History

‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people, committed people can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.’ Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

Initially holding the name Medsin, Students for Global Health was born out of this belief, and a recognition that students are in a unique position to serve their local and international community through global health projects. What will the future hold for our student movement for global health? We now have at our disposal an impressive network of thousands, tackling global and local health inequalities from the grassroots level right up to the global determinants of health and healthcare, and our force for change will only continue to grow stronger.

1995

Wigs Bateman, a Sheffield medical student, attended the International Federation of Medical Student Associations  (IFMSA) conference in Alexandria, Egypt. Here she was overwhelmed by the impressive energy and dedication of her international counterparts and returned to the UK determined to create a similar forum in which UK students could act on issues they considered important or underrepresented in their curriculum.

1995 – 1996

The first local awareness raising meeting was held at Sheffield, aiming to create a team to begin running human rights and public health projects. This led to a successful project Medsex: training peer educators for sexual health to work in Sheffield schools, and then the first ever branch: Medsin Sheffield. Various groups of students acting on global health from around the country (e.g. Medsex in Sheffield, students running exchanges in St George’s and Nottingham) then joined together for the first time, to form The Medical Students International Network (MedSIN).  MedSIN gained key support and encouragement from Mike Rowson of Medact in developing into a student network acting on global health issues.

1997- 2000

Medsin’s first campaign: the 2000 Jubilee Debt Campaign

Medsin nurtured new community health projects: e.g. peer-led sexual health education (Medsex, which later became Sexpression), students recruiting donors to the Anthony Nolan bone marrow register through Marrow and refugee health projects in London. For the first time the network also began to use its voice to advocate, campaigning for change, through the Jubilee 2000 debt campaign.

A Medsin Stand at one of the early Medsin National Conferences

Medsin ran its first large-scale National Conference in Edinburgh which, like our conferences today, brought together over 300 students from across the UK to a weekend full of inspirational speakers and workshops to equip. Medsin also began to structure itself and created its first national committee to coordinate the work of the network. The network continued to grow and had 18 member branches, local groups of students from around the country which aimed to inspire students to engage in global health at the grassroots level.

2003 & 2004

The network formed a decision-making body and held its first General Assembly, creating a constitution, by-laws and a brand new Medsin-UK logo. It also promoted its inclusive nature by expanding to recruit non-medical students. In addition, the first “Training New Trainers event”  was held which, like TNTs today, allowed those attending to become peer educators to increase the network’s efficiency. Emily Spry from the UK was elected President of the IFMSA at the August Meeting in the Netherlands, 2003.

2005 & 2006

The new Branch Resource Pack, one of the key documents created in 2005, as part of an organisational reform of the network

Medsin achieved charity status, demonstrating its significant efforts to alleviate injustice, and broadened capacity for organisational management. Medsin became more involved in advocacy, developing a Global Health Advocacy Project and Campaigns Officer on the National Committee. Members fostered several successful campaigns from issues such as the democratic process of the World Health Organisation, through to access to healthcare for refused asylum seekers, in addition to responding to governmental consultations. Medsin hosted the IFMSA European Regional Meeting (EuRegMe) in April 2006 in Leicester, which brought together its European partner organisations to educate and inspire advocacy on obesity, tobacco and mental health issues.