Student MedAid London has had another successful year this year, being able to continue all of our successful events from last year and adding a few new ones.
We started off the year by joining the WHO EU Youth4Healh Network, which has allowed us to advertise new pan-london opportunities to our members and volunteers.
Events
We also had 4 main events throughout the year:
- Careers in Global Health and Development
This was an expansion from our Global Health Careers Series from last year, this time hosted on the MedAll platform. We had 6 speakers across 3 weeks, which included Carwyn Hooper the head of the SGUL Graduate School and Course Director for MSc Global Health, Richard Pinder head of the Imperial Undergraduate Public health education and course director for their Global Health BSc. We also had early career professionals with experience working for UN IOM, the WHO and developing their own initiatives and charities. We had 296 participant register for the event across the 3 weeks, 150 attend and successfully collected feedback from 73.
- Global Health and Conflict Hackathon
After the success of last years Global Health and Sustainability Hackathon, we decided to continue this as an in-person event. This year we collaborated with even more pan-London SfGH and FriendsofMSF societies. To make the event more accessible for pan-London students we decided to host the event at UCL this year.
This year we contacted MSF directly and were able to secure 3 wonderful judges, who had worked with them – Ruth Zwiwai (epidemiologist), Dr Justin Healy and Dr Jeyapragash Jeypala who have worked in Ebola outbreaks, refugee clinics in Greece and conflict zones across Africa and Asia.
The event was a whole day event, where we provided lunch, and also awarded prizes to the winning team. We had sponsorships from Geekymedics, MDU and unisnacks who provided snacks for the events. The event sold out, with 90 tickets sold as we reached logistical capacity on how many teams could be run in a day.
- HOW TO PLAN AND MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR ELECTIVE?
An opportunity available for medical students to get an idea of what global health and sustainability might look like is their elective. We found that a lot of students had questions on how to organise, plan and fund their electives. This is why we decided to host this events with 3 wonderful F1s and final year medical student speakers who had already completed their elective. The event was hosted online on MedAll, and had 222 participant register, 149 attend and we collected Feedback from 30 participants.
- Global Health, Policy, and Innovation Symposium
Another new event this years has been planned for the 20th April, which will be an opportunity for students to present their own research work to an audience of peers and experts. We will also have Rebakaone Bowe, an MD with experience in Global Health policy, Yusuf Ben-Tarifite, founder of The Aspiring Medics, and Naveen Cavale, one of the UK’s leading plastic surgeons talking about their own research work and offering an opportunity for students to network. The event has not happened yet, and therefore we have no feedback or numbers.
All online events hosted on MedAll were recorded and are available for students to still view at: https://app.medall.org/c/student-medaid-london/events-videos
Equipment Redistribution Work
This year we developed our relationships with partners in this space, having multiple meeting with physionet (https://physionet.org.uk/) a UK charity also involved in equipment redistribution work. We collected a few general donations from the general public, and had a large donation secured from the Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust. This included 400 new isolation gowns, 200+ safety goggles, 1000+ FFP3 goggles and 200 hospital pillows.
We also sent off our second successful donation to Tripoli General Hospital, with the assistance of Dr Wassim Abdou. Sending 50+ Compression Bandages, Blood Pressure Cuffs, Glucometers and sterile dressings to name a few. We are currently in discussion to send a large number of equipment to a receiving organisation in the Philippines.
Education + Awareness work
We have also continued our work to raise awareness and provide education on important global, sustainable and planetary health topics. Our monthly Newsletter has increased to having 178 subscribers and is generally well received. We also continued our online Learn-with-MedAid Series, with our Conflict in Healthcare setting covering the conflicts in Haiti, South Sudan, Yemen and Palestine. We have also covered topics ranging from “Climate Change and Epilepsy”, “The global Obesity Epidemic” and “Industrial Agriculture and our Health”. Our MedAid Quiz Series has also been used to raise awareness on important topics such as the “International Day for Violence Against Women”, “World Mental Health Day” and “World Water Day” to name a few. This are all available on our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Threads.
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18018477688838222
Research
After last years success presenting our work at some conferences, we decided to establish a research team this year. They have done amazing work and given members an opportunity to present our work at conferences, and get involved in research work. Our 2 main research projects this year have been:
- “Investigating the perceptions and attitudes of UK medical students towards undertaking a foreign elective”
- “The barriers and facilitators to promoting sustainability in general practice”
Our members have also presented our work at multiple conferences, such as the Association of Surgeons in Training (ASiT) Annual Conference, the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management (FMLM) Conference, and the London Student Sustainability Conference (LSSC) to name a few. We have also been invited to the King’s Climate & Sustainability Networking Event, at Kings College London. The team has also worked incredibly hard to submit Student MedAid as a Case study for the World Federation of Public Health Association (WFPHA) Casebook on Advocacy Volume II.
Collaborations
Throughout the year, we have also collaborated with youth-led organisations and charities, such as Students for Global Health for joint events, but also promoted others other such as the UK Model WHO and the National Medical Research Association (NMRA)
Our social media following has also increased with now 1000+ followers on Instagram, 295 on Linkedin, 128 on FB, 107 on twitter, 84 on threads.
Youth MedAid 