( M S I 33 )
Public Health Week Trondheim Miriam Christ
NMSA - Norway miriam.s.christ@gmail.com
Students of the professions medicine and psychology in Trondheim (Norway) reported a wish for common learning activities during their education, to make them better equipped for working together in teams to treat patients. The local IFMSA committee in Trondheim and the local organization for psychology students started a project to change this situation. We came up with the idea to organize one week with lectures, workshops and social activities for medical and psychology students. One of the goals of “Public Health Week in Trondheim” is to create a platform where the students can learn how to take advantage of each others skills, knowledge and competences in the future. With this project we hope a foundation of respect and understanding will develop, for better cooperation between the two professions. In 2015 the topic of the Public Health Week was “Sexual Health”. The first lecture addressed the topic “Normal Sexuality”. Psychologist Svein Øverland discussed “what is considered as normal, and when is something abnormal?” In the second lecture we talked about sexuality after abuse. A representative from a help-centre for rape victims gave us valuable advice on how to help victims regain control of their lives and their sexuality. In the last lecture we invited Norwegian physician, sexologist and transgender person Esben Esther Pirelli Benestad to talk about sexual and gender
42 43
identity. The last event was a workshop about anal sex with the Norwegian Health Board, to break down taboos. The activities were well attended, and received a lot of positive feedback from the participants. The Public Health Week in Trondheim has been conducted twice, and about 500 medical and psychology students have become familiar with the competences of each others professions, and a platform on which to build a better cooperation between the two professions has formed. Through the social activities in which about 90 medical and psychology students took part, the students have got to know each other a lot better, and hopefully prejudices about the other profession have subsided. This can make working together in the future easier. What we can see already is that communication between the two studies has become more frequent and easier, and the project itself has become more known and more popular, with a broader audience including more health profession students, and gaining recognition from the municipality, the university and the hospital. Also, creating an arena of respect and understanding for students from medicine and psychology and initiating cooperation between the the organizations has been achieved. We plan to expand this project even further. We want to include more health professions in the planning and conducting of the activity, and we would like to make the Public Health Week a national project. One important goal for the near future is to develop means to measure and evaluate the long term impact of the Public Health Week Trondheim. Are we reaching our goal of creating better cooperation between the two professions, with increased understanding and respect for better patient care?
medical students worldwide | MM 2016, Malta