EuRegMe 21

EUREGME 21 - REPORT OF THE SWISS DELEGATION

Text: Valeria Scheiwiller | University of Lugano

This year’s European Regional Meeting of the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) was held as an online event. Here you find the delegation's highlights!

The Executive Board of swimsa assembled 13 motivated medical students to be part of the online conference of European medical students. As one of the founding members of IFMSA in 1951, swimsa has never missed an opportunity to actively shape the impact that medical students have in the world of public health, professional exchange and medical education, just to name a few.

The following achievements are listed to accredit the involvement of swimsa during the last European Regional Meeting of the IFMSA: • The Swiss delegates were contributing a lot to their respective standing committee which was praised by the IFMSA officials. • swimsa maintained a high level of credibility throughout the whole EuRegMe towards

IFMSA as well as the National Member Organisations. Facing the global COVID19 crisis this year’s European Regional Meeting was held online on Zoom from the 23. 27. April 2021. The plenary and standing committee sessions were held at the same time. All the delegates met and spent the weekend together in order to increase the team spirit and to facilitate informed decision making.

We maintained highly constructive contact on an international level and gave input on various topics. This article aims to give you an insight into the busy and amazing world that a European Regional Meeting of the IFMSA, the world’s largest and oldest student organisation, is.

What we have learned

Public Health by Gaia Grigorov

• I really enjoy the networking parts of these international events, and really miss them • So many interesting projects are happening throughout Europe, and there are so many passionate students with cool ideas • The impact that being part of a youth organization has on someone’s mental health can be really important, and so many people share the same struggles

Human Rights & Peace by Nico Friedrich

• There are many topics within Human Rights that really need to be tackled and it is important that swimsa is getting active in this field • Human rights issues are very intertwined with public health and reproductive rights and health topics (climate change, mental health, women rights and violence against women, LGBTQIA* rights...) • The pandemic exposed and worsened a lot of problems in Europe simply raising awareness on some of these topics can help • Human rights violation affect all of us, even when we are not directly involved

Medical Education by Matias Jacomet & Kate Gurevich

• There are a lot of other motivated people engaging in medical education as well! (this was nice, because it showed that there are other people caring about the same things as we do) • Making change happen (even on an international level and as a student) is possible. • Especially concerning patient involvement in medical education, Switzerland seems to be quite far. • There have been a lot of good arguments presented to advocate in favor of different topics. This makes it easier to engage on these topics as well. • Plenary sessions are very formal, but the matters discussed there seem to be very important. • Switzerland is not as bad as I thought when it comes to medical education • We don’t nearly have enough Interprofessional Education. • Digitalising medicine is a lot easier in other countries • There are a ton of interesting events happening around medical education

Exchanges by Daniel Konrad, Alexandra Migga, Ana Zimmermann & Aline Pinto Monteiro

• You have to be more pushy to get what you want, when working with the government • The different possibilities of how to keep your LCs busy during the pandemic • Motivation is the biggest struggle within

IFMSA exchanges right now • Many countries rely financially so much on their exchanges that the pandemic struck them rather hard • Gaps regarding privileges in healthcare systems of different countries exist but it is not as big as expected in Europe • There are many factors leading to migration including “disadvantages” of the country the person is born in and the “advantages” of the country the person is aiming for • We have to work actively on how to improve exchanges. Communication and interaction among SCOPE is very important • Other countries struggle with the same problems as we do • To ensure academic quality it is important to get feedback from all links involved in the education (students, teachers, organizers, etc.) Exchanges - Session Team by Stefan Leung

• Safe space and brave space (A brave space encourages dialogue. Recognizing differences and holding each person accountable to do the work of sharing experiences and coming to new understandings a feat that’s often hard, and typically uncomfortable) are important to promote during all Exchanges activities • There are 7 steps of Inclusiveness and everyone can implement them in Exchanges • Stakeholder mapping is an important step for advocacy and recognition in Exchanges • There are 10 Social Determinants of Health which are connected to Climate Change and

Exchanges

NMO Management by Rahel Laager & Rémy Frieden

• Structured plans work better • Fundraising is key • Working as a team is the gold standard to reach goals • Goals must be measurable in order to evaluate them • Slow but steady progress is better than fast and unsteady • How to do a stakeholders mapping and when it is useful to do so • Learned how to advocate for what you believe in

Presidents’ Sessions by Valeria Scheiwiller & Stephanie Hauser

• An intrinsic motivation is crucial for students to engage themselves in a student organization. • A good preparation of your delegation is important no matter if the event is taking place in person or online. • Each member of an organization should have basic skills in facilitation, especially in the online format. • Mental health has been a problem in student organizations for a while, it is important for engaged students to keep track of themselves while working on their goals. • Medical Students have a right to be heard and included in high level Healthcare Organisations and Meetings. • Evaluate internal structures on how to create sustainability and accountability, to fully understand your organisation. • Transparency is key to achieve accountability

What impressed us during this online EuRegMe and how this could be integrated within swimsa

• How ideas and visions from MM21 are already being implemented. I was stunned about how many NMOs are free to start new things and give input on various topics without having guidelines or policy papers. These things do complicate matters sometimes, but they are so important for the continuity of swimsa and do strengthen swimsa’s opinion and stand. I do think however there should be some kind of possibility to join/make a statement without a policy paper, as there are not policy papers on everything available yet (e.g. vaccinations) • What impressed me the most, is that the event progression was free of judgement.

There were no conflicts even though people from all over Europe attended the meeting.

Everyone strives for inclusivity. It was so nice to see that so many people from such different ethnic backgrounds all can work together towards a better future. I think swimsa already implemented this in its mentality.

Hopefully the rest of the world will too :) • Since safe spaces cannot be ensured in every country, the next mission would be to raise awareness about the topic in the

Pre departure Training next year I’m on it ;) Also I was impressed by my preEuRegMe

Climate Change and Advocacy but I already think that swimsa is already doing good there (bring your own cups and bottles, green fees...) Maybe one could try to cook only seasonal food for swimsa events and be aware of local products? • I deeply appreciated having a Code of Conduct Committee available at all times, including the social events. swimsa should consider implementing a Code of Conduct and a

CoC Committee at SMSCs to guarantee the safety of the SMSC participants. • Honestly, I think that the part I enjoyed more was the PreEuRegMe. I attended VulnerA

BLE, which was SCORP + SCORA, and felt that in swimsa the topics we discussed are still lacking. so, hopp NORP!

If you want to learn these things and more as well, contact the VPG (vpg@swimsa.ch) for more information about the upcoming international events.