eVagus - March 2008

eVAGUS March 2008 - Volume 56 - Issue 2

Migration and Health

Content

The 57th General Assembly of IFMSA in Monterrey, Mexico.

Migration and Health Children Hygiene Native Health Skin Cancer Art and Brain EMSCouncil 5 Lancet Student Youth Organisations Peace Test BoHeMSA National GA VPE Sessions March 7th Event

“Migration is a strong expression of an individual’s will to overcome adversity and live a better life…” – Kofi Annan

UN Secretary-General

Nobel Prize 2001 IFMSA-Mexico is hosting the 57th General Assembly from 1st – 7th March 2008 in Monterrey, Mexico. Over 700 medical students from more than 90 different countries will unite in this international forum to discuss global health and medicine.

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eVagus Editorial Board Chief Editor: Co-Editor: Article Coordinator: Copy Editor: Design/Layout:

Candice Galea Eduardo Rios Mohamed Salama Paul Micallef Christoph Bader

Contact Information General Secretariat IFMSA c/o WMA B.P. 63 01212 Ferney-Voltaire Cedex France Email: publications@ifmsa.org Homepage: ifmsa.org

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eVAGUS Children Hygiene - Native Health of school children are at a high risk of developing caries, we taught them the importance of a good mouth wash and also gave them tooth brush and tooth paste samples so they can keep working on it at school.

To finalise the activity, we gave every-

body a very nice “IFMSA Chile certificate for children” so they could be proud of what they learnt and keep taking care of themselves.

Sebastian Placencia President of Local Committee IFMSA Chile

Native Health Initiative (NHI) A partnership to address health inequities through loving service.

Nályééh (pronounced Nah ahl yeh) = Navajo word meaning ‘giving back’ in the form of a pay back to a due owed.

Fight for Children Hygiene A Project from IFMSA Chile Diarrhoeic infections are the 2nd common cause of infections in children, being the cause for 50% of pediatric hospitalisations and 35% of the visits to the emergency room according to statistics from our Ministry of Health. With this in mind, we realised that a very easy, practical and cheap way of decreasing this problem was just having an appropriate hand wash before eating. We thus created a campaign which included prevention and promotion of hygiene, especially for children under 5 years old.

Thus, members of the Local Committee of the Universidad Católica de la Santisima Concepción (UCSS) organised the first of many-to-be hygiene operatives, having as target group small children from the project “Adopt a sibling”. With playful activities we taught them the importance of having an adequate hand wash and at the end gave them soap samples as a prize for participating in the activity.

Also, to make the most of this hygiene activity and considering that almost 30%

In the summer of 2007, a cadre of hundreds of volunteers worked tirelessly in the American Indian communities of North Carolina to fulfil nályééh.

Some were tribal leaders, including health professionals, ministers, educators, elders and youth. Others were the 28 students that sacrificed much of their summer to volunteer as “Health Justice Interns.” These students represented health (medicine, nursing, and public health) and non-health fields and came from Canada, Norway and across the United States.

Without speaking about the individual projects that transpired, the process be-

hind this summer and the Native Health Initiative’s work over the past three years is worth exploring, hoping that what we have learned can be transferred to programs in other populations and communities. We will look at three unique aspects of this program – ownership, framework, and coalition-building.

Ownership “What we’ve seen in the past is that when outsiders come in they want to force changes” -Mark Deese (Tuscarora), NHI Mentor When volunteers arrive in North Carolina, their questions as to what exactly they will be doing are answered by the NHI coordinators with, “Not quite sure.”

Indeed, the locus of control within NHI’s projects rests in the hands of community

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eVAGUS Native Health leaders, known as NHI Mentors. These Mentors develop projects based on the areas of highest need in their Tribes, along with consideration of which projects will be most sustainable given the community’s resources. This has been a priority for NHI since its beginning, which took place not on a college campus but in a meeting of community and health leaders in a Pembroke church. (Pembroke is the centre of the Lumbee Tribe’s community and is the largest American Indian community in the Eastern U.S.). At this meeting the name of the project, along with its core principles, were decided.

Though there are challenges that arise with this approach, we have seen an unprecedented amount of community support for NHI because of the Tribal ownership of the project. NHI has taken further steps to ensure this, such as mandating that at least 50% of any grant won by NHI will be directed to our community partners.

Framework “The fact that American Indians live sicker and die younger is an injustice, and we must call it for what it is. Period.”

-Shannon Fleg (Navajo), NHI co-coordinator NHI operates on a unique conceptual framework that leads to concrete out-

debtedness, adopting the “saviour ethic” only insofar as promising to save (and change) ourselves.

This framework has tangible results. For instance, the spirit of loving service has allowed NHI to build genuine relationships and trust that allowed us to carry out a summer program in 2007 for $4,000 that would otherwise have cost more than $50,000. In other words, in-kind donations, based simply on the human-to-human connections fostered by NHI, are our primary funding source! While it is more difficult to see a change in the way of health statistics regarding health equity, we do know that NHI has become an educator of thousands of health professionals of tomorrow on this subject, through our various projects, lectures, workshops and most recently, through the creation of a course in American Indian health at the UNC School of Medicine. comes. First, we use health equity, the absence of systematic differences in health across population groups1, as our gold standard for our work, believing that (1) the majority of disparities in health in the U.S. are unjust, unfair and preventable and should therefore be called as such – health inequities, and (2) that health equity is a needed gold standard, reminding us that nothing short of the elimination of inequities in health is 1 Braveman P, Gruskin S. Defining equity in health.

J Epidemiol Community Health 2003; 57: 254-258.

ethically acceptable.

Secondly, NHI operates under the model of loving service as our guide in this work. Taken largely from the example lived out in indigenous cultures, loving service reminds us that our ultimate goal in this work is to give from our hearts, to share our cultures and lives with one another and to never forget the value of the people we are working alongside.

The aspect of nályééh is central to this work, as NHI’s students and community members work with a sense of humble in-

Coalition-building “It is amazing how much gets done when no one cares who gets the credit” -NHI mantra Initially, NHI’s partners included the American Indian tribes of North Carolina, organisations within these Tribal communities and the N.C. Commission of Indian Affairs. The hesitation to partner with a University or University-affiliated programs was well-founded initially consid-

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eVAGUS Native Health - Skin Cancer

ering the history of exploitative research in American Indian communities by such institutions. However, as NHI gained the trust of the American Indian community, many benefits arose to partnering with organisations beyond the indigenous community, including the chance to put American Indian health on the agenda of minority health and service-learning groups that had never before worked with this population. “I think one of the most

important aspects of building partnerships in our work is the ability, in a nonconfrontational way, to remind people that American Indians are often the forgotten minority, relegated to longago history, left to suffer in obscurity,” says Shannon Fleg.

What has emerged from NHI’s partnerships is a growing attention to American Indians within the UNC campus community, along with a larger sense of the common struggles and injustices facing communities of colour throughout the state and country.

We hope that our fellow IFMSA members will find this description of the Native Health Initiative’s approach insightful and useful to your specific programs and communities. The issues of ownership, framework and coalition-building are essential for our collective work in empowering communities to better health and moving away from the ivory tower

approach to “doing public health.” Moreover, we hope that NHI turns our collective energies to seek the Navajo principle of nályééh as our guide, replacing NIH funding and publications as our measure for our work. Please read more about

our project, consider volunteering with NHI, and contact us with questions or opportunities for partnerships – www.unc. edu/~flega.

Anthongy Fleg

Beach Team against Skin Cancer A Local Project from U. Católica del Norte LC – IFMSA Chile

Worldwide skin cancer has increased progressively in the last few decades. This phenomenon could be explained because of increased sun exposure of people due to the decrease of the ozone layer and for the modern cultural idea of beauty.

Currently between 2 and 3 million non-melanoma skin cancers and 132,000 melanoma skin cancers occur globally each year.

One in every three cancers diagnosed is a skin cancer according to WHO and statistics from the U.S National Cancer Institute and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that maligned skin cancer represents 50% of all the types of cancers.

However, only 30% of the population takes proper precautions to avoid exposure to UV rays, the main risk factor.

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eVAGUS Skin Cancer - Art and Brain Being summer in our country with a very long sea coast, the Local Committee of the Universidad Católica de Coquimbo organised a “beach team” through SCOPH and D+E with the objective of teaching people how to take care of their selves when going to the beach to avoid the damaging effects of the sun. After all, the risk factors lie within each individual’s own responsibility!!

The activity consisted on reaching people that were enjoying the sun at the beach. Very enthusiastically they were asked about the precautions they took to protect themselves using a quiz contest model. And as a prize after the small talk, sunscreens were given to the people according to their skin-type, thus reaching more than 300 people, who participated

very actively and were really happy with the initiative.

Hopefully this is the first step to more of these kinds of campaigns since one of our missions as NMO is to work for the

well-being of our community. With these kinds of activities, which are really easy to organise, even if we get to save only one person, that is rewarding enough for us.

The search for stability performed by the brain and expressed in art The first question that gave me the motive to search and find out about the way our brain perceives Art (especially painting) was why do we see? Why is vision such a major sense? There could be a lot of answers, each equally strong. We see because this is the way we can survive, orientate, recognise our friends and relatives, eat, drink, fall in love, have descendants, and work. At a first glance, I agree. However, there are mice than can do all these things mentioned above, even though they are almost blind. Thus, the question comes up again: Why do we see?

The second question was what is the special connecting bond between art (especially painting) and the optical brain?

One first answer could be that there is a strong relationship of dependence between them, as painting is “thought” and produced by our brain. However, this is not enough. Their connection cannot

only be anatomical or functional. There has to be a common place in their purpose. Thus, two questions come up again: What is the purpose of Art? How are Art and the optical brain associated?

Why do we see?

One basic proposal is that we see in order to acquire knowledge of the world. Our brain needs to infiltrate the constantly changing conditions of our environment (such as colour and movement) so as to point out the stable characteristics of objects and situations. In this way our brain will be able to identify these stable and invariable characteristics in any similar situation and as a result categorise it in its archives, recall it each time it happens and be consciously aware of it. If we accept this proposal, we can easily explain why we understand every time a sad face, although this face may belong to many people. Our brain has learnt to

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eVAGUS Art and Brain

identify the basic characteristics of “sadness” and this may be applied to many different faces.

What is the purpose of Art? Jacques Rivier, a French critic of Art had said in 1912 that “The real purpose of painting is to represent the objects as they really are, c’est a dire, differently from the way we see it.”

Henri Matisse, the painter, had also said that under this sequence of moments from which derives the superficial existence of objects and beings, and which constantly converts and transforms them, we can quest for a more real, a more substantial character that the artist will perceive.

According to the above, painting seeks for stability. Painters try to represent the basic and stable characteristics of objects and situations. They paint a leaf green, although this green changes and depends on the time of the day. They paint a car moving in a certain direction, although it may change direction or increase its speed.

At this point, we can answer the third question. Brain and painting seek for the stable, unchangeable, defining characters of our environment. In support of these, comes what Pablo Picasso, the painter,

had said: It would be really interesting if we could preserve photographically the transformations of a picture. Maybe somebody could discover later the path our brain follows, in order to realize a dream.

The stability of situations.

The “stability of situations” can be easily detected in the work of Jan Vermeer, the famous painter. The themes of Vermeer’s paintings are rather There are common: a two sides servant who of stabilserves milk, a ity that are music lesson, a tightly conwoman reading nected. We a letter, everycould name day situations the first one that are well “stability of known to all of situations” us. However, concerning Paul Claudel the ability marks there of our brain is something to recogn“eerie unise common canny” in Vercharactermeer’s paintistics in ings. Although similar situhis painting ations. We themes are not will name radical or unthe second usual, they are side “starather mystebility of the rious and amimplied” biguous. The Jan Vermeer: “Women in Pink” concerning viewer feels as the ability of our brain to interpret an if he is watching Vermeer’s heroes seunfinished artwork in many equally ad- cretly, from a place where he is hidden. mitted ways.

I’ll set as an example a famous painting of Vermeer, “The woman in blue”.

Watching this painting, each of us may interpret it in a different way. What is this woman reading? Is it a letter from her husband? Is it a letter from her lover?

From someone else?

Is she happy about it? Is she anxious? Is she terrified? Is she worried about something? Is she in doubt? Does she have to go?

In addition, is she pregnant or is she just wearing the fashionable clothes of those times that make her appear pregnant?

On the wall we can see a map. Is it connected with the letter? Is one of her beloveds away?

It depends on our mood, our experiences and our memories, the way we interpret this painting. Our brain can recognise the stable characteristics of all the situations mentioned above. They are all equally possible and this equality is based on the ability of our brain to archive the common characteristics of similar situations.

It is really remarkable how all sentiments and possible explanations are stored and efficiently used by our brain. The mechanism is not yet fully discovered, but the research on this field is really promising.

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eVAGUS Art and Brain

The stability of the implied.

the situations. Thus, he left our imagination free to search in our mind’s archives (memories and experiences) for situations similar to the ones represented and that way to form a personal perception of the sculpture.

While Jan Vermeer managed to describe a variety of stable situations in one painting, Michelangelo, managed the same thing in a different way. Michelangelo is well known for his perfectionism.

His desire for the “ideal” was the permanent competent of himself. His works and mainly his sculptures have been recognized as masterpieces. If we pay attention to many of his sculptures, we can easily distinguish the variety of stable situations. Our fists example is the “Dying slave” by Michelangelo.

His ability to perform the ambiguous is obvious by the references by two famous art critics on this sculpture. Sir Ernest Gobrich supports that Michelangelo chose the very finest and sacred moment that the body of the young man surrenders to his fate. He abandons the material world in a moment of untold beauty and grace, exhausted and delivered.

Linda Murray on the other hand gives priority to the expression of Michelangelo’s homosexuality. She believes that this statue is a hymn to male beauty, a melancholic, sensual, affectionate and peaceful hymn of Michelangelo to his passion, the male body.

Going furthermore, the ambiguous in Michelangelo’s works is intensively re-

It is rather impressive how great and unique artists have experienced some of the basic brain functions without realizing at all that there are mechanisms which direct and organise these fine processes. The epilogue is a neurobiological truth that Plotin, a Neo-Platonist philosopher from Alexandria, said: “Form is not in the rock. It’s in the artist before it comes out of rock.”

Ioanna Athanasopoulou Medical Faculty of University of Athens, Greece.

Crixifixion flected in his unfinished sculptures and paintings. There are a lot of artists and admirers who support that the “nonfinito” of his works reflects his perfectionism, his intense desire to reach the ideal. This is why he never finished them, because he felt that his mind and talent cannot reach the “perfect”. However, a neurobiologist could propose something else. Michelangelo left some of his works unfinished, because he wanted to play with our minds and imagination. He knew empirically that our brain has the capability to search for the stability of

Frith (2007),Making up the Mind-How the Brain Creates Our Mental World, Blackwell Publishing Ltd Turner M.(2006)The Artful Mind- Cognitive Science and the Riddle of Human Creativity, Oxford University Press.

Zeki Semir, (1999) Inner Vision, An Exploration of Art and Brain, translated in Greek and published by Publications of Creta’s University.

Zeki Semir, (1995) Balthus, La Quete de l‘ essentiel, Belles lettres

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eVAGUS EMSCouncil 5

European Medical Students’ Council “Doctor & patient relationship: in front of terminally-ill patients” Next year’s EMS Council Meeting will take place from 30th April – 04th May in Athens, Greece! The host will be HelMSICAthens and a group of more than 10 hardworking people of the Organizing Team are working hard, doing their very best to organise a successful and unforgettable meeting with a powerful outcome…

to this issue. The unification of Europe is also leading to a bigger influence of politics on healthcare and education at a European and Global level. We medical students, as a future generation, also have a responsible role to play in all these matters. It was this principle that lead the European Medical Students’ Association - EMSA to create the EMS Council, which is a body that represents the opinion of all medical students in Europe.

One of this projects’ most important aim is to improve the cooperation and communication within the medical students in Europe.

The EMS Council’s main objectives are: • Representing the interests and opinions of the medical students in geographical Europe.

• Discussing and forming joint policies on issues surrounding medical students.

• Defending the rights and interests of medical students across Europe.”

For those of you who don’t know about EMS Council, here is a short description: “In Europe the European Union, with its growing boundaries, has further opened boundaries and positively contributed

The theme for the 5th EMS Council Meeting in Athens is “Doctor & Patient Relationship: In front of terminally ill patients”.

Terminal diagnosis changes the very structure of our existence. It takes away

our control and our ability to hope and plan for the future. When a patient has a terminal illness even doctors become painfully aware of the fragility of life.

Living in expectation of death causes patients to experience many of the symptoms and emotions of the grief suffered, including shock, anger, denial, physical and emotional pain, helplessness and sorrow. Depression is common and changes in eating, sleeping and bowel habits may also occur.

When faced with a patient with a terminal diagnosis many people, including medical doctors, worry about what they should say and do. They want to help but fear that they will say or do something that will further upset the patient.

Dying persons have the same physical, emotional and spiritual needs as everyone else. In addition to the basic needs, persons who are dying are often concerned about being abandoned, losing control over their bodies and lives and being in overpowering pain or distress.

What they need most of all is to be cared about, not just cared for.

However, many of the dying person’s needs can be met by anyone. It is impor-

tant to be familiar with the various ways in which we can help those who are dying. All of us can listen to and be with the dying person and his or her family.

There are four main areas of care for those who are coping with dying - physical, psychological, social, and spiritual.

Each one will be analysed in special lectures and workshops during the EMS Council meeting, in April-May 2008. A session about terminal diagnosis and medical education will also be available, while renowned international and local speakers will assist the participants with lectures, workshops and training.

Some of the terminally ill person’s needs are special and can only be met by individuals with special expertise. For example, prescriptions for pain medication must be written by a physician.

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eVAGUS EMSCouncil 5 - Lancet Student for consultation to the CPME, the EU and other European institutions that the European Medical Students’ Association EMSA cooperates with.

If you have further questions, please feel free to contact the EMS Council 5 Organising Team of HelMSIC-Athens at: emscouncil5@helmsic.gr.

For more information, you are welcome to visit the official EMS Council 5 website at: www.emscouncil5.helmsic.gr.

Dear friends of IFMSA-Europe, we look forward to welcoming you in Athens!

The registration process is opened.

Kostas Roditis, MD

Welcome to The Lancet Student The Lancet Student has been going for just over five months...

Also, the issue of Euthanasia (from Ancient Greek: ευθανασία, “good death”) will be discussed in workshops. Euthanasia is the practice of ending the life of a terminally ill person in a painless or minimally painful way, for the purpose of limiting suffering. Laws around the world vary greatly with regard to euthanasia and are constantly subject to change as cultural values shift and better palliative care or treatment become available. It is legal in some nations, while in others it may be criminalized. At the end of the workshop the EMS council will come to some conclusions on the issue of euthanasia.

HelMSIC-Athens is pleased to invite all of you to participate in this European Meeting! There are 2 types of participants: a) Representatives of National Medical Students’ Organizations (NMSOs) who have a voting right at the plenaries and need authorization by their NMSO (not always the same organisation as the NMOmember of IFMSA) and b) Simple participants/ spectators, medical students from all over geographical Europe who take actively part to all discussions except the plenaries. All participants contribute in compiling a “resolution”, the final outcome of the meeting.

This document is then finalised and sent

... and has already been a tremendous success thanks to the enthusiasm and hard work of students from all round the world. The Lancet, our parent journal, is a champion for global health issues and so the focus of TheLancetStudent.com is on global health and our aim is to get students more interested and involved in global health issues.

Students can write articles on any global health related topic which are reviewed by our student reviewers from all around the world before being published on TheLancetStudent.com. There is a daily blog—often written by students—a weekly podcast, a weekly summary of relevant content in The Lancet, polls, a reading room—where chapters of medical text books are available for free—and

loads more. We are also involved in campaigning. For example, we are currently involved in campaigns around arms control, access to essential medicines, and an end to violence against women and children and we want to encourage students everywhere to get involved and learn more about the issues. You can see all of these for yourself if you log on to www.thelancetstudent.com.

So here are some statistics. An average of 500 unique visitors use our site every day, we currently have almost 150 students from all around the world who have signed up to be reviewers, regular contributors, or bloggers. We have a growing collection of peer reviewed articles on global health topics of a very high standard (I am also an editor at The

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eVAGUS Lancet Student - Youth Organisations 10 Lancet and I think that the standard of the articles on The Lancet Student.com is right up there with The Lancet!), and also a growing number of elective reports which we hope will act as a useful resource.

I have worked as a humanitarian doctor in many countries, and am also a seasoned campaigner so I am absolutely delighted with how well TheLancetStudent.com is doing. I very much believe in the next generation of doctors and other professionals, i.e. YOU, and how they can make the world a much better, healthier, and fairer place. This is what TheLancetStudent.com is all about but it can only continue to be successful with your help. I organise everything at this end but students everywhere do all of

the work so I am really relying on you all.

And it doesn’t matter if you have never written or reviewed an article, or written a blog, before. It is your interest and enthusiasm for global health that counts.

I can help you with your ideas, writing, and research, and also give feedback on anything you do. So, if you are interested in finding out more, or getting involved, please email me at student@lancet.com or rhona.macdonald@lancet.com. I am really looking forward to hearing from you. Together we can help change the world!

Dr Rhona MacDonald Senior Editor The Lancet Editor The Lancet Student rhona.macdonald@lancet.com

Who wants money from government?

Strengthening Youth Organisations A Program for NGOs in Serbia During the last few months of the year 2007 a project with the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Youth and Ministry for Sports of Republic Serbia has officially begun under the name “Program for strengthening capacity of youth organizations”.

In this big project there are 60 projects run by NGOs in Serbia and one of them is ours: “Education of students of medicine

help and supervision of Dr. Ivan Dimitrijevic, neuropsychiatrist and professor at Faculty of Medicine Belgrade, were the tutors at the seminar IFMSA-Serbia organised from the 26th to 31st January 2008. Twenty students from the third to sixth year had been selected enrolled into the course. During the course, Dr. Dimitrijevic took the main role in educating participants about diseases caused by substance abuse and our trainers helped participants to better understand the material from the youth point of view.

in the field of substance abuse - Young doctors : with knowledge against substance abuse ”.

It was designed so the project would develop in 3 phases. The first phase was our task.

Our SCORA ladies, also Y-PEER trainers Ana Vilotijevic (exNORA), Jelena Pavlovic (NORA) and Dr Marina Markovic, with

These 20 participants will carry on teaching in other Medicine faculties in Serbia.

This is the second phase of the project.

The third phase expands this education to all of the students in Serbia.

We are delighted that we succeeded in motivating and recruiting new staff that are willing to help youth and fight for their healthy lives in Serbia. Considering that substance abuse is one of the biggest problems these days in Serbia, we are hoping that this report will motivate other NMOs that have not started these kind of projects yet. We encourage them

Students working together to design one as soon as possible and aspire as many people as they can to help and participate in the project. “Think Globally - Act Locally.”

From Belgrade, Mirjana Spasojević IFMSA-Serbia

eVAGUS

Peace Test - BoHeMSA 11

Make Peace with a Test A Peer Education Project There was no SCORP in my NMO, IFLMSBrazil, when I started medical school in 2006. I couldn’t believe this was true in a country that is still developing and struggling to respect human rights and I therefore did my best to try to start SCORP activities in IFLMS. But what could be a safe, easy, cheap, motivating, and most important of all, successful project to start with?

I talked to many inspiring and encouraging people in my NMO, and by the time the first national meeting occurred, I had already gotten the answer: Peace Test.

The Peace Test is entirely devoted to discuss human rights issues. What is it?

A survey composed of 20 items. Who’s the target group? 14-15 years-old. What do we do? Hand them the questionnaire, give them some time to fill it in and then we carry out an open discuss about the topics explored in the items.

And is that actually fun? Yes, it is! Some teenagers don’t know about their own rights, while some of them are not familiar with legal documents that secure the rights of people. So here is a great opportunity to get these adolescents thinking about issues they don’t usually

sit and reflect upon; it is also wonderful to provide them with some information on human rights, like what is the International Court of Justice, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, what are the roles of the United Nations, human rights abuses and how to avoid them, as well as many other issues. Finally, we’re giving these teenagers a chance to expose their thoughts and feelings about the discussed topics, to work on supporting them with plausible arguments and to respect each other’s opinions.

And is it safe, easy, and cheap? Of course!

All you need is to educate your volunteers (there’s a manual designed just for that), get the schools’ permission and printed copies of the questionnaire. It can’t go wrong, since there’s no right or wrong answers for the questions – they’re just revealing the teenagers’ opinions. What if they have a question you don’t know how to answer? Just tell them you don’t know the exact answer and either go back to the class or call the school or send them an e-mail with the answer they need.

The Peace Test project has always amazed me and nothing better could’ve happened to me than to be its international

coordinator for 2008. If anyone asked me how to start SCORP, I’ll surely mention the Peace Test as one of my suggestions.

Up to date, there are eleven active NMOs running this transnational IFMSA project, and more than other fifteen have been active or are planning to start it.

For 2008, I made a Peace Test Coordinator wish list: to receive the results from the NMOs that are actually carrying out the survey, to maintain the Peace Test list active (to subscribe, write a blank e-mail to ifmsa-peacetest-subscribe@yahoogroups.com), to keep up the great work

the previous coordinators have done in answering people’s questions, motivating them and their successors, to put the Peace Test’s webpage under the IFMSA server, to send the reports on time, and to actively participate in this year’s GAs as this project coordinator. Ultimately, I hope this article motivates even more people to join us in the Peace Test, and if you are interested, please, don’t hesitate to write me at thatyernani@yahoo. com.br.

Thatyana Turassa Ernani IFLMS-Brazil

National General Assembly BoHeMSA A report from Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina During the 2nd and 3rd February, 2008, Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina) was the host of the National Assembly. We are proud to tell you that a new board was elected. There were some new names and we hope that these people will bring fresh air to our team. On the Assembly we had an opportunity to work with two IFMSA trainers and to see a presentation of each national committee as well. BoHeMSA team officials have set a strategic plan for a future and decided about team priorities.

As a special guest we had our friends from SrMSA (Serbian Medical Student Association). They had a small presentation of their team and they also showed us some projects that they have done in the past. A special moment for all present was when president of BoHeMSA Anel Okić and the president of SrMSA Srđan Matejević, signed a cooperation agreement. With this agreement both sides hope that there will be more communication between the two countries and that students from both countries will have

eVAGUS BoHeMSA - VPE Sessions 12

an opportunity to travel and obtain more education and friends. Both associations hope that there will soon be a joint project “The Village Concept Project”. The main goal of this project will be to help sick and elderly as much as it possible.

students from different universities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This assembly was a great opportunity as well to review and evaluate our work as a team in the past and to look forward to new challenges in a near future.

The general motto of this National Assembly was “meet new friends”. I must say that this assembly has opened the doors for dynamic interaction among medical

Amra Nadarević University of Tuzla (Bosnia and Herzegovina) Publication Director of BoHeMSA

VPE Sessions!

An amazing idea that came true!

It was my first GA (General Assembly) in Antalya, 2005, when I met my dear friends Alex and Albert, who was the IFMSA VPE at that time, at the hotel lobby. In addition to being kind-hearted, they were also brilliant enough to come up with the idea of having separate sessions for the VPEs equivalent to the SCs ones. Having

very little experience, I did not make any comments. It was also my first GA and my NMO was around 6 months old. Later on, I appreciated their decision, especially when I was attending SCOPH sessions and feeling out of place.

Alex, Albert, Abi and I set a meeting to agenda was comprehensive and the traindiscuss the idea in detail. We agreed on ers were quite qualified, mainly Martin a strategy to recruit VPEs and inform and Alex. It was evident that our efforts those VPEs about the anticipated ses- were paying off. I felt that it was a chalsions in the upcoming GA! By using the lenge to carry out VPEs sessions in a time World Wide Web, we were able to com- IFMSA was working without a successor municate with VPEs, discuss some topics for Albert. of interest, assign VPEs work, and finally adapt the agenda of the upcoming GA in In addition to VPEs sessions, we created Egypt. Most of that work was attributed an IFMSA Marketing Pre-GA. Thanks to the to Alex. marvelous ef forts of Alex, Our first Zied, and meeting Kami those took place pre-GA’s bein Albert’s came very small hosuccessful. tel room.

More over, E v e n regular sepathough rate sessions some of for EB memus sat on bers were be aware of suicide birds the beds and others on the floor, it was also created as very delightful and exciting experience. a result of VPEs sessions.

There was no space to have a warm-up game but we managed to find some space The VPEs’ group picture in which particito have those necessary flip charts! pants were laying on the ground forming

the shape of VPE truly resembled our Despite meeting in a similar room, I be- hard work, dedication and teamwork! lieve that Serbia’s GA was the official be- ginning of the VPEs sessions. Everything Ahmed AbuTayeh was very well organized. The meeting IFMSA-Palestine Vice President External 2005-2007 IFMSA-Palestine Alumni Director 2008

eVAGUS March 7th Event - Copyright 13

IFMSA March 7th Event One day for women’s health and rights As we informed you in the last issue of eVagus, IFMSA is working on a big event on the 7th March in Monterrey, Mexico.

All IFMSA members will be informed via an internal mailing list. There will be several announcements during the GA. Posters and leaflets will also be given to all assistants. As this is an event done by medical students for the Mexican citizens we will also hang posters around the city and do advertisements on the local radio, TV and newspapers.

During the GA there will be an inscription system of participation in the event.

The people attending will go from the venue to Macroplaza (the biggest square in Sierra León) by bus that the OC will

provide at a special price. All assistants should bring with them their white coats and stethoscopes. The participants performing in the cultural show should bring their traditional clothes and music.

The event is structured in 3 parts:

Beginning ... approximately starts at 9:30 AM. Everything will start with a cultural show performed by IFMSA members. Then everybody will wear their own white coats and stethoscope, to show that the event is organized by medical students.

During this time we’ll take part in the distribution of balloons for the last activ-

ity of the event within the assistants to free them as a symbol of freedom and solidarity. They will write a wish or a sentence related to the topic on a sticker to stick on each balloon.

We are also looking for the collaboration of some externals who will make this event more productive and professional.

Content

... approximately starts at 13:00 AM Finally we will like to finish this great day by holding a speech. Someone from IFMSA will explain the statement. As a symbol of ending the event we all will release the balloons with individual messages and will shout out loud: “Think Globally, Act Locally”.

... approximately starts at 10:30 AM The topic of this 7th march event is “Women’s Health & Rights”. Since 400 women had been killed last 7 years in Oxaca and Ciudad Juárez, we will propose a statement about women rights, society and developing civilizations.

All the assistants can write in their own language a message related to the topic on a big sheet of cloth. During all this morning some workshops, health awareness campaigns, hanging information posters and a photo exhibition related on the topic will be prepared.

End

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