the fear of the enormousness
of the subject, the games we played
trying to keep it... Fun. :-) And the
Roman Night as the crowning jewel
of the day! Wow!
Location, location, location
Or... Work, work, work... The second
day was more... Challenging. One is
supposed to form what he/she
wants to say... It's like a surgery
really. Can be ugly, but it has to be
done. ;-)
Now that I think back, the surgery
was kinda fun... As Frankie would,
more or less, put it: „We've worked,
we've laughed and cried, we've had
our fill, our share of writing, but now
with those days gone, we find it all
so amusing!“
Well... At least I do... :-)
Hamster Olympics
The third day was the day when we
realized we did 80% of the work in
20% of the time (first day)... And we
needed the remaining 80%
of the time to finish the re-
maining 20% of the work-
load...
It started, if I remember cor-
rectly, with plenary sessions.
After all, one has to talk
about the quorum (which we
did not have), the future
(which is a blur) and the IR
(which is a mess)... Fun!
No... Really... Fuuun... Ok, ok... You
g o t m e . I l i v e s a r c a s m . . .
To be honest, though, the session in
which we talked about the vision of
the future of EMS Council was a
rather fruitful one. I remain in hope
that the ideas will in time become
reality...
We spent the rest of the day debat-
ing... Words. Should it be „should“ or
„might“ or „have to“? Do we „kindly
ask“ or do we „strongly support“ or
do we „demand“? What is the defini-
tion of Europe? (Which is much more
difficult to answer then one thinks... I
thank Catharine the Great for her
definition! hehe)
In the end it was all about the Ham-
ster Olympics... Or was that on the
second day... Hmm... Well... It really
makes little difference now... The
important thing is that an amazing
document was created! Through
blood, sweat and tears, but created
nevertheless! :-)
And with everything said and done,
with this report write, all that is left to
write is that…
It was an EMSastic experience!
Tin Knezevic
EMSA President 2009/10
E M S C O U N C I L 7
Page 7 E U R O M E D S
S U M M E R S C H O O L A T H E N S
This fall let HelMSIC …
LECTURES
ENTERTAINMENT
TRAININGS
MEDICINE
FUN
EDUCATION RE-
SEARCH
LABS
STEM
CELLS
YOU!
This year HelMSIC gives you one more
reason to visit Greece. So this year
apart from the beautiful beaches, the
sea, the ancient sites and the greek
frenzy way of entertainment an one-
week summer school focused on
Regenerative Medicine waits for you
in Athens from 6 to 12 September
2010!
The last few years more and more ad-
vances in regenerative medicine are
achieved. From enabling the regen-
eration of damaged tissues and or-
gans we have reached to the level of
trying to make permanently damaged
organs to function again. As the years
goes by more clinical applications
have been set in use and hopes for
curing previously untreatable diseases
have been raised.
From all the above it is undoubted that
in the near future –when we will be
doctors- its use will be expanded. Be-
ing a medical student it should be one
of our first priorities to try to be up to
date with new advances in medicine
since we will have to use them in the
near future.
If this is one of your priorities then this
summer school is the one you should
attend this year! Given that you are an
undergraduate medical student (2nd
year or above) with a good knowledge
in English and having an interest of
exploring the fascinating new world of
Regenerative Medicine then visit our
website and APPLY! Apply and be one
of the 40 lucky participants that will
have the chance to unveil the myster-
ies of stem cells by not only attending
lectures given by experts covering all
the aspects and uses of regenerative
medicine, but also by visiting labs in
Biomedical Research Foundation of
the Academy of Athens and learning
what working with stem cells is like. In
our website you can already find a pre-
liminary educational program.
Don't miss the chance to be
part of this event!
But as the saying goes “all work and
no play makes Jack a dull boy” so ex-
cept of all the theoretical and practical
educational events there are a lot of
social program „s events scheduled
for you. Beach party, traditional greek
night with folk music and dances,
tours, clubbing, national food and
drinks party are just some of the
events that will take place ;) In addi-
tion to this it is obvious that the main
goal of this summer school is to be
good doctors for years but in Septem-
ber we are not going to learn just
about medicine but also get ready to
learn about a different country, a dif-
ferent culture and civilization.
Dare you to miss this
event?
We can’t wait to
meet you in Athens!
For more information and applications,
just visit our website:
www.rmss. athens.helmsic.gr
or contact us via email :
On behalf of the Organizing Committee,
Georgios Tsaknias
Ever since I started medicine I imag-
ined myself studying for some time in
a Latin American country. And finally,
after having passed every exam and
absolving all required internship, I
planned my last year of Medical stud-
ies. In Germany, the last year consists
out of twelve month practice in Inter-
nal Medicine, surgery and one elective.
The day of my departure drew nearer:
In the beginning of December I was
finally sitting in the plane to Mexico via
New York City. Unfortunately, one of
the cursed snow storms crossed my
way in NYC and so I was crammed to-
gether with other passengers in the
boarding area at Newark Airport wait-
ing for another Job‟s messages of de-
layed flights.
Although I might have been a desper-
ate waiter for the next flight, I was also
a fortunate traveler that was booked
for a five star hotel with a consuming
voucher by the airline.
One day later as presumed I arrived in
Monterrey. The next day my internship
started and before I could throw over
my white coat, I had to present myself
at the University‟s office for Interna-
tional Programs. I was fairish provided
with information how to get to the hos-
pitals and what to do or what not to do
in the city.
And this Monterrey should be my new
place of living. The city is located in the
North of Mexico and its surrounding
has approximately 7 million inhabi-
tants. Conclusion: It was the biggest
city I have ever been living in and it
was amazing… big, dirty,
crowded, to make it short-
Monterrey is not a Latin-
American beauty.
Working in the hospital was
also so much different from
Germany. Every Morning I
got up at five and I started
working at six. Every morn-
ing I controlled the vitality
signs and the operating
wounds of my patients, wrote their
indications anew and finally pre-
sented them to my resident and
later to my doctor- the so called
“Externos”.
Externos are the doctors are the
“real” doctors. Everything below an
“ E x t e r n o ” - t h e
“Residentes” (residents) and
“Internos” (students in their last
year of medical education) and “Pre
-Internos” (…) is still considered to
be a student and learns. And does
the work… The Internos do the pa-
perwork- taking ECGs, ordering X-
rays and runs, runs, runs. The Resi-
dente operates and makes his In-
terno run.
Another thing that was
slightly different to all of my intern-
ships I had before was that I sud-
denly had to stay every third night in
the hospital for a night shift. Night
shift always meant working in the
ambulance or guarding our patients
in the operating room. In these
nights I saw knife wounds, amputa-
tions and everything was every time
accompanied by purulence. But
these were the nights. In the day-
time I cared about the diseases that
were born out of violence and obe-
sity.
The basic diet consists out of dead
cow, tortilla and Coca Cola- carbohy-
drates, proteins and tons of sugar.
And people didn‟t have to struggle
only with carbon dioxide and sugar-
induced hick-ups and temporary
hyper agility but also with diabetes and
disease related diabetic feed, obesity,
hemorrhoids, cholecystitis.
During my stay in Mexico I changed my
hospital after two months. The first
one was a hospital for the working
class, the second for the people with-
out any income and the poor. In the
second hospital I had to learn that
many of the patients came from far
away. Some of them took the burden
to travel for more than seven hours by
bus just to have a doctor look at his or
her wounds again. I also had to experi-
ence that some operations couldn‟t be
performed because of the lack of in-
struments or material. One night,
when I had a night shift again, I was
operating with a traumatologist. Before
us on the operating table was a twenty
year old young man with a fracture of
his radius. He had broken his arm in a
car accident- of which he couldn‟t be
blamed. So the two of us were stand-
ing in the middle of the night before
this young man- the wound was really
severe and the only thing we could do
for him, was cleaning the wound with
water mixed with antibiotics and close
the wound again. There was no mate-
rial to stabilize his radius, because this
young man basically couldn‟t afford to
buy it.
The Mexican government guarantees a
basic health insurance for the poor.
They have the right to receive treat-
ment against conditions that threaten
their lives; anything that goes beyond
has to be paid by them.
Another aspect that was
totally new for me was that
one member of the family
always has to stay with the
patient in the hospital.
Every minute of the day
there was one person
around the sick; in the night
they
Page 8 E U R O M E D S
M Y M E X İ C A N T R İ P
Page 9 E U R O M E D S
spread out their camping mattress or a
blanket on the ground next to the sick
person‟s bed. During the meal times
they fed the sick, they helped us – the
Internos- curing their wounds and they
kept the spirits of their beloved person
alive. Some of the patients were lying
in the hospitals since weeks and so it
happened quite often that we not only
got to know our patients very well but
also their relatives and friends that
were around. For me it seemed that
they do not only care for their sick
person but also for the ones that
are there for curing- doctors, nurses
and students.
The four month in Mexico were
loaded with work, I had periods
when I slept only 24 hours a week.
But every minute I was awake work-
ing in the hospital or getting to know
people and country was worth it.
Constanze Born
Liaison officer towards WHO_europe
2009/10
Z I M S
ZIMS - Zagreb International Medical
Summit is a student lead project, run
as a section of EMSA Zagreb, that
brings together medical students and
young doctors, worldwide, but mostly
from Europe.
It is a place of constant exchange of
knowledge, presentation of scientific
papers and acquisition of new knowl-
edge from colleagues and invited pro-
fessors in medical science.
ZIMS is the only conference where
young students and not yet affirmed
scientists have access to the world of
publishing, thus becoming the only
conference in Europe where the book
of abstracts is published as a supple-
ment to a prestigious medical journal,
'Liječnički Vjesnik', which is
however indexed in EMBASE /
Index Medicus. Not to mention
that the best works are pub-
lished as a full texts! Conse-
quently, the highest quality of
an abstract, which goes through
strict criteria process, is manda-
tory. As we know how important
presentation of a project is, we
expect you to represent your work
either orally or as a poster. Further
on, general idea of ZIMS is to pro-
mote city of Zagreb as a cultural
and youth centre, and therefore
field trip, workshops and evening
gatherings are important part of the
programme.
ZIMS 9 took a place from November
12-15th 2009. 164
students and young
doctors from 20 coun-
tries participated. 250
abstracts were submit-
ted and 70 of them
accepted and pre-
sented. ZIMS 9 organiz-
ing committee had 21
member. 14 distin-
guished doctors, scien-
tists and professors formed Scientific
Jury. After exceptionally successful
ZIMS 9 we are very proud to invite you
to participate in ZIMS 10 which will
take place in Zagreb, Croatia from No-
vember 11-14th, 2010. This year ZIMS
will last four days – three full days of
scientific presentations, poster ses-
sions and workshops and one-day field
trip. 10th ZIMS offers more scientific
papers, more posters and more fun
than any ZIMS before! Allow us to be a
part of your new, plentiful, life experi-
ence; to help you to acquire medical
knowledge, bound with colleagues
from all over the world, enjoy Croatian
beauty and hospitality. Come to Za-
greb and experience science!
We are looking forward seeing you at
ZIMS10!
Dear EMSA readers,
On the 16th and 17th of April took
place one more CPME board and
General Assembly meeting in Brus-
sels. The chosen venue was the
Bloom Hotel, a modern and fancy
hotel nearby the city centre. Despite
the flight problems due to the vol-
canic ashes I managed to arrive in
Brussels for the meeting. Unfortu-
natelly many delegations were un-
able to send representatives because
of the flight cancelations. After some
emails CPME Board decided to go
ahead with the meeting, in spite of
not having the quorum needed. How-
ever, there was one urgent issue to
decide and vote upon, the election of
the new CPME secretary-general, the
substitute of Ms. Lisette Tiddens Eng-
wirda. To solve this situation, most of
the absent delegations gave proxies
to the present delegations, but just
for this specific issue. EMSA repre-
sentatives were supposed to be the
President Tin Knezevic and myself as
EMO-LO. Tin flight was cancelled and
he couldn‟t attend the meeting.
As the meeting had no quorum it was
short and with no much discussion
on the various topics.
The meeting started at 8.30h with
the agenda:
1. Roll call
2. Procedural matters
3. Approval of the agenda
4. Approval of the minutes of the
Board meeting in October 2009, Win-
chester
5. CPME President‟s report
6. CPME Secretary General‟s report
7. Minutes of the Executive meet-
ing in October 2009, Winchester
8. Outcomes of the CPME Working
Groups
9. Internal affairs
10. Financial matters
11. President‟s Committee
12. International Calendar
13. Any other business
14. Next meeting
Closing
As we didn‟t have the necessary
quorum many of the topics had few
discussion and we ended the meet-
ing as 12h.
In what concerns the first 7 topics
there was almost no discussion, just
some doubts from the members
about one or two specific issues.
About the WG Outcomes, some of
the rapporteurs were present and
updated us about the ongoing work
of the working groups, however
some of the initially proposed WG
were not yet working or won‟t work
at all. Some of them had meetings
already some of them didn‟t. In this
period I realized the two most im-
portant and widely discussed topics
will be the Recognition of Profes-
sional Qualifications and the Euro-
pean Working Time Directive. We
should be updated about these two
particular topics of discussion, as
CPME will be working on both.
After the coffee-break we reach the
most important topic of this meet-
ing, the election of a new secretary
general, as Ms. Lisette is leaving
CPME. CPME President, Dr. Radzi-
will updated the members about the
selection process. They interviewed
some candidates and Ms. Berger
was, according to the CPME secre-
tariat, the most suitable candidate
despite being a laywer. She has al-
ready worked in other European insti-
tutions and is experienced with Euro-
pean lobbying. Her name was ap-
proved by the members present and
they were using proxies for the miss-
ing members, to have the quorum.
Also at topic 11 there was an update
about the Domus Medica situation. A
meeting had been schedule for the
15th of April but it was cancelled
some days before because some
member couldn‟t attend. We are now
discussing the possibility of having a
shared building in Brussels for all the
European Medical Organisations.
The meeting closed by Dr. Radziwill
at 12h.
During the dinner Friday night and
during the Saturday meeting I always
try to promote EMSA especially to the
EMO‟s (European Medical Organisa-
tions). I improve our relations with
AEMH (European Association of Sen-
ior Hospital Physicians) who invited
us to their conference in Lisbon, in
May. I also approach UEMO
(European Union of General Practi-
cioners) President, Dra. Isabel
Caixeiro, and at the end she an-
nounced her wish to invite me (as
EMSA representative of course) to
the UEMO Conference on Primary
Health Care Trends. This conference
will be in Brussels, was recently post-
poned to September and will be or-
ganized within the Belgian Presi-
dency of the EU. They want the stu-
dents perspective so this invitation is
Page 10 E U R O M E D S
C P M E M E E T İ N G R E P O R T
for being a speaker at the confer-
ence. Finally I had a small meeting
with Bernardo in which we‟ve talked
about our changing structure (the
WG, website) and I updated him
about our work. We also discussed
some of our common projects.
It was a great pleasure to meet
David, our Permanent Officer, de-
spite we hadn‟t much spare time. It
gave us the possibility of discussing
some topics, some of our work and
how can we improve.
I returned to Portugal by bus because
of the flights cancellations. I must
say…. It was also a different experi-
ence!
Luis Machado
Liaison officer towards European Medical
Organisations 2009/10
Page 11 E U R O M E D S
E M S A G A A T H E N S
Next EMSA GA is the upcoming event.
The hurt of Europe beats in Athens
on the 8-12 of September 2010. Our
annual general assembly is a great
opportunity not only to discuss the
important and vital issues of our as-
sociation, but also to meet each
other from all over Europe. It‟s also a
chance to share ideas and experi-
ences, to cooperate extensively, to
learn and cultivate our skills, and of
course a way to have fun and party!
So, all of the organizing committee
invites you to the Next EMSA GA! Just
take the decision to visit Greece and
explore our great civilization, from the
ancient times through modern his-
tory, get impressed by our way of
entertainment and admire the value
of our hospitality.
The EMS Congress will take place in
tandem with the EMSA GA. Related
to the Regenerative Medicine, it will
present us this foremost field that
will prevail in the future. Well-known
experts will explain us the funda-
mental ideas of stem cells and their
applications in medicine, both quite
challenging and essential subjects
to all students who keep abreast of
the progress in science.
The registration will open soon.
Hope to see you all in Athens this
September.
For more information visit our web-
site:
www.emsaga2010.athens.
helmsic.gr
On behalf of the organizing commit-
tee,
Ioannis Tomos, Niki Oikonomopoulou
EMSA – c/o Standing Committee of
European Doctors (CPME) – Rue
Guimard 15 – B1040 Brussels -
Belgium
Web: www.emsa-europe.org
E-Mail: [email protected]
WHAT IS EMSA?
The European Medical Students‟ Association (EMSA) was founded in
Brussels in 1991. It integrates medical students in geographical Europe
through activities organised for and by medical students and representing
them in Brussels. Faculties are members, not the individual countries. Since
EMSA‟s foundation many medical faculties throughout Europe enrolled with
EMSA. It currently units 50 medical faculties from countries across Europe.
EMSA seeks to improve the health and the quality of care of the citizens of
Europe by acting as a conduit for increased interaction and sharing of
knowledge between European medical students in the areas of medical education,
ethics and science.
E U R O P E A N M E D İ C A L
S T U D E N T S ’ A S S O C I A T I O N
NCM 2010 OC and EEB in Istanbul, Turkey
S E E Y O U I N N E X T E D I T I O N ! Acknowledgement
Articles do not neces-
sarily reflect the opin-
ion of EMSA. All arti-
cles are the copyrights
of the EUROPEAN
MEDICAL STUDENTS‟
ASSOCIATION (EMSA).
We thank all of you for
your contributions.
The objectives of EMSA are:
° To form a network between European medical students to facilitate European integration and develop a sense of European
identity
° To represent and voice the opinions of the medical students of Europe
° To act as a forum for all medical students in Europe, to discuss topics related to the fields of medical education, medical ethics, and
medical research
° To promote the highest standards in European medical education and ensure the quality of healthcare in Europe
° To promote training, activities and projects related to health in Europe to the benefit of medical students and society
° To facilitate intercultural understanding by organizing social and cultural events
° To cooperate with other student organizations and with organizations representing the medical profession
A couple of the activities EMSA organises are: Teddy Bear Hospital, Twinning Project, Eurotalk, EMSA Summer Schools, EMS Council,
EMSA-skiing week, JEMSA and many more. For more information about EMSA projects you can contact the EMSA European Board
(mailto: [email protected]) or visit our website at: www.emsa-europe.org.