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MIPS
MDA National
Whether you're in 1st year or 4th year, it's important that you have adequate medical
indemnity cover for clinical placements, electives and private clinical work. MDA National Insurance's Student
Indemnity Policy provides medical indemnity cover worldwide (excluding USA) and insures you for $1,000,000
policy limit including $500,000 towards defence costs.
RACGP
Register your free online RACGP student membership with the option to upgrade for $49 to receive your free copy of Australian Medicines Handbook CD 2008 (valued at $115) and go in the draw to win a copy of John Murtagh's General Practice 4th edition (valued at $150). Find out more about the Prevocational General Practice Placements Program (PGPPP), career advice from GPs and more.
For details visit our website.
South Australian
Department of Health
Ever wondered what it would be like to work interstate - where you can have it all? Festivals, Lifestyle, Career and a Family. Consider South Australia in your future plans.
Australian GP Training
A record number of doctors has applied for the 2009 intake of the Australian General Practice Training Program (AGPT). The number of first round applications from eligible doctors has increased by 20% this year from 609 to 733. The numbers don't lie! General practice is increasing in popularity as a vocational choice - Have you considered general practice?
AMSA American
Express Gold Card
American Express will advise AMSA of the names, and member numbers, of AMSA members who take up this offer, for entry into their database. The AMA privacy policy can be accessed at www.ama.com.au or by contacting AMSA at 02 6270 5435
Avant
Avant is proud to be a major partner of AMSA. Student membership of
Australia's largest MDO is free and is designed to meet your needs as you study.
Insurance features include $20 million professional indemnity cover, driving license defence
and cover for Good Samaritan acts worldwide. Click here to join.
Elsevier
Elsevier Australia is a dedicated publisher of textbooks for the ANZ market. We
continuously work with the most respected researchers, academics and professionals and set a high
standard for quality in medical education. To register for regular updates and view our range of Medical
text titles click here.
Health Super
Health Super can help you take superannuation from 'care factor zero' to give it a little
more lovin'! After all, you have an asset money can't buy...Time! So what are you waiting for? Visit
www.healthsuper.com.au or contact our
Superline Freecall on 1800 331 719 for all the details.
Competitions
Last Month's Winners
Thanks very much to everyone who submitted a MedEd survey. Every time you do, I receive an email telling me a submission has been received. My inbox was creaking under the weight of these notifications for a while there. You've all contributed to the betterment of medical education in Australia and for that, we thank you sincerely.
Airplane!
 A certain chaste, cerulean airline has recently lumped customers with a new baggage fee. Put your pretend-pants on, and imagine that you're the CEO of this corporation, taking a break from circumnavigating the globe in a balloon and putting grandmas in space. What would be the best (and funnest and safest) way to offset costs from rising fuel prices? Send your entries to embolus@amsa.org.au. Initiative #1. Change the signs at Underwater World in Mooloolaba to read "Welcome to Cairns, Home of the Great Barrier Reef".
RED Centre
It's another name for the NT - a place where edible, flesh-devouring lizards reign supreme, and where the land can be drier than an ACE-induced cough. It's also the name of AMSA's newest initiative - the Rural Electives Database. Centre. In order to build this database and guide med students Australia-wide to rural educational ecstasy, we need your submissions. Go here to tell us of your rural elective, then email embolus@amsa.org.au and let us know that you've done it! You may then receive a delicious prize that'll see you dominate your end of year exams, or dominate in a competition for the most well-stocked textbook library.
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AMSA Welcomes PGPPP Announcement
The recent restoration of funding to the Prevocational General Practice Placement Program was welcomed by AMSA as it was an issue we had campaigned on vigorously. The scheme gives prevocational doctors the opportunity to experience General Practice before they sign up for vocational training, in a try-before-you-buy style program. Anyone considering General Practice should give one of the these placements a go. You can read more about the program here and read AMSA's media releases on the issue here and here.
AMSA Medical Education Survey
The 2008 AMSA Medical Education Survey is now online. AMSA runs this survey each year, as a means of gathering information from you, our members, about your views on Medical Education in Australia. We use the data to inform our advocacy campaigns and to improve the way we represent you. By completing the survey, you go in the running to win a copy of the 2008 Toronto Notes. The more entries we receive, the more statistically rigorous our data, so fill it out now.
Beyond Blue Initiatives
The month of October Beyond Blue will work harder than ever to raise awareness of mental health issues. Community groups and individuals will be encouraged to raise awareness of anxiety and depression and help reduce the stigma associated with these conditions. Depression is extremely common and more than one million people in Australia experience anxiety, depression or related alcohol and drug problems each year. If you happen to be experiencing depression or anxiety remember that you are not alone and that there are resources and people available to help. For information on how you can help raise awareness, or to seek help, visit www.beyondblue.org.
There May Come a Time When You Don't Need Your Kidneys...
We medical students are keenly aware of health issues facing Australians. We should also be aware that we are in a privileged position to help; we can study hard, donate blood, wash our hands and help friends in need. However, there is one very large area where Australia is falling behind the rest of the world, and it's an area where everyone can help.
Becoming a registered organ donor can make a difference to the lives of those desperately in need. Organ donation is an issue that we must discuss with our colleagues, friends and family so that when it comes to making tough decisions on behalf of our loved ones, or they are making decisions for us, the issue of organ donation has already been decided. To become a registered organ donor visit Medicare Australia and put your name on the list to help over 2,000 Australians in need.
LDW Series
The AMSA Leadership Development Workshops Series continues to go from strength to strength. The locally run workshops have been popping up all over the country and have allowed medical students the opportunity to discuss current issues (both local and national) and question local leaders in medical education and politics. For more information please contact your AMSA rep or AMSA Sub-Committee at your MedSoc.
Need. Mead. Lead.
Dwight Eisenhower once remarked - "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." It was with these sentiments in mind that the delegates of the 2008 AMSA RACGP National Leadership Seminar (NLDS) were woken every morning before 7:00am for an enthralling program. Held in Parliament House, Canberra from 1-3rd September, the NLDS attracted medical students from all 19 Australian medical schools (and a few from New Zealand) to debate, network and question Australian leaders in politics, health, education and media. And boy, did they ever! Read more in the next edition of Panacea (coming soon).
AMSA Calls for Global Health Action
This week, AMSA has called for action by the Federal Government and Medical Schools in global health development and education. While Kevin Rudd meets world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, AMSA urged the Federal Government to fulfill its pledge to contribute 0.7% of Gross National Income to global development here. AMSA also called upon medical schools to include teaching of the Millennium Development Goals within the medical curriculum here.
Aussies Gain Positions in IFMSA Regional Office
Five Australian medical students have recently been appointed to positions within the Asia Pacific Regional Office (APRO) of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA). AMSA congratulates Anny Huang, Tim Fazio, John van Bockxmeer, Sheila Li, and Cassie Richard on their new appointments within the Regional Office. In 2008, AMSA has encouraged further regional involvement by Australian medical students within the Asia Pacific Region.
RED Centre
Gone bush? Then we want to hear about it. Submit your rural placement to RED Centre here before 30th November and you'll go into the draw to win textbooks and other rad stuff. If you don't submit to RED Centre, we'll deploy a mob of swagmen to hunt you down by the billabong. You can submit multiple placements for multiple chances to win and feel warm and fuzzy for helping the rural workforce crisis!
Choices Research Project
What you think, how you make decisions, what sort of doctor you want to be & how you want to live your life are questions that interest far more people than you think - this information helps medical educators and medical workforce planners to better understand how we train tomorrow’s doctors and build a sustainable workforce. Career Choices for Australian Medical Students is a cohort study that will examine what and how medical students and new graduates make career plans and choices. Click here to register or here to read more.
AMSA Intern & Residents' Guide
There are a considerable number of you out there that are considering practising as a doctor one day. Some of you are actually planning to do that next year. But whether you're hitting the hospitals as a paid lackey next year or still viewing this medicine thing as a hobby while your music career takes off, the Intern and Resdient's Guide can answer some of those questions you have about life as a proper doctor. But in order to answer the questions you want answered, we need to know what those questions are. Send musings and contemplations through to publications@amsa.org.au so we can put the things you want to know down on the page.
Santa Claus is Dead
That's right. He's dead. And he's taken his friends the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy with him. However, get ready to dry your eyes, mate. Childlike anticipation can be yours once more as you await the arrival of Panacea, Australia's Best Nationally Representative Medical Student Publication. Set to hit universities in October, this edition will be full to the brim of all the things you've come to expect from Panacea: news from the advocacy frontline, med soc reports and overwhelming editorial smugness. Plus there might be a crossword this time.
Panacea: get it before everyone else has it and you feel really left out.
Spotlight on AMSA Secretary: MelFox
So, Mel. How did you land the job as AMSA Secretary? It all started back when I was first born. You see, my mum already had this other kid. Turns out the other kid decided to do medicine and become an AMSA exec member so she pretty much hooked me up.
And what does the job involve? Sometimes I type things. Sometimes I spend my days entering data. Sometimes I take minutes at council. Sometimes I post things. Sometimes I order t-shirts. Sometimes I pack showbags and eat the sweet sweet candy from the specimen jars. This one time I got to drive for an hour to pick up some wicked trophies, that was a good day.
And word is that you're also a medical student! The inevitable-standard-issue question: Are you going to specialise or just be a GP? Wait! That's a TRICK question! GPs are specialists too!
Tell us about the Student-Generated Questions initiative at UQ this year? UQ set up a system this year where each of the 40 first year PBLs wrote both an MCQ and a short answer question, on an assigned topic. These questions were then submitted to the School of Medicine (SoM) and reviewed by an expert in that area. The questions and suggested answers are now available for all first year students to view. 25% of the final exam will be comprised of these questions.
As a first year student at UQ I see a few problems with this. Firstly a number of questions posted are incomplete, are poorly worded or just have wrong answers. The SoM has told us that they will make no further changes to the questions. Consequently some students are concerned that if the question appears on the exam they won't know whether to write the suggested answer or the answer they have found in a textbook. One of the main aims of this initiative was to decrease student anxiety about the final exam. I don't think it has decreased my anxiety and I think a little exam-induced-anxiety is a good thing. I just find it frustrating that I have to spend so much time going through all the questions, some of which may have wrong answers but if I don't, I will be at a disadvantage to those who have done the questions.
If you had to pick a theme song for your year as AMSA Secretary, what would it be? I'll have three, thanks. The Fugees - Killing Me Softly, Mason Williams - Classical Gas and Elvis Presley - Winter Wonderland.
My iPod is... Lost in the depths of my house.
In ten years I'll be... 31.
The introduction of mobile phones on planes is...The worst idea ever. Planes are a time for quietness, mini-meals, mini-toilets and mini-TV screens only. Maybe if they were mini-mobiles I would be more open to the idea.
If you had to give your celebrity endorsement to one product, what would it be? Mexican Peas. It's a sad story you see. Mexican Peas use to be readily available on your local Woolworths shelf but more recently they seem to have disappeared. We've also recently seen dramatic falls in the American stockmarket. Coincidence? I think not. Maybe if we as Australian Medical Students stand up and all endorse the peas they will be back on the shelves for all to enjoy.
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