MMSA NEWSLETTER
message from the president Dear friends, We are now getting well accustomed to this ‘new normal’. Although we cannot meet our friends as frequently as we would love to, at least we are following tutorials from the comfort of our homes! As MMSA, we had been pushing for online lectures for years, now we haphazardly have them all. Through our online means, we have kick started campaigns from almost all Standing Committees, we have carried out our first e-EGM and also trainings for coordinators. It is now our collective duty to make best use of such opportunities from the comfort of our homes. Going online allows us to invite more guest speakers, local and international, and so we continuously work so that the quality of MMSA’s product is the best that it can be given the present circumstances. I am very proud of our dynamic teams and thankful to our members who make all our efforts worth it! Should you need to contact me, do not hesitate on president@mmsa.org.mt All the very best!
message from the president
Mental Health is MMSA’s theme this year. Can social media affect our mental health? Facebook addiction among students could be associated with abnormal, general mental health status, somatic symptoms, anxiety & insomnia and social dysfunction.
Hanpreth et al, 2015 Let us educate and protect ourselves !
message from eb VPe MMSA at the KSU Freshers' Week Around 100 students visited our MMSA stand at the KSU Freshers’ Week on Monday 19th October 2020. Our stand was full of activity we explained the internal workings of MMSA, answered any questions prospective medical students had, and encouraged students to take part in our online quiz. It was truly an enjoyable event, getting to know the new prospective Freshers alongside other organisations. We hope to see all these new faces joining our family this year and we would like to wish them luck for their upcoming results.
Policy Papers At the EGM 2020, the following 3 policy papers were extended for another 3 years: 1. Mental Health 2. Healthy Ageing 3. Comprehensive Sexual Education Furthermore, a new policy paper on the Health Effects of Climate Change was adopted at the EGM. This policy paper was written by Steven Bajada, Jake Alex Gauci, Miguel Vella, Martina Grech, Andrea Bugeja and Anthea Ferriggi. Well done!
VPi Proposing Curriculum Changes - Online Monthly Feedback Forum For October’s Edition, the VPi Office collaborated with the Board of Studies Student Representatives and Class Representatives to focus on obtaining qualitative feedback on our curriculum. An introduction was given by Prof Charles Savona Ventura, member of the Board of Studies, to outline the proposed curricular reform. Following this, students from across all MD years had the opportunity to give their personal feedback and put forward any suggestions for improvement on the current study units. All valid points and proposals were noted and will be compiled in a report to be presented to the Board of Studies, with the intent of making our learning and teaching more meaningful and effective.
Quarterly Assessment Form - July-September 2020 This term the VPi Office renewed the Quarterly Assessment Forms in order to collect general anonymous feedback from its members on the internal workings of MMSA. This form focuses on the events hosted during the summer months, application process and individual feedback regarding the members of the Board of Directors. Since this year MMSA is revising the Strategic Plan for the next three years, we highly value your feedback to improve our student organisation so that it truly caters for your needs in a fair and equal way! We would appreciate it if you could spare a minute to fill it out :- https://forms.gle/b3Z4z1JbFU4owxGE9
SecGen During October, the SecGen office took care of organising the first online EGM with over 50 participants! This was held with the aim of covering the remaining agenda points from the online AGM which was held in April. This meant approving the end of year reports of the Board of Directors and Supervising Council of the term 2019-2020, approval of Faculty Board and Board of Studies Representatives, approval of Policy Papers, and approval of bylaw changes. This was all possible thanks to the EGM Team: Mathias Abela, Rebecca Bugeja, Gabrielle Grixti, Gillian Pace and Suhrid Roy <3 Additionally, October marked the release of our first winner of Student Spotlight; Sam Fleri Soler for his time and efforts helping out at COVID-19 Volunteering. Click on the following link to get to know more about Sam's experience: https://mmsa.org.mt/Posts/Details/97 Next theme's Student Spotlight is Sports! Nominations are out until the 1st of October 23:59 via the following google form: https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSccBVwlYSuFM9.../viewform Stay tuned to find out who our next Student Spotlight will be!
Treasurer MMSA has launched limited edition 70th Anniversary Fleece Zip-ups. With a black and gold design, this zip-up is the perfect item to commemorate 70 years of our esteemed organisation. It complements our MMSA Polos and medical scrubs perfectly. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget to pre-order as they are limited! This month, MMSA has finalised its sponsors for the term 2020-2021. We are grateful and proud to have Malta International Airport on board as our lead sponsor. We also welcome Systane by Class Optical to our MMSA family. Once again, OK Medical have kindly accepted to provide us with great offers on medical equipment amongst other supplies. Through these collaborations we'll be in a better position to get more projects off the ground, as we work towards securing more learning opportunities for future medical professionals and educating the wider community.
SCOPRE On the 17th of October, the Exchanges-Out and Exchanges-In offices officially rebranded to form SCOPRE - The Standing Committee on Professional and Research Exchanges. SCOPRE-Out and SCOPRE-In will now be taking the places of the original offices. Make sure you follow the official MMSA Exchanges Page for more updates!
Moreover, all contracts have now been finalised for next year’s exchanges! Throughout the month of November, we’ll be sending out snippets of information to the student body and we hope that unlike 2020, we’ll be able to offer a rich variety of experiences across the globe. SCOPRE-Out is also currently working on the very first of its kind Officer Points Protocol - a protocol similar the official MMSA Points Protocol but with guidelines for how to give points to officers. The hope is that such a system would increase the fairness of the current points allocation system among our MMSA officers.
ELECTIVES October has been busy for the Electives Team! Apart from answering hundreds of emails, especially by our Incomings Coordinator, we have focused more on our own MMSA students, hosting the first edition of Geoplacements: Understanding Electives Opportunities! This outgoing electives webinar was possible thanks to our Outgoings Coordinator, Outreach team, Officer and Assistant! Over 80 students attended the webinar which tackled the difficulties on how to go about applying for an elective. Guest speakers also spoke about their own experiences and gave some helpful tips! We also launched a booklet encompassing all information needed about which universities are open for medical electives throughout 2021. We will soon also launch another booklet including many more elective opportunities, including those universities which will sadly not be open during the year 2021 due to the current pandemic. Do not hesitate to contact us should you have any queries. Going on an elective has never been easier!
SCOpet In October we organised our Back to School campaign. The Back to School session dealt with the various precautions school-age children need to take when attending school in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Sessions were delivered online by 8 MMSA members to 11 Malta Girl Guides units and to the Xagħra Scout Group, reaching a total of 79 children between the ages of 5 and 7.
3 live online tutorial sessions were facilitated by Mr Stephen D’Alessandro, as part of the ‘How to be an Effective Leader? – The Effective Management of an NGO’ online course, in collaboration with Advenio eAcademy and SOS Malta. 14 MMSA members participated in these tutorial sessions, which were about key NGO challenges, the fundamentals of management and the fundamentals of marketing and campaigning.
SCOpet From the 19th to the 25th of October was International Facilitation Week. On the MMSA â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Peer Education & Training Facebook page we posted infographics about the definition of facilitation and the essential qualities of a good facilitator. During this week we also organised an Online Facilitation Workshop for MMSAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coordinators, assistants, class reps and board members. This workshop consisted of 2 parallel sessions facilitated by 2 experienced IFMSA trainers and sought to ensure that our members are well trained in how to utilise a variety of different online platforms and in designing online events which are well-planned, well-structured and engaging! 18 MMSA members attended this workshop.
SCOME October was yet another busy month for SCOME! We wrapped up our Curriculum Orientation Campaign which spanned four events and reached over 400 medical students with the goal to inform them about the challenges for the coming academic year. Just this month, we organised an MD3 Orientation Webinar and our MD4 and Beyond Webinar (the final events in our Curriculum Orientation Campaign). We also held our History Taking Workshops as part of our Practice Makes Perfect Campaign where we offered MD3 students both a digital and a physical, socially distanced event to choose from and teach them the basics when it comes to history taking; an extremely important skill to have both as a medical student in the clinical years and as a medical professional.
SCOME Apart from these, the Buddy for a Year system has entered full swing after undergoing a major overhaul in terms of the application process, with the introduction of a more detailed, anonymised application form for interested applicants to fill. There has also been a more structured system in the way information is shared between SCOME and buddies as well as between the buddies themselves. A short workshop in collaboration with SCOPET is also being prepared to further help buddies with their duties for the year.
SCOME has also been keeping busy with advocating for medical students. We have dealt with a variety of issues regarding the beginning of the academic year for current students and have also asked the faculty for clarification regarding the situation with the new incoming medical students. Most notably, we have pushed for, and succeeded in getting, improved privileges for all medical students' Zoom accounts. This has removed the 40minute limit for meetings hosted by students which allows them to have longer meetings on any topic; something extremely vital as we move towards an all-digital period in our lives.
It's been a busy month but we can't wait for what's to come!
SCOph What a busy month October has been for SCOPH! The end of summer and the start of our new academic year did not slow down our work and now we look back to see all we achieved in the past month.
Health checks were always something both our members and the general public loved and greatly missed. As part of our World Heart Day celebrations we held health checks at Mellieha. Safety was always our top priority but with great planning and organisation from the team, these health checks were a success and most importantly followed all the safety measures and precautions.
For our 4th instalment of BYOB, we collaborated with the University of Malta Rowing Club to offer our members to try out rowing on their new coastal rowing boats.
11 weeks later and 14 sessions stronger, October saw the end of the training sessions which had become part of the routine for several members. The healthy lifestyles tema were committed to bring 1 or even 2 sessions per week. 58 members benefited from these sessions and we hope this motivated them to keep active. BYOB Chapter V | Obstacle Course was the perfect ending to wrap up these sessions. This was open exclusively for members who took part in the sessions.
SCOph 10th October was World Mental Health Day celebrated internationally. On this day, our Mental Health team collaborated with the Leisure team to host the ‘Mohhok Hemm | The MMSA Quiz night’. This event aimed to raise awareness on mental health through a few bonus round questions was a fundraiser to Richmond Foundation and all proceeds were donated to them to help people struggling with mental health issues. 16 teams enjoyed their night at the quiz night in a fun but safe environment.
Vaccination this year is more important than ever. In collaboration with the Infection Control Unit at Mater Dei Hospital and MHSA, our Communicable Diseases team hosted a workshop where 50 medical students had the opportunity to learn about the Influenza vaccine and how to administer the vaccine. These then had the chance to themselves administer the Influenza vaccine to hundreds of people at Mater Dei Hospital including staff members.
Finally, at the end of month, we collaborated with SCORP in the first Aware in Care titled ‘Above the Influence’ which aimed to give a holistic approach to addiction and substance intoxication. Keep following all we’ll be up to in November as we welcome our Freshers and bring to you our biggest and most exciting projects!
SCOrp This past month has been a busy one for SCORP with most of our campaigns having kicked off for the year. We first started off with our first ever podcast episode “Peace of Mind Suicidal Doctor; The Ultimate Paradox” in collaboration with Mental Health of Medics. The guest speaker for the episode was Dame Clare Gerada, a UK-based general practitioner and Chair of the UK charity ‘Doctors in Distress’. The aim of this podcast is to raise awareness and reduce the stigma surrounding mental health and wellbeing and to provide a space for medical student to ask questions in relation to the topics being discussed to spark a conversation about a very important topic.
We then went on to collaborate with ESN and Playgreen Malta in our Helping hands beach clean-up at Ghajn Tuffieha where we proudly picked up 123kg of waste. This was followed by a small football tournament with MFA.
SCOrp Next up was the first webinar in a totally new SCORP campaign, Aware in Care, which focuses on giving an informal education to medical students and providing them with the soft-skills needed to support patients with challenging backgrounds. The first workshop, “Aware in Care – Above the Influence”, which was in collaboration with SCOPH, focused on how we as future doctors can deal with people suffering from addictions, how we can offer our support to them and their families, and how we can help them in a holistic way. We were happy to host speakers from Caritas Malta and the Richmond Foundation, including a recovered addict, who had very insightful information to share with us.
SCOrp SCORP was next featured in an article on THINK magazine which highlighted the problem of poverty in Malta on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty 2020. The article shed light on the link between health and poverty and how poverty negatively affects the well-being, in all aspects, of people suffering from it. https://www.um.edu.mt/think/in-sickness-and-in-health-inpoverty-and-in-wealth/? fbclid=IwAR0_Gsl36Qr1etdT5oTXw3SizYWCbIGXEmCfBgaercnbpU YgOiKX_KFFxto The final activity for the month of October were Peer Ed Mental Health Sessions that were given by our coordinators to senior schools. These sessions educate younger generations on the importance of mental health and the de-stigmatisation of it. A personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s health does not only include physical well-being but also encompasses the mental aspects of it and we aim to normalise talking about it and taking care of it through such sessions.
SCOra
SCORA’s main theme for October was, of course, Pink October! Throughout this past month the SCORA Awareness Team released a series of posters with key facts related to breast cancer awareness in order to educate our members but also the general public. We also prepared a Quiz for our Instagram to see what people know about breast cancer! The Awareness Team is also working on the final preparations for our LBGTIQ+ Lockdown Event coming up on the 21st November! Look out for our event release VERY soon.
The SCORA administration has also been contacted by the NGO ‘Dear Decision Makers’. They have sent us a portal where you may express your sentiments anonymously with regards to the current abortion laws, and how/whether this has affected you negatively. You may access the portal here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdTfLkmX0fVGXsFSDxqzsxZxp iGgABKMBo7W6WW10yVDeUs9A/viewform?usp=send_form Disclaimer: By sharing this information MMSA is in NO WAY taking a STANCE on abortion and remains IMPARTIAL when referring to the topic. MMSA has no association or partnership with such organizations, we are simply passing on the message.
supco The Supervising Council thoroughly reviewed the nominations for the first edition of Student Spotlight. This was done to ensure that fairness and transparency are withheld. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Sam Fleri Soler, our first winner, and the rest of the nominees for their selfless service at the COVID-19 helpline during such trying times. Your work is greatly appreciated! The theme for next month’s edition of Student Spotlight is Sports. Deadline to fill in the Google Form is the 1st of November 23:59. We look forward to reviewing the nominations and, together with SecGen, choose another one of our talented MMSA members for Student Spotlight! This month, MMSA held the first ever online Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM). SupCo, together with SecGen, prepared the motions for changes in the MMSA Statute and Bylaws, which were all approved. We would like to thank the members who attended this meeting. Finally, we have been working on a set of comprehensive posters that summarize SupCo’s roles and responsibilities. These shall be posted next month, so stay tuned! Should you have any issue that you would like to forward to us, you may approach us either through Facebook chat, by email on supco@mmsa.org.mt, or through our Complaints Form, available on the ‘Contact Us’ section on the MMSA Website.
from our gallery
October's Student Spotlight
SCORP's beach clean - up
SCOME's History Taking Workshop
SCOPET's International Facilitation Week Workshop