MMSA NEWSLETTER
message from the president Dear friends, 2020 is soon history ‌.and what a year it has been ! I still vividly remember being called in the Dean’s office with former President Omar last March, when he informed us that attachments have to stop due to the public health emergency. It was a shock to all of us - elections were done online with the first online AGM and this new team had to kick off a challenging term with continuous dilemmas and difficult decisions to take. I am so grateful to be sharing this learning experience with my wonderful team - so dedicated and resilient whilst sharing all this with all of you as well as our members and friends. As a pearl diver, we dived through rough seas and this year MMSA set up new goals whilst being an example to each organisation through safe events, student engagement, impact and energy. Thank you for being an active part of MMSA, your commitment makes all our efforts worth it. I wish to auger you a wonderful New Year - and may the highs of 2020 be only the lows of 2021 ! All the very best!
message from eb VPe Policy Papers Besides the policy paper on Vaccinations, another group of students have been selected to work on another policy paper focusing on Domestic Violence The team working on this paper includes Katya Zerafa (VPe assistant), Catherine Gatt (Policy Coordinator) and the small working group – Steven Bajada, Lorna Muscat Baron, Donnah Agius and Yazmin Azzopardi.
Med ed Project On the 3rd of December, another 2 Med Ed sessions were held virtually with students from St Aloysius Sixth form and from San Anton Secondary. Matthew Pace and Katryna Vassallo, ex-San Anton students, gave the talk to San Anton, while Katya Zerafa and Daniel Formosa delivered the session to St. Aloysius, where they gave a summary of what the course entails and answered their questions and concerns.
Para Sport Outreach and Volunteering – DGP0260 The last two webinars of this project were held this month on Wednesday 2nd December on Friday 18th December. This project is organised by student organisations MMSA and MHSA in conjunction with the Malta Paralympic Committee and UoM Degree Plus Office. The 2nd webinar focused on the para sport classification process, and the last webinar focused on the coaching aspect of para sport. We received great feedback from this project and we are looking forward to hold it again next year! MMSA at L-Istrina MMSA would like to thank you for your contribution towards Istrina. With your help, we managed to collect €300! I would like to thank Katya Zerafa, Jeremy John Azzopardi, Daniel Formosa and Sam Fleri Soler for joining me on Boxing Day, to help out with answering telephone calls.
External opportunities Carlos-Horse Therapy Malta are looking for physiotherapists who are interested in volunteering. Their services focus on helping children, adolescents, and adults with special needs and disabilities, emotional, behavioural and learning difficulties, where they utilise horses as a medium to conduct therapy. Your job would be to carry out physio session while clients are on horses. If you are interested please contact Christine Gauci from Carlos – Horse Therapy Malta on Facebook.
VPi Events During the month of December, MMSA hosted a total of 17 events and 56 peer education sessions! These multiple activities, hosted by the Board of Directors together with their teams and supervised by the VPi Office, addressed current relevant topics and increased the level of member involvement and activism within MMSA. A big well done goes to our officers, assistants, coordinators and helpers in the planning and putting up of these events. We hope you enjoyed our events, found the sessions informative and valuable, and had the opportunity to get to know and interact with members across different MD years. Looking forward to seeing you at future events! VPe:Med Ed at St Aloysius Sixth Form College Med Ed at San Anton Secondary School Para Sport Outreach and Volunteering Session 2 and 3 SecGen:TRD’20 – Viral Edition Leisure:TRD’20 Viral Edition - Online Scavenger Hunt Christmas Chaos: The MMSA Online Escape Room SCOPH:Lend An Arm | MMSA Christmas Blood Donation BYOB Chapter VII | Jumpstart Your Year SCOME:Outdoor Phlebotomy Workshop SCORP:Peace of Mind | Holiday blues and other taboos Aware in Care | LGBTQI+ Health w SCORA Defending Your Rights Peer Ed Sessions at St. Martins Sixth Form Mental Health Peer Ed Sessions at San Anton
VPi SCORA:Sexual Health Campaign Workshop Sexual Health Campaign – Live Public Q&A Mr and Mrs Breastestis Peer Ed Sessions at De La Salle and St Aloysius Sixth Form SCOPET:Training Tuesdays 2: Public Speaking World Children’s Day at St. Theresa College Primary Birkirkara and San Lawrenz Primary, Gozo. Don’t Sit Get Fit – Online Exercise Session w SCOPH Children’s Health Peer Ed Sessions at Gozo College Nadur and Xewkija Primaries Teddy Bear Hospital and Dr Cuddles sessions San Ġorg Preca College Floriana Primary Quarterly Assessment Form - October-December 2020 December concludes the first 6 jam-packed months of our term! This month the second part of the quarterly feedback assessement was shared with all MMSA members to collect anonymous feedback on our internal workings. In this form, every active MMSA member was given the opportunity to voice their opinion on the events hosted between the months of October and December, to comment on the process of allocation of exchanges, and to give general feedback on the Board of Directors. All feedback received is being noted and followed up to ensure that our workings are always in line with what the student body needs and wants to see in the coming years. If you haven’t yet given your feedback, we would appreciate it if you could spare a minute to fill in this form:- https://forms.gle/XgbEx2J53xGxdUNR7
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SecGen TRD - Viral Edition! The first ever virtual TRD. This event incorporated what TRD is all about: learning new skills, being welcomed to MMSA and fun! 4 sessions were delivered, 2 of which were academical and the other 2 being Surviving First Year and Mental Health First Aid Basics! A 70 Question style video with the MMSA Board of Directors served as the build up towards the event, which ended with MMSA's first ever Online Scavenger Hunt in collaboration with the Leisure Team. 70 Teams. 50 Tasks. 3 Hours. This raised the sum of 280 euros in aid for Puttinu Cares!
SCOPRE SCOPRE has had a very busy month in the lead-up to the release of Exchanges’ applications. Our social media campaign of throwbacks served to kindle interest in students, which continued to grow thanks to an extremely successful Globetrotters workshop. Featuring a wide variety of speakers and with over 140 MMSA members in attendance, this was the biggest edition yet and served as the perfect build-up to the release of SCOPRE’s very first Outgoings’ Exchanges’ booklet. The 90-page brochure contains everything that students need to know prior to applying for their 2021 exchange, complete with in-depth notes of every country available, an overview of the application process and a comprehensive FAQ section; in addition to the usual table of countries and exchanges spots. Read the booklet here: https://issuu.com/mmsa/docs/scopre_exchanges_booklet_design As the Provisional Points Ranking has now been uploaded, this is also a reminder that the Final Points Ranking will be out on the 30th of November. As such, any points queries should be addressed to Miguel Vella preferably before the 29th so they can be solved in time. Applications for exchanges will be out on the 1st of December and will remain open until the 9th of December.
ELECTIVES During the month of December we have contributed to the Strategic Plan for the next 3 years, to ensure a smooth and successful running of the office. This takes into consideration all aspects of Electives, including incoming students and outgoing students - as well as all the great ideas we had planned for this year which were unfortunately postponed due to the pandemic. We have also started releasing our ‘This is the Team’ poster series, where one can find a basic breakdown of what each role in the team consists of. Make sure to keep an eye out, especially if you're interested in our Office đ&#x;˜‰
SCOpet Peer Education Launch of our year long Children’s Health Campaign. This campaign consists of peer education sessions about various topics pertaining to children’s health being delivered by MMSA members to children and adolescents. This month 47 online teddy bear hospital sessions and sessions about first aid and respiratory health were delivered to children at: · · · · ·
Birkirkara Primary School San Lawrenz Primary School Xewkija Primary School Nadur Primary School Floriana Primary School
Looking forward to continuing this peer ed campaign throughout the rest of this term!
SCOpet Training Training Tuesdays 2: Public Speaking. Our 2nd Training Tuesdays workshop was held this month. This online workshop approached the art of public speaking, allowing participants to learn some strategies for becoming more effective public speakers and to then implement these strategies in practice by delivering a speech during the workshop. The workshop was facilitated by experienced IFMSA trainers and 26 MMSA members participated!
SCOME "And that's a wrap for what could be called a very "interesting" year to say the least. Despite all of the challenges that 2020 has thrown our way, SCOME has continued to do what it does best and march on with all planned events and advocacy, and December was no different!
We started off the month with a phlebotomy workshop open to all MD years which would help all students in mastering a tricky but vital part of clinical practice. While our original plan was to hold the workshop outside, bad weather forced us to move the workshop indoors - with strict social distancing measures in place to make every participant feel as safe as possible. This event had a lot of interested applicants and we look forward to holding more similar workshops after exams.
SCOME December was a big month for advocacy. Through constant liaison between student reps, faculty and the student body, SCOME fought for and achieved the best possible exam settings for all MD years according to the student body's preferred method; for example, advocating for the change from double camera proctored online exams to exams held on-site for the preclinical years. We also helped to facilitate the faculty board representative elections by giving all candidates from all departments an equal footing to contest the election on and spread their message. Finally, towards the end of this hectic year, we released our famous Easy A events which are a great opportunity to brush up on the syllabus before exams and show everyone what you know! The event will be held online and applications are open now.
From the SCOME Team to all MMSA Members: Here's wishing you a happy new year and collective hope for an awesome 2021!"
SCOrp December has come and gone but SCORP is still in full swing with its activities. SCORP continued to give Peer Ed Sessions throughout the month with students giving Mental Health and Defending Your Rights talks to secondary students as well as sixth forms. This month we had two social media campaigns, the first being International Day of Disabled Persons on the 3rd of December which was centred around how to be inclusive and how to strive for an accepting community focusing on ability rather than disability. The second campaign was for World Human Rights Day on December 10th which shed light onto how human rights are still being breeched to this day in the world around us. December also saw the third episode of our Peace of Mind podcast in collaboration with Mental Health of Medics. This episode was focused on “Holiday Blues and Other Taboos” and it tackled how the holidays can affect one’s mental health , particularly loneliness, isolation, and depression. The guest speaker was Dr Fabrizia Cassar who is a Higher Specialist Trainee in Psychiatry and an active member of the Malta Association of Psychiatric Trainees for the past three years, she is also the General Manager of the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees. SCORP also hosted its second Aware in Care Webinar, this time in collaboration with SCORA. The session focused on LGBTQI+ health and how we as future doctors can help people and be supportive in such situations as well as be as sensitive as possible to the needs of others. Guest speakers for the event included Colette Farrugia Bennett a clinical psychologist and social worker, Gabriella Calleja who is the head of the LGBTQI+ Unit at the Human Rights Directorate, and Reb Xiberras the Secretary General of LGBTQI+ Gozo as well as a trainee counsellor in their third year and a soft-skills trainer.
SCOra December has been a very busy month for SCORA, with our biggest campaign of the year taking place. The Sexual Health campaign took place in two parts, the workshop and a Facebook Live event. During our workshop we had three speakers discussing HIV as well as different case scenarios with attendees. Our speakers included an HIV positive individual, Matthew Bartolo from Willingness clinic and Ryan Portelli from HIV Malta.
The second part of our campaign took the form of a Facebook live Q&A. During this event many questions were sent in and our guest speakers Matthew Bartolo from Willingness and Ryan Portelli from HIV Malta were there to answer all the questions sent in by attendees. During the month of December SCORA also collaborated with SCORP for their Aware In Care: LGBTIQ+ Health event. During this event we discussed how to be more inclusive professionals in the health care setting.
supco This month we would like to start off our newsletter by congratulating Catherine Gatt, the winner of this month’s Student Spotlight. A huge well done to the other nominees, too! Your passion, hard work and determination is indeed admirable, and we pride ourselves in having such talented members. Artistic Talent has been chosen as the theme for January’s edition of Student Spotlight. Deadline to nominate the artist, painter, photographer or any other creative who deserves this recognition most is 1st January at 23:59. We look forward to reading your nominations and choosing yet another talented MMSA member! This month, Supervising Council worked hard together with the rest of the Board of Directors to formulate the MMSA Strategic Plan. SupCo, together with the EB decided to add in an entire section about the supervising council in this Strategic Plan, something which was not present in the past, in hopes to shed more light on the importance of SupCo’s work in the maintenance of a healthy MMSA. Furthermore, SupCo participated in the Coordinator’s Gathering Feedback Forum, where we collected abundant feedback on many aspects of our work, including the application process, improving transparency and overall general feedback. We would like to take the opportunity here to thank all the coordinators for their vital input, which ultimately proved useful even in the formulation of the aforementioned Strategic Plan. Should anyone have any further feedback, please do not hesitate to get in touch! And on that note, as SupCo, we hope you had a warm and wonderful Christmas, and we send our best wishes for the New Year to you and your families. SupCo Hugs! Got any issues that you’d like to discuss with us? If yes, feel free to message any one of us on our Facebook chats or send us an email on supco@mmsa.org.mt. Alternatively, you may also use the Complaints Form available in the ‘Contact Us’ section on the MMSA website.
Leisure MMSA Leisure kick-started the month of December with the “TRD ’20: Online Scavenger Hunt”. This online event was in collaboration with SecGen and the TRD OC and aimed to provide our medical students, particularly our freshers, with an exciting yet safe opportunity to have fun with their peers from the comfort of their own home. This hunt consisted of around 50 versatile challenges which every team had to carry out in the shortest amount of time possible. We were very glad to hear that our members truly enjoyed this activity since this was the first virtual TRD ever held! Our winning team members received a voucher for a free back massage and use of spa amenities (inc. the indoor pool and sauna) sponsored by 1926 Hotel and Spa. Moreover, for this year’s special edition of TRD, instead of collecting the usual participation fee, we kindly asked our participants to send a monetary donation and a total of €280 was collected and donated to a cause we hold dear to our heart - Puttinu Cares, a children's cancer support group.
After the success of this year’s TRD, the leisure team carried on with its work to put up its annual Christmas event. Public health regulations posed yet another challenge, however, MMSA-Leisure decided to embrace online means and host the first ever “Christmas Chaos: The MMSA Online Escape Room”. Our participants worked together with their individual teams to help Santa recover his data from his broken GPS by finding and solving clues and carrying out various challenges. Our teams had an amazing time experiencing this virtual escape room, brought to us by Canyouescape Malta, and together, we saved Christmas!
from our gallery
SCOPET's Peer Ed Session
VPe's Para Sports Outreach
from our gallery
SCORA's live Q & A