IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter - 2nd Issue

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IFMSA-Egypt's 2nd Newsletter is an integrated publication, containing articles on the theme of IFMSA-Egypt 5th winter camp, as well as from the 6 Standing Committees and the Projects Division. The IFMSA-Egypt Publications team hopes you will enjoy reading this issue of the Newsletter !

Transcript of IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter - 2nd Issue

  • ImprintEditor in Chief Ibrahim Kandeel

    Design / LayoutIbrahim KandeelRami Abdallah

    Photography EditorMohamed Yasser

    Editors / ProofreadersDalia AbdelnaserMai Ashmawy Manar Nassem Nowrus Emad

    PublisherIFMSA-Egypt

    Homepagewww.ifmsa-eg.org

    [email protected]

    IFMSA-Egypt is an independent, non-profitable and non political association of medical students in Egypt, and its a full member in The International Feder-ation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA)

    IFMSA-Egypt has been inspiring medical students since 1969. It has always been the representative of medical students all over Egypt, be establishing its roots in 23 Lo-cal Committees in 23 different medical faculties. Through years, IFMSA-Egypt has always been concerned with dif-ferent major issues that affect healthcare providers and the medical society as well as the general public in Egypt; this is through being a continuous reflection for medical students engagement in different health and social activ-ities and focusing these efforts to be always coping with the national, regional and international work trends.

    Copy RightsThis Publication is a property of IFMSA-Egypt. No other parties are allowed to use this publication without a prior consent.

    Notice: The opinions presented in the publication are mere possession of their authors,

    and dont by any means reflect that of IFMSA-Egypt. All precautions have been taken by IFMSA-Egypt publication team to ensure the

    verification of the information present within this publication. However, The re-sponsibility for interpretation and use of the material belongs entirely to the readers.

    Some of the photos and graphics used are property of their authors, and all pre-cautions have been taken to spare any contravention to their rights.

    Copyright 2014 IFMSA-Egypt

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    EditorialWords from the Editor in Chief

    Presidents MessageMessage from the IFMSA-Egypt President

    GeneralWords from here and there.

    SCOMELearn about their vision towards better Education.

    SCORAWords from the SCORAngels.

    Exchange TestimonialsThe world through the eyes of Exchange Students.

    SCOPHHere come the SCOPHeroes.

    SCORPThe People who want to make the world a better place.

    Projects BulletinThe core of our organization.

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Editorial

    Dear IFMSA-Egypt Members and IFMSA Friends, Its such a pleasure to introduce the 2nd edition of IFMSA-Egypt news-letter, This Newsletter is the Voice of the Medical Students in Egypt.

    Global Health in Action; that was the theme of the 5th IFMSA-Egypt winter camp. In this newsletter we are going to talk about all the de-tails of this mega event from the preparation also the pre winter camp workshops and the externals experts who facilitated these workshops.

    As well as the latest news; IFMSA-Egypt is now representing all the Fac-ulties of Medicine in Egypt after the 3 new LCs that joined to our big family. So, now we can say it Loudly IFMSA-Egypt is representing all the Egyptian Medical Students in 23 different Universities across Egypt.

    This Edition of the Newsletter is very special as we worked on the MSI [Medical Students International] Magazine style as an integrated publi-cation for all the Standing committee activities, through this publication you are going to find a lot of medical students telling their stories about their experiences in IFMSA work and also you are going to take a look at IFMSA-Egypt National projects and how we could reach in all the gov-ernorates of Egypt.

    This Publication took a lot of effort to be done, this is why I want to thank all the team members who worked on this publication , the Amazing Ed-itors Dalia , Manar , Mai & Nowrus, the photography Editor Mohamed Yasser and finally special thanks to Rami Abdallah (IFMSA-Egypt Proj-ects Support Division Director) for his great help. Also I want to thank all the authors who submitted their articles to be part of our newsletter.

    Enjoy reading it and dont forget to drop your feedback. Yours,

    Ibrahim Kandeel

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    Ibrahim Kandeel,IFMSA-Egypt Publications & IT Director [email protected]

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    Presidents Message

    Ramy Genaid ,IFMSA-Egypt President [email protected]

    collaborations with officials and governmental agencies.

    In IFMSA-Egypt, we are aiming to broaden the spectrum of medical students and enable them to reach their full potential through our capacity building strategies.

    This year IFMSA-Egypt has featured a huge transition from a com-mittee-based structure into an initiative-based structure. This has led us to focus on international issues that are relevant to the Egyp-tian society as Global Health Equity and distribution of resources, Access to Quality Education & Gender Equality. A huge success was the IFMSA-Egypt 5th Winter Camp: Global Health in Action which was built on the values of capacity building, and advocacy for is-sues that serve Egypts community and to somehow drift the stan-dard fixed approach our projects were being dealt with, to focus mainly on quality and not just quantity to ensure that IFMSA-Egypt as an organization is starting looking to projects from a different scope.

    Hoping that this will empower our members and make sure they are gaining the experience they need to be qualified to cope with, not only the national but the international trend of work.

    Finally; I want to take the opportunity to thank everyone who has been involved in producing this issue IFMSA-Egypt 2nd Newslet-ter ; through the pages of this issue you will find the different activities IFMSA-Egypt has been running Enjoy Reading!

    Ramy Genaid IFMSA-Egypt President 2013-2014

    Dear IFMSA-Egypt Fellows,

    It is with great excitement and motivation that I write to you in this special edition of IFMSA-Egypt newsletter.This is a special edition because this year I have witnessed that IFMSA-Egypt is expanding to in-volve more LCs; to be represented through 23 Local Committees in 23 different Faculties of Medicine. That proves that IFMSA-Egypt is the voice of medical students and the leader of health care system in Egypt.

    This wide representation has made us capable of advocacy for major is-sues that affect healthcare providers and the medical society as well as the general public in Egypt. Because we believe in the role of youth, we have actively focused on spreading awareness about the importance of our role as youth in advocating for change, as well as establishing

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    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    With the attendance of more than 450 delegates from 7 differ-ent countries, IFMSA-Egypt 5th Winter Camp under the theme of Global health in action had its doors open from the period be-tween 3rd of February to the 6th of February. Many things can be Good, but only few can be Special, and this is how it is when it comes to IFMSA-Egypt Winter Camp being the biggest nation-al event held every year. However, this year IFMSA-Egypt Winter Camp showed up with a totally different Face ; a more professional , unique and exceptional one , skipping the old traditional way of Standing Committee based event composing of ordinary Sessions like those of GAs, into an event of initiative base coping more to the issues of global medical interest such as global health. Flash back to the beginning of the story on the first of February; Pre winter camp workshops on topics like global health, disaster risk management, project management, human rights training and TNT (Training new trainers) being facilitated all with external speakers. Three days of workshops passed and another three days of the motivational and enthusiastic spirit came along the way, delegates arrived, opening ceremony, pictures here and there, morning ses-sions, afternoon training, evening social events and a working day by night organizing committee to suit everything good for every-one.Delegates were offered the chance to meet IFMSA-Egypt alumni in

    IFMSA-Egypt between history and future event, where 4 of IFM-SA-Egypt alumni came to tell their different journeys in IFMSA-Egypt and how such experience influ-enced their lives after that. Global health in action Titled Theme event, was a good chance for all delegates to take a look on how the world is now shifting its interest towards such important medical cause. The Story of IFMSA-Egypt 5th WC came to an end, one that everyone witnessed it to be an end of one of the most professional and one of a kind events. So Now you all knew the way, if you ever felt interested to live such sto-ry you have only one option; IFM-SA-Egypt Winter Camp.

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    IFMSA-Egyptwinter camp

    Dalia Abd Elnasser ,Head of feedback and Evalutaion team of the winter camp.

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    Global Health in Action:

    Through the eyes of a med student.

    Nowrus Emad Amer,Menofia [email protected]

    connected. Our ability to become professional and compassionate physicians is closely related to how we understand our patients, their needs, causes of illness and what should be done. Global health as a concept makes sure that we start stretching out to oth-er people if we are going to play a significant role in our world as doctors, as health is no longer limited to hospitals and clinics, health care is now everywhere around us. Proper understanding of global health and how it should be applied helps us focus on the exact steps we need to take to make this world a healthier place.

    This year, IFMSA-Egypt hosted its 5th Winter Camp; a Global Health in action-themed event where a handful of the definition and the major topics of global health was served to more than 450 Egyptian medical students and others from all around the world. Highly capable global health experts, both in the voluntary and professional fields, have delivered the training and lead the workshops. The event highlighted the various approaches ahead of medical students worldwide to actively participate in the field of global health. Workshops emphasized the goal of providing med-ical students with the basic knowledge of global health and the role of youth and future doctors in shaping the world of tomorrow.

    This was a very important step taken to stress on why global health is one of the challenges of the generation and how important it is for us as physicians and how it is a crucial part of our training.

    Unfortunately, many medi-cal students dont have a clue what global health is and why is it even relative to their work.

    Theyre not to be blamed actu-ally, as there has been a debate over the definition of global health for the past few years and the term is differently interpreted.

    Imagine that we have a bucket and a tap of water just above it, the buck-et is full and the tap is still running while the bucket is spilling the wa-ter outside and were doing noth-ing but moping the floor around the bucket instead of closing the tap or even draining the bucket. This just shows that we are defi-nitely searching for the wrong causes at the wrong places as well.

    This is what global health aims to stress upon. We need to look at the bigger picture, because if we do, wed figure it out easily.

    Global health views health related issues knowing no boundaries what so ever, it places a priority on im-proving health all over the globe with equity in the level of health care provided to people worldwide.

    Global health is about taking our knowledge and turning it into something that will melt the snow that is on the boundaries be-tween us and socially transform-ing the world into one big city.

    But why should I care? How is this useful for my career as a physician?

    Our world is increasingly inter-con-necting and understanding global health has become crucial for ev-ery physician. It is not a specialty; its a perspective that asks us to look at the whole world as one en-tity which is globally and socially

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    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Is psychiatry a medical enterprise concerned with treating diseases, or a humanistic enterprise concerned with helping persons with their personal problems? Thomas Stephen szasz Lets start from the beginning, my first encounter with psychiatry was when a friend of mine got diagnosed with OCD and throughout the whole process from diagnosis till recovery we had to keep his illness a secret and no one should have known about it. The second time was during my first week in psychiatry round when we entered the ward, it was fine by me but what really caught my attention was how my fellow colleagues reacted to patients as if they were insane, perilous or some-thing like that. That really made me think about how these patients suffer, how miser-able their lives are during the healing process and how the society looks at them as if they are stigmatized and I really couldnt help but wonder why these patients cant say that they are schizophrenic while diabetic ones can say that they are diabetics!. Stigma, misunderstanding and discrimination surrounding mental health disorders are widespread. Despite the existence of effective treat-ment for mental disorders, there is a belief that they are untreatable or that people with mental disorders are hard to be dealt with, not intelli-gent, or incapable of making decisions. This stigma can lead to abuse, rejection, isolation and excluding people from health care or support. Within the health care system, people are often treated in institutions which resemble human warehouses rather than facilities established for healing. Human rights violations of people with mental and psychosocial dis-ability are routinely reported in most countries. These include physical restraint, seclusion and denial of the basic needs and privacy. Few coun-tries have a legal framework that adequately protects the rights of peo-ple with mental disorders. When I looked through the top global health issues, I found many interesting facts; one of them shows that mental health disorders such as depression are among the 20 leading causes of disability worldwide. Depression affects around 350 million people worldwide and this num-ber is projected to increase. Less than half of those affected people have access to adequate treatment and health care. Another fact regarding WHO statistics shows that around 20% of the worlds children and ad-olescents are estimated to have mental disorders and about half of the mental disorders begin before the age of 14.Neuropsychiatric disorders are among the leading causes of worldwide disability in young people. Yet, regions of the world with the highest per-centage of population under the age of 19 have the poorest level of men-tal health resources. Most low- and middle-income countries have only one child psychiatrist for every 1 to 4 million people.

    On the other hand, as medical stu-dents we studied psychiatry in order to understand the nature of despair, but all we really learned was its pharmacol-ogy. The human mind is easier to med-icate than to comprehend. So actually it is a serious issue and we should pay more attention towards this emerging problem as all we do as physicians is write prescriptions and we neither teach those patients how to deal with the society nor teach the society how to deal with them during their illness. That takes me to the headline of the article Psychiatry 101. We should as a major medical students organiza-tion introduce psychiatry from a differ-ent perspective, other than the one common in our society; through cam-paigns, conveys and much more not only to the public but also to medical students as they also need not only the medical knowledge but also the proficiency of dealing with them and providing a healthy atmosphere to pre-vent any dreadful outcome. We need to learn how to deliver the message to the society as it tends to believe that their illness is as a result of myths like magic and evil possession rather than having a certain deficiency in a certain neuro-transmitter in a certain area of their brain.

    References

    1. World Health Organization (WHO): 10 facts on the state of global health [On-line].

    2. Available from: http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/global_burden/en/ [Accessed 3rd January 2014].

    3. World Health Organization (WHO): 10 facts on mental health [Online].Available from: http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/mental_health/mental_health_facts/en/index.html [Accessed 3rd January 2014].

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    Psychiatry

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    Ahmad H. Shata,6th Grade , Suez Canal [email protected]

  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    Medical EducationStanding Committee On

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Introduction from IFMSA-Egypt NOME

    Ahmed Badr ,IFMSA-Egypt NOME [email protected]

    Our Education Our Rules, by this spirit we work at SCOME (standing committee on medical Education). At SCOME, we target medical students from all aspects in or-der to ensure a better future and a decent healthcare system.As medical students are directly exposed to medical curric-ula, they should have an influence on the creation of new curricula and curriculum development. They should also be able to meet the standards of the medical profession, their healthcare systems and the needs of their communities. From this perspective, SCOME tries to promote modern med-ical education. We exist to gather medical students from all over the world who are interested in playing an active part in their education, improving it, adapting it more to their pres-ent needs and also to their future requirements as doctors.We try to deliver our message and goals through many awareness campaigns, workshops, seminars and other in-teractive events which are targeted towards medical stu-dents. Some of the previous workshops included training on

    Communication skills, stress and time management skills. Several awareness campaigns were done on the importance of research and the influ ence of study on students health.

    SCOME has many projects planned for the future including several sem-inars for postgraduate foreign op-tions, competitions between med-ical students and recreational days.

    As SCOMEdians, we realize it will always be a very hard task to change large policies especially in Egypt as student influence on pro-fessor-run rules and regulations is almost non-existent, but we still thrive on the fact that change is always gradual and that peer-ed-ucation and awareness are vital.As we are the future policy makers and as long as we realize that, we shall continue to do our best to main-tain advocacy, projects, awareness and field activities, as you remem-ber, it is our education our rules!

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    Future medical career

    Mohammad Sobhy ,6th grade, Al azhar university [email protected]

    by a staff member at community medicine department. A research methodology workshop was held by a professor from National Research Center as research is a must for the physi-cian throughout his whole life to get recent updates and enhance his opportunities in such fierce competition in the job market.Finally, AMSA organized a seminar about post-graduation oppor-tunities by a lecturer from SCORE center whose speech included United States medical licensing examination (USMLE), Member-ship of royal college, ministry of health and university residencies.That mega project has been held on three days at the end of which, students were honored with certificates of attendance and active participation. At every days closure, students gave their feedback about every session for determining points of strength to be enhanced and those of weakness to be dealt with later as we are planning to repeat it again according to students will.

    Its said that Clear des-tinations are clear ways. Dear readers, Have you ever thought about the percentage of medical students who know all details about their future career after graduation or even their present one regarding ideal ways of study, research, com-munication and presentation skills? How many students are aware of Quality and accreditation and their rights as medical students?

    Such issues are supposed to be taught to students as any educa-tional process cares for the classic essential triad; knowledge, attitude and skills. Due to multiple mistakes in the educational system of most medical schools in our country, theres a shortage in application of this triad and thats what we - SCOME are working on and thats why AMSA executed such mega proj-ect named Future medical career. And because the present is always the first step towards the future, weve discussed the whole journey of medical students starting with the main part of luggage; studying skills in the form of a practical workshop through which students were divid-ed randomly into separate groups, given medical topics with pre-men-tioned objectives to be shown to all attendants within a specific time showing an effective spirit of coop-eration; the thing were seeking.

    A physician isnt effective unless he has excellent communicationskills with both his mates and pa-tients. So, a presentation skills training and doctor-patient rela-tionship sem inar were respec-tively- held for such purpose. The former was facilitated by a certi-fied IFMSA trainer and the latter

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    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Our Roots

    Mohamed Abdelkarim Mahmoud ,Suez Canal University [email protected]

    If we trace back the origin of the Hospitals the closest exam-ple was first built in Bagdad in the eighth century. This hospital was established by Harun el Rashid after which public hospi-tals spread to all the Islamic empire from morocco to Persia.

    Hospitals were continuously developed where medical libraries and schools were attached to larger hospitals and senior physicians started teaching students and spreading the medical knowledge. (1)

    The contributions of the Arabic community to the medical field didnt stop there, which was obvious from the General Pro-logue of The Canterbury Tales , where Geoffrey Chaucer iden-tified the authorities used by his Doctour of Physic .The list in-cludes four Arab physicians: JesuHaly , Razi , Avycen and IbnRushd . Chaucer cited them because they were considered among the great medical authorities of the ancient world and the Europe-an Middle Ages, physicians whose textbooks were used in Eu-ropean medical schools, and would be for centuries to come.

    First collecting, then translating, then augmenting and finally cod-ifying the classical Greco-Roman heritage that Europe had lost, Arab physicians of the eighth to eleventh century laid the foun-dations of the institutions and the science of modern medicine(1).IbnSina Canon of medicine was the standard textbook of med-icine in many European universities for centuries and it was used at Montpellier, France, as late as 1650(2). The Canon of medicine was a medical Encyclopedia that was described by Sir William Osler-one of the founding professors of john Hopkins hospital-as the most famous medical textbook ever written (3) and this is just one example of many additions to the medical field caused by the Arabic community during the golden age which was the period from the mid of the 8th century till the 13thcentury (4).

    By seeing how the contribution of the Arabic community in the medical field was and still appreciated by medical professors across the globe its our job, as a rising Arabic physicians, to learn from their trials and error and try to restore our position as the leading community in the advancement of medical field

    Reference 1. David W. TschanzThe Arab Roots of

    European Medicine.Saudi Aramco World[Online] 1997;199703: 20-31 Available from:http://www.saudiar-amcoworld.com/issue/199703/the.arab.roots.of.european.medicine.htm[Accessed 30th December 2013] from:http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/199703/the.arab.roots.of.european.medicine.htm[Accessed 30th December 2013]

    2. William Archibald Robson Thomson, M.D. history of medicine[Online]Avail-able from:http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/372460/histo-ry-of-medicine/35654/Arabian-med-icine#ref412742[Accessed 30th De-cember 2013]

    3. 3-William Osler.The Evolution of Mod-ern Medicine.Kessinger Pub Co; 2004

    4. 4-Tahir Abbas.From the historical to contemporary.Islamic Radicalism and Multicultural Politics.[Online] 2 Park square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN: Routledge;2011 p. 9 Available from:http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=JdC90uc8PfQC&p-g=PA9&redir_esc

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    Students Rights Project

    Moaz Emad El-din Essa,6th grade, Tanta university [email protected]

    quality standards of medical education and the importance of regu-lar evaluation and asking for the better.

    We work to increase Students knowledge about quality standards of medical education and how to assess the process through Course Specification, ILOs, mission and vision of the faculty. We also work to increase Students awareness with their duties and rights and how to deal with each and to create a student rights statement to defend for students rights.We did a poll for students about the educational process and its negatives and how to handle them. In addition, we will make a doc-umentary film about university hostels which become one of the most thorny issues that include a lot of problems.

    negligible or ignored, a gap is created which leads to less interest in developing the medical education system, as well as decreased awareness of what medical education is and the worldwide updates in this field. On the long term, this is directly related to a less developed health system overall.As Egyptians, advocacy for our right in the decision making of med-ical education issues is vital. The first step to work on such an issue is through nationwide awareness among medical students about medical education and its different field and how it can have an enor-mous impact on health and competency of future doctors. It is very important that we understand the issue and believe in it before actual change. Once medical students realize how important this issue is, it becomes easier to present ideas, and evidence-based recommenda-tions to faculties, governments, and NGOs that we think should be applied and implemented. However hard such a task may seem, it is the only path to take for a better our country.

    In Egypt, we still dont have stu-dent representation in making decision and medical students dont have enough awareness with basics of medical educa-tion and different ways to ensure high quality medical education.

    Moreover, we are students have rights in better infra-struc-ture, equipment, laborato-ries, healthcare and enough time for extracurricular activi-ties without affecting our study.

    We aim to improve medical educa-tion in Egypt through well designed evaluation system with student representation involved in the de-cision making and making medical students allover Egypt aware with

    If you have been working in SCOME, then most probably you have passed by the idea that med-ical students are the first quality check of medical education and they should rightfully have an in-fluence on the creation of new curricula and curriculum develop-ment. However when it comes to the Egypt , students involvement in medical education is very weak and although there always seems to be some sort of guidelines or criteria set by quality assurance units in the different medical facul-ties in this field , the actual appli-cation of them is almost non-ex-istent. In an environment where curricula, assessment methods, and teaching methods are ex-clusively developed by facul-ty staff and where medical stu-dents voice to contribute their concerns, suggestion, ideas is

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    Medical Education and Students en-gagement in Egypt

    Ahmed Badr ,IFMSA-Egypt NOME [email protected]

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Public HealthStanding Committee On

  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    Through IFMSA-Egypt newsletter, SCOPH will mainly fo-cus on issues that are currently in spotlight in the coun-try referring to how the committee tries to successful-ly establish a footprint in the road of fighting such concern.

    Recently every year on the 24th of March which is the World TB Day, IFMSA-Egypt SCOPH members gather and successful-ly discern the mob about the frightening endemic of TB. Ad-ditionally as medical students, delivering the proper foun-dation needed by the public is the main goal. This is done through the implementation of awareness campaigns that ef-fectively spread information about ways of prevention of TB. Another remarkable thing is awareness through school vis-its because TB is well known to spread within this age group.

    Teaching the students about the cough etiquette for exam-ple; can noticeably decrease the percentage spread of the dis-ease. Just the same way, advocacy events as cycling against TB and online campaigns via social media as Facebook and Twit-ter are very effective in putting a spotlight on tuberculosis. This in return does not only change the publics lifestyle in pre-venting the disease but engage healthcare personnel in spread-ing services for early diagnosis and treatment of the disease.In fact the entire world is dreaming of a farewell to the con-suming illness before it consumes the world in return! Hopes are raised for the NGOs and medical personnel to fight it successfully.

    Addressing all issues related to Public Health is the easiest and fast-est way to explain what SCOPH is. SCOPH gathers medical students quilting them with skills as organi-zation, teamwork and leadership in order to fulfil such a hard task. Full gain of knowledge about public health matters with-in Egypt is one of the intended measures taken by IFMSA-Egypt SCOPH so as to implement rea-sonable and fair minded projects.

    Stating the fact that Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the most prevalent infections that contributes consid-erably to illness and death around the world, leaves no doubt why it was termed as the consump-tion illness in early Medicine. TB is a potentially fatal contagious disease caused by Mycobacterium Tuberculosis that does not only in-fect the lung in most cases but can also affect any part of the body. Since the cause of illness is bacte-ria, it is a misconception that the disease can be easily eliminated. Actually, the rise of multi drug re-sistant strains lately hinders this. Moreover, tuberculosis preva-lence rate per 100,000 populations in Egypt is 35000, which means that it can never be over looked. Most NGOs seek the empowerment of governments to support certain policies regarding the disease con-trol and eradication. Others go after research fluid relating to TB trying to find new drugs and better un-derstanding of the disease. And of course it is not surprising that IFM-SA-Egypt does not neglect such a noticed health issue in the country.

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    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

    Introduction from IFMSA-Egypt NPO

    Watch out being Consumed by TB!

    Mostafa Essa,IFMSA-Egypt NPO [email protected]

    Omneya Mostafa,Alexandria Univeristy [email protected]

    Public Health

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Along recent decades, Medicine skipped its role of only treat-ing diseases to focus on their primary prevention. Most of the budget estimated for health services in developed countries are spent on the prevention programs targeting lower levels of inci-dence and prevalence or even elimination of certain diseases.

    While on the other hand, most of the budget in developing coun-tries is consumed by health programs for providing health ser-vice and medication for the ill due to high prevalence of diseases.

    Therefore, its our role as a students association concerned with society public health issues, our vision towards better fu-ture, healthy coming generations, and the steps we achieved within the last years, we have a lot to do in (Safe Liver) project that works on such a major public health problem as Hepatitis.

    This year, we have many different axes to work through. First, we will stress on awareness about Hepatitis viruses espe-cially HCV. Awareness will be our major and main priority. A sur-vey about HCV in Egypt will be conducted through each LC to collect data about the prevalence rate, related health habits and then health education. The collected data will be analyzed to form an appropriate international paper about HCV problem in Egypt.

    For the third year, we will be work-ing on HBV vaccination but with little modification of the target group. It will be available for medi-cal and paramedical students espe-cially, for house officers, new interns and then whole public as possible.

    We are trying hard to spread HCV screening for students all over all LCs. We will try also to coor-dinate with concerned authori-ties in order to get positive dis-covered cases treated for free.

    A national TOT about infec-tion control will be conduct-ed in conjoint with HY5 project.

    A national scientific workshop had already been conducted at the Gas-troenterology Centre Mansoura University. Within which there had been scientific sessions discussing the patho-physiology, complica-tions, treatment and prevention of Hepatitis viruses specifically HCV. For me, Im really lucky to work with such a great enthusiastic team, looking forward to reach our ulti-mate objectives and noble goals.

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    Safe Liver (Anti-Hepatitis) Project

    Ahmed Abdel-Hay,Mansoura Univeristy [email protected]

  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    Wash hands and save lives

    Mohammed Abd El-Ghany,Al azhar university mohammedabdelghany1@ gmail.com

    This year we are aiming to:

    Increase the awareness of more than 12,000 peo-ple of different ages & jobs generally about infec-tious diseases and how we could control them easily

    Increase the awareness of medical students about the dangerous hazards of infections

    Train more than 2000 nurses & intern doc-tors on advanced infection control methods.

    Develop and establish advanced in-fection control units on each hospital.

    During the last year we have been working on spreading aware-ness on hand hygiene only, but this year we will work on spread-ing the awareness and training Medical and Para-Medical Staff about the advanced techniques in Infection Control to assist in establishing a standard Infection control level in our hospitals. Since we are medical students we are aware of the risks of the spread of infection, its harms and consequences, we de-cided to fight this phenomenon and change the behaviour of the medical staff and direct them to know their abilities and make the best use of the available resources for the best out-come. Thats why we are trying to apply this project in al-most all hospitals to improve the Medical healthcare program.

    Simply Hi-Five is a proj-ect that deals with hand hy-giene and Infection Control.We started working on this cause 3 years ago, starting by 5 of IFM-SA-Egypt L.Cs in 4 Cities Alexandria, Zagazig, Benha and Assuit, then the idea spread more among the SCOPHeros all over Egypt and we are working now on 18 Local Commit-tees with a team of 300 volunteers in 14 different cities since 2012.

    Whats the importance of hand washing?

    Hand washing is by far the best way to prevent germs from spread-ing and to keep ourselves pro-tected from getting sick. Good hand washing protects against the spread of illness, from common cold (which is responsible for 22 million skipped school days each year) to more serious diseases like Meningitis, Flu, Hepatitis A, and most types of Infectious Diarrhea caused by touching another per-son. You can also catch germs when you touch contaminated objects or surfaces and then you touch your face (mouth, eyes, and nose).

    Good hand washing techniques include using an adequate amount of soap, rubbing the hands togeth-er to create friction, and rinsing un-der running water. Using gloves is not a substitute for hand washing.

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    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    The World Diabetes Day is a globally celebrated event that takes place on the 14th of November of each year as set by the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization.

    In this day and along November month, millions of medical stu-dents and physicians all over the world cooperate and establish awareness campaigns targeting diabetic and non diabetic peo-ple. IFMSA never missed such an important United Nations World Day; this was reflected in Petar Velikovs SCOPH Director- an-nouncement: In IFMSA this day brings together LPOs and NPOs in almost all NMOs to raise awareness of diabetes. During No-vember and especially on the 14th, numerous local and nation-al events with the International Diabetes Federation 2013 cam-paign theme DIABETES: PROTECT OUR FUTURE will be organized by SCOPHeroes around the world. As a result, IFMSA-Egypt as usual- established the World Diabetes Day national celebration.

    The national celebration was preceded by an online campaign made by almost all members of IFMSA-Egypt. Profile pictures as well as cover photos on social media as Facebook and Twitter were changed to the Diabetes logo and IFMSA-Egypts diabetes banner that was designed by the publications team. Last years celebration pictures were also posted along with some advice to the public.

    This step was really remarkable! After that, the fundraising team established three partners for publishing the required publications material, collaborating in the awareness campaign and setting a national workshop. As a result of this, flyers, booklets and random

    blood sugar measuring devises were provided for the day and some were distributed to the LCs for fur-ther local events. Consequently a call for participants was open and 211 SCOPHeroes participated.

    The national celebration was host-ed by ASSA-Alexandria in the city of Alexandria on the 14th of Novem-ber. The day started by the nation-al workshop; this was given by two physicians and a clinical pharmacol-ogy professor at Alexandria Region-al Centre for Woman Development.

    After the workshop, members were very qualified for the awareness campaign as they received all the information needed to approach the public and provide the message of our cause. Following this phase was the awareness campaign. It took place at Qaitbay Citadel lo-cated on the Mediterranean Sea coast. The citadel is surrounded by a peninsula which is also a popu-lar area with families and is usually crowded by people. IFMSA-Egypt brought out a booth where screen-ing for the public was provided by SCOPHeroes and physicians who helped via the partners. Addition-ally there was a talking team who distributed flyers among the public, delivered the united message of the day and were ready for any ques-tions. Many misconceptions were amended. One example of these misconceptions is that Diabetes is a disease of the wealthy. The talking teams job was not only for the public outreach but also for guiding the Public to the screening booth. The World Diabetes Day celebra-tion of this year has finished suc-cessfully preparing SCOPHeroes over Egypt with the foundation and potential for bringing out local cam-paigns in their LCs. It also proved to the whole World how IFMSA-Egypt never neglects a major health issue.

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    March 2014

    World Diabetes Day

    Omneya Mostafa,Alexandria Univeristy [email protected]

  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    Reproductive Health & AIDSStanding Committee On

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Isolated, mistreated and misjudged this is how a person living with HIV spends his/her life. HIV/AIDS is a life-threatening disease that is mostly sexual-ly transmitted; thats why people always associate it with bad behavior and personal irresponsibility. There is a lot of in-accurate information about how HIV is transmitted, creat-ing irrational behavior and misperceptions of personal risk.

    AIDS related stigma and discrimination refer to prejudice, nega-tive attitudes, maltreatment and abuse directed at people liv-ing with HIV and AIDS. In Egypt, whenever you mention the word HIV or AIDS, most people start saying that there is no AIDS in Egypt mainly because the religious and moral beliefs lead

    Mr. & Mrs. Breastestis ... The life savior:Through our project, we target one of the most important global health issues which is cancer. Were just more specific to target geni-tal cancers. Many people die from cancer annually just because they dont know that it can be prevented. So, we decided to work on this and educate people about cancer; we decided to save their lives. Yes, cancer can be prevented and Mr & Mrs Breastestis can be a life savior.

    Movember:Half of IFMSA-Egypt members woke up on 16th of November to find the rest of the members with Mustaches! How weird!On the 15th of November, we started our online campaign Mo-vember to advocate for Changing The Face of Mens Health. As our project is concerned with raising awareness about genital cancers, we concentrated on two topics, prostate and testicular cancers.

    people to believe that being infect-ed with HIV is the result of mor-al fault that deserves to be pun-ished. But, if you look closer, you will know that the absence of clear statistics of people living with HIV doesnt mean that there are no HIV infections, it is just one of the con-sequences of considering it a taboo.

    Since our theme for this term is To-gether we make a difference, and since IFMSA-Egypt believes in the power of youth to initiate change, we -with great pleasure- launched our World AIDS Campaign this term aiming at standing up against AIDS-related stigma and discrimina-tion and making a change, and be-lieving that -as Ralph Emerson once said- The purpose of life is not to be happy; It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well!.

    Our target group was the med-ical students, as we believe they should be aware of some facts to deliver to the public and help them prevent cancer.The campaign lasted for two weeks, during which the LOR-As and members shared per-fectly to reach our goal.The idea of the campaign depend-ed on making the maximum ben-efit of IFMSA-Egypt and the LCs social media accounts to reach our target group as most of the

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    March 2014

    Introduction from IFMSA-Egypt NORA

    Share with us and save lives

    Rewan Youssif,IFMSA-Egypt NORA [email protected]

    Bassant Elbanna ,6th year medical student at Kasr Al-Ainy medical [email protected]

  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    World AIDS Cam-paign 2013; Mes-sage delivered

    Merna A. Ezz El-Din ,A 3rd year medical student at Suez Canal university [email protected]

    month, and it is one of the biggest events for SCORA where our target population is mainly youth between 15 and 24 years.

    During 2011 2015; World AIDS Campaign had the following themes: Getting to zero, Zero new HIV infections, Zero dis-crimination and Zero AIDS-related deaths. Every year we do our best to have the greatest impact on youths thoughts about HIV, to raise the awareness about a disease which is often ig-nored and is instead a subject of stigma and discrimination.

    This year, and since IFMSA-Egypt believed in youths power to initiate change and since our theme for this term was to-gether we make a difference, we launched a nationally held event that was totally led by youth-dependent organizationssuch as AIESEC and ROTARACT club along with UNAIDS,

    people now have social media ac-counts and check them regularly.

    Whats next?Were currently working on anoth-er goal for the project which is rais-ing the awareness of public about genital malignancies; the alarming symptoms, the screening methods and how to prevent them. Also, well try to offer some screening and preventive opportunities to them.

    Still, the shock of discovering my status is something I will never wish on my worst enemy. I thought my life is over In fact, I started think-ing of ways I could end my life. TK, South Africa

    This quotation is from a personal story gratefully shared with us and hence we believe in how much our psychological support for patients living with HIV Can be effective.

    Can you Imagine how cheerful would it be if a pessimistic hope-less patient received a message saying I am here for your rights, live freely !, we can imagine it as we believe in the efficacy of draw-ing a smile on someones face.

    December is a very important month for SCORAngels all over the world, it represents the in-ternational AIDS awareness

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    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    , it was hosted by Darb 1718, we had Zap Tharwat and Kar-akeb bands who performed live on stage along with the speech by Dr. Ahmed Khames to let us know about HIV/AIDS relat-ed stigma and discrimination and why we should pay atten-tion to it in Egypt, SCORAngels from all over Egypt came to prove their endless enthusiasm towards getting HIV to Zero.

    And the most important part is the realistic step we tried to take to make a difference, we decided to take action and stand by the side of PLHIV showing them our solidarity in the face of pandemic, we sent them messages anonymously telling them that they are not alone and that many people got their backs even if they ha-vent met them before, these messages will be sent to organiza-tions that deal with PLHIV so that they would receive it as post-cards and hence we created an indirect relationship between the anonymous sender and the anonymous recipient of the message.

    So why not live for others ?, think of not easily detectable issues and make a difference through our actions. SCORA has always been there for every denied HIV pa-tient to help the society as a whole face its hidden problems and ad-mit it. We believe that through this years campaign we were on the right track to Get HIV to Zero stigma and discrimination.

    March 2014

    Dalia Abd Elnasser ,is a 6th year medical student at Suez Canal [email protected]

    FGM Project; Re-started

    A woman is always born as a human. Its us who treat her as a female a wise man once said. Along the path of wom-en rights lots can be mentioned but its kind of a shame that in the time when some women are shouting for their right in policy par-ticipation, being in official positions, some women are still fighting for their simplest right to be human!Female genital mutilation, as defined by WHO; is all the procedures involving partial or total removal of the exter-nal genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs

    whether for cultural or non-thera-peutic reasons, and between all the conflict of such act religious, so-cial and medical background lots of our girls and women are the victims.Statistically- wise, Egypt is one of the highest rates of FGM in the world where in 2008 the prevalence of FGM in females aged between 15-45 years old was stated to be 91.1%! And more over, 75% of such act is done by medical stuff in a phenome-non called FGM Medicalization [1].

    Such act was officially men-tioned in the Egyptian penal code 2008 stating that the perform-er of such act is to be subjected to jail for a period in between 3

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    months as a minimum and three years as a max-imum beside a fine that reached 5000 LE [2]. All Religions have denied the relation between FGM and any re-ligious background; this is beside the vacancy of all the med-ical references from FGM to be a known medical surgery.Medically wise, FGM can be one of four grades based on the genital parts removed and complications of such act starts with pain, infection, sever bleeding and can end with even death!, this is beside the irreversible psychological damage.And based on such horrible numbers, and as its the respon-sibility of us as doctors to try doing something regards such act, IFMSA-Egypt SCORA started its FGM project with a main goal of Reducing the Percentage of Medicalization of the FGM Practice in Egypt through raising awareness about the religious, legal and medical aspects of FGM and ensure that medical students adopt a negative attitude towards FGMAnd this year, work will include 10 LCs with more involve-ment of upper Egypt LCs, we are re- starting our project within five LCs with a refreshment training for all the working LCs fol-lowed by Local Campaigns, and extending our time line and tar-get group to involve the public in our work as FGM HAS to break through the societys walls of silence and people need to know that all the myths they have in their minds need to be corrected.Worldwide, the 6th of February is the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation and here in Egypt we have a national day of zero tolerance which is the 14th of June, dating the death of Bdoor Ahmed Shaker the girl from El-Menya who died after a doctor performed her circumcision.

    So, guess its time for us to do some-thing, at least to guarantee that such Medicalization for FGM should end be-cause doctors should not participate in such crime that is started to be more of an insult to the entire medical carrier.So Ladies and Gentlemen start your engines, we got work to do.

    References [1], [2] Egypt and Health Demographic Survey (DHS) 2008.

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    March 2014

    Time is NOW, in Alexandria

    Asmaa Rabie ,is a 6th year medical student at Al-exandria [email protected]

    The late Nelson Mandela said Let us give publicity to HIV/AIDS & not hide it, because the only way to make it appear like a normal illness like TB, like cancer, is always to come out and say somebody has died because of HIV/AIDS, and people will stop regarding it as something extraordinary.

    As we believe that using knowledge and peer education formu-late the golden key for a better future and to get to zero discrim-ination, we launched our WAC13 campaign using Time is now as a national theme under the patronage of the UNAIDS with all

    our efforts and enthusiasm, ded-icated to address that nobody is immuned and that we dont have the right to judge others.

    We started our campaign with an amazing Fact Vs Myth game which grabbed every-ones attention and delivered knowledge in a very joyful way.Proceeding to stories, as sto-ries tend to connect the discon-nected, we shared real stories of PLHIV to engage every one of us in their lives and struggles.

    Then the astonishing part was the Mirror game because some-times we forget that anyone of us is susceptible to HIV infection.

    Our way of breaking down HIV/AIDS related stigma was different; it was through sharing a poem to support PLHIV and show the role of arts in addressing health is-sues and in helping to solve them.

    We ended our celebrating event with demonstrating the role of media in our Egyptian community & we dis-played the movie Asmaa 2011 that aimed at changing wrong beliefs.

    Our spirit was high up for the whole 4 days and all the activities were ver-satile as we believed that Time is Now to end HIV related stigma and to fight discrimination against PLHIV.

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    guy and she gave birth to a baby boy, my only brother. After 4 years, her husband left to marry another lady, so my moth-er married a guy from a different religion who was HIV posi-tive, so she caught HIV and since they havent had kids for a while, they adopted a girl from the hospital, my older sister.

    Years passed, and I was born. My brother and my family reject-ed both my mum and me, just because my mum married a guy from another religion, which is considered a taboo to Indians.After a while, my mother died and then my father also died, so I lived with my sister who got married to my cousin. HIV symptoms started to appear on me by time, so my sister advised me to go and get tested for HIV and unfortunately the result was positive!

    My sister wanted me to live with her, but her mother in law was against that, so she and her husband took me to this orphanage where I can get educated and have some people who can take care of me. My sister visits me every now and then and she calls me tooThen I asked, Do people know that you are HIV-positive?Her reply was so quick and certain No, no, I cant tell any-one, they will think I am a bad person. The only one who knew was my best friend at high school, she couldnt be-lieve me at first but then she cried and hugged me tight.

    Tears trickled down her cheeks when she said: I didnt choose to have that, and I want to do so many things before I dieI hugged her and said: You know, so many normal healthy peo-ple live without doing anything meaningful, but you did, you are doing and you will do so many things that will leave a mark in many peoples lives including my own. And one day, I will tell the whole world that I met you and I will brag about it.

    One rainy day in August 2013, I stepped into an orphanage in Mangalore, India. All I knew about the place was that it was only for HIV-Positive female orphans. I went there to volunteer with the kids and know more about their life and the problems they face.We started playing and I took pic-tures for their pretty shy faces. While playing, I saw some Microeco-nomics papers on the table. Then, a tall, shy, beautiful, dark skinned young lady came; she obviously was the owner of those papers.

    At the first glance, I thought she was one of the workers at the or-phanage because she looked older than all the other girls I had seen so far. But when I started a conversa-tion with her, I got to know that she is actually one of the HIV-positive females who live in the orphanage.I was so stunned by the fact that she was doing her BA in Microeconom-ics and Sociology, and she said that if she didnt get to achieve what she wants in the field, she will go for Masters in Hindi, because her dream was to be a lecturer. I asked her if I can interview her and she accepted.

    I began by asking some general questions about the place, wheth-er she liked the services provid-ed by the orphanage or not, and how long she has lived there, so she started narrating her life story,

    I was born in North Karnataka, Sirsi. My mum married a Hindu

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

    A Positive HIV-Positive

    Rewan Youssif,IFMSA-Egypt NORA [email protected]

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Human Rights & PeaceStanding Committee On

  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

    From Bratisla-va with Love: A SCORP Camp A d v e n t u r e !

    Yamen Jabr ,Palestinian-Jordanian 6th year medi-cal student at October 6th [email protected]

    the numerous trainers who helped in providing the best possi-ble experience to us during those 4 days. The overall experience has given us the everlasting sense of appreciation for what we aspire to work hard for, and personally Im so grateful for that. Aside from the sessions and training, we had a NFDP (National Food and Drinking Party) and Hippies Party, went sightseeing in Bratisla-va and even experienced the traditional Slovak culture; including learning its Folk Dances and trying out their signature dish (Haluky). Following SCORP Camp, I attended the highly anticipated 3-day Post-SCORP Camp tour. We were taken to the Northern and Eastern parts of Slovakia and accommodated in the village of Daniovce. We visited various unique and breathtaking touristic areas; including Dobinsk Ice Cave, Pieniny National Park (Rafting on Dunajec Riv-er, which flows between Slovak and Polish borders) and High Tatras National Park (trbsk Pleso & Solisko Peak) where we hiked moun-tains 2000+ metres above sea level. These areas introduced us to Slovakias natural landscapes, in stark contrast to its pulsating capi-tal city and the historical buildings and monuments it holds within.

    In conclusion, thank you IFMSA-Egypt for providing me the opportunity to make all this possible, and thank you SCORP for giving me a purpose to truly make a difference.

    The 25th to the 30th of August 2013 marked what could only be described as the highlight of my summer: SCORP Camp. SCORP Camp was a 4-day event packed with creativity, passion and fun, hosted by SloMSA-Slovakia and took place in the capital Bratislava (Dubbed the Beauty on the Dan-ube). It consisted of three parallel workshops: TNHRT (Training of New Human Rights Trainers), IPET (Inter-national Peer Education Training) and TNT (Training of New Trainers). 70 members from a dozen coun-tries; including Spain, Poland, Ro-mania, Jordan, Tunisia and Mexi-co, attended SCORP Camp through which the main goal was educating medical students towards posi-tive change in the health care sys-tem, by emphasizing on their roles as future doctors in comparison to other aspects of their studies. These organized sessions were conducted with the aim to de-velop the members professional and personal skills, in a highly in-formative and enjoyable manner. In the case of the TNHRT that I at-tended, the sessions addressed several key topics in the field of Hu-man Rights and Peace; including: Health as a Human Right, Mental Health, Minorities Discrimina-tion, Peace Activism, Refugees & Asylum Seekers Human Right Vi-olations, Human Trafficking and many more. Other sessions includ-ed Team Building, Intercultural Learning, professional Communi-cation and Project Management.

    These sessions were facilitat-ed by some of the most experi-enced and motivated SCORPions I have ever met; including part of the SCORP International Team of 2012-2013: Fares Al-Fares (Direc-tor), Monica Szamosova and Mike Krik (CoRAs to Europe), as well as

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    March 2014

    Stop giving excus-es, Start giving life!

    Amal Ali ,is a 2nd year medical student at Benha faculty of medicine amal_ali_1994 @yahoo.com

    Realizing the sad truth that all blood banks have blood shortage and that the rate of death as a result of inability to find blood in-creases daily, was the main motive to think about vital solution for this crisis.

    So, as usual in our beloved SCORP, we try to do our best to help our society and to relieve some of its needs.

    I believe that blood donation project is one of the most effective projects that have a great impact whether nationally or locally.

    Locally, we started our work enthusiastically by launching an on-line campaign to let people believe in the importance of blood do-nation, know its benefits and feel how people suffer because of blood shortage by showing them the statistics that prove the great need for blood in all our hospitals and blood banks.

    Also, publishing experience and feelings of those who donated blood before under the name of heroes speak was one of the biggest motives for others to donate blood.

    Two days before the blood dona-tion campaign, we started to spread awareness among medical students by talking to them in lectures and free periods about essentiality of blood donation and how many peo-ple die just in need of blood; trying to direct their thoughts and whole feelings towards the greatness of this humanitarian act.

    Then, the day of our blood dona-tion campaign came to surprise us with the brilliant success as we found many people motivated for the idea.Seeing people insisting to donate their blood and the real sorrow of others, who cant donate, made us feel the fruitful results of our efforts and surely motivated us to do more.

    As SCORPions, we hope to deliver our message to the fullest and to have a positive impact in our soci-ety helping people to lead a better life.

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    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

    Show Racism a Red Card

    Nada Basiony ,MUST-Misr University for Science & [email protected]

    nent and indestructible foundation of common racism and prejudice.

    Upbringing is one of the strongest factors that in-fluence & encourage people to become racist, or to have one form or another of the racial views.Another suggestion to how racism makes its way into our heads is through the almighty media. As we grow up, me-dia becomes a factor of our lives whether we want it to be or not, and is a major source of how racism keeps itself active. So how can you as a medical student and a member of the so-ciety put an end to racism? You do not fight racism with racism; The best way to fight racism is with solidarity. - Bobby Seale.Racism is taught in our society, it is not automatic. Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is al-right to be different and to accept diversity. Your role is to in-crease the awareness, banish and show a red card to the con-cept of one person being superior to another. All races are equal and all individuals deserve to be dealt with equality only. O mankind, indeed, we have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. In-deed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted. Al-Hujurat 13.Thus, these verses of wisdom from the Quran teach us that our genders, colours or appearances do not count. It is our nobility and good deeds that make us better no matter what race we belong to.

    Racism is something we all have wit-nessed. Many people fail to believe that race is not a biological catego-ry, but it is a self-centred falsehood that corrupts our minds into believ-ing that we are right to treat others as we would not like to be treated.Racism is a refuge for the ig-norant. It seeks to divide and destroy, and can be consid-ered as the enemy of freedom.The irregular border of ethnici-ties touches educational and eco-nomic opportunities, political representation, income, health and social mobility of people of different physical characters. So, where did this type of be-haviour come from? And how did it begin? Truth is racism began as soon as people started to face those of different races. We have always had the fear of differenc-es, not to mention the unknown. Contact with those of whom we are afraid often leads to dispute, which, by time, caused racism to transform from people simply dis-liking each other to the perma

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Exchange Testimonials

  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    ExchangeTestimonials

    Megan Catalin, Country: Romania

    Hosting LC: SMSA

    During September 2012 I attended a re-search exchange programe in the department of Plastic Surgery at Sohag University Hospitals.For me, the trip to Egypt was life changing and I con-sider it one of the best experiences I had since I start-ed medical school. I was very excited that I had the op-portunity to choose Egypt for my research program. Despite everything I saw on TV, read in the newspapers or heard on the radio, about the difficult situation that Egypt was passing through, I felt safe for the whole time. The people are amazing and that is what I miss the most about that country. Sohag Medical Students Association, SMSA, took a great care of us, and they provided us everything we needed. I ap-preciate that students were able to speak English very easily. We had all types of activities like: playing squash and foot-ball, going to swimming pools, organizing a barbeque and playing play station.We were able to visit other places : Luxor, Aswan, Hurghada and last but not least, we visited Cairo (Thank you Kiru for being a such a good host). Everybody knows the Egyptian culture is amazing so I wont insist on this subject.The accommodation was good, the hostel was clean and qui-et and the meal we were served every day at the cafeteria was delicious.The Plastic surgery team from Sohag Hospital was very will-ing to teach me, they offered me great opportunities to learn about pathologies that are not so common in my country. I bow to them for all the attention and respect they had to-wards me. Last but not least, I have special thanks to those who I can sincerely call my friends and make me want to return to So-hag: Amr, Cheatstafa, Mina, Big Mina, Kiru and Mohamed. Thank you guys for making my visit to Egypt one of the most beautiful experiences in my life!

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    ExchangeTestimonials

    Jacky,Country: China

    Hosting LC : SMSA

    Before I went to Egypt, Lets say--Sohag, there were lots of first impressions that came to my mind, like pyramids, Pha-raohs, etc...After this exchange program, there are few things that I want to share with all the people I know throughout my life.First, the close communication between people; people do things in groups rather than individuals, and this is how all the humanity should be, we cannot live alone by ourselves, and this is why we have the merits and the demerits, we complete each other. I believe this idea is born with us, how-ever the capitalism or something like that, the dark side of human masked it trickily, and people start to praise money as God, following all the rules told by the rich one, We lost, and I lost once too. During my exchange, people I knew in this city were praying together, discussing things together, no matter the issue that they are facing being big or not, they share their lives, and this is what I felt in this very very short time.

    Purchasing this further, is about the religion, it may be a topic that is a bit sensitive to some of you, but this religion give people a healthy and clean mind to live, and support the communi-ty, give them faith and encouragement to finish what they need to, I know nothing about this religion but I guess I saw some good aspects about it. I apologize to the one that disagree with me, but this is my experience and what I have seen by heart.Lastly, is the medical student that I met in this city, I am not interested in politics or any field about it at all, but some of the students I met in Sohag, they want to change something in front of guns and tanks, just want to speak out that there are some imbalance in a system or a community, this is something I have never thought of, or attempted to do, but even they have some different ideas, they will think of it logically and sincerely before making any decision or speaking out a word. I appreciated, so much.

    Maybe I saw the shining part within this short period of time, but this is my to take home message and the most important stories, and this is what I will share with others. I believe there are no ideas or thoughts that would match all the people, but now I have got the encouragement to say what I thought.I tried to take more and more care for the people around me, as this is one of my lost human-ity, this is what the medical students from the Sohag university gave me and what I brought from this country.Thank you.

    March 2014

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    ExchangeTestimonials

    Basim Joseph,LC: SSS-Cairo

    Khalid Omayr,LC: SSS-Cairo

    Trying new things can be challenging, yet the rush and excitement you get from moving forward to the un-known is worth the risk you take. Travelling abroad gave me the chance to gain experience and most important-ly, build ever-lasting connections, friendships and mem-ories.

    What more could a person ask for than this?

    Travelling is the ONLY thing that you pay for, that makes you richer. It is amazing how people live everywhere in the world, and how they can be so different, yet share com-mon passion, thoughts and motives... If you are living in a balloon, rubber is all you can smell, so blow it and travel away to smell amazing odors around the globe.

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    ExchangeTestimonials

    Yasmine Gamal,LC: SSS-Cairo

    Mariam Negm,LC: SSS-Cairo

    20 years from now you will be more disap-pointed by the things you didnt do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, and catch the trade winds in you.

    Explore, dream and discover.

    This month in Romania wasnt just a life-changing ex-perience; it was a leap in my thinking and in my per-ception of how I used to see the world. Ive learnt and understood more about life. Ive seen the world by a different lens and in the blink of an eye I became an entirely different person.

    Its all about daring to enjoy a once in a lifetime ad-venture.

    March 2014

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  • ProjectsSupport Division

  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Dear Medical Students Worldwide,

    First of all, let me introduce myself; Im Rami Abdal-lah IFMSA-Egypt Projects Support Division Director for the term 2013-2014. I proudly present you the proj-ects section in the 2nd issue of IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter. Within the IFMSA the term projects refers to activities in many fields of interest to medical students, which is in concordance with the IFMSA principles, aims and policy statements. This may include Projects, Events, Workshops, Surveys, Networks and Campaigns.

    IFMSA-Egypt has its official national projects running simultane-ously with the local projects and initiatives. All National projects must comply with the Constitution and Bylaws of IFMSA-Egypt. Benefits and rights of the projects and their coordinators include: being able to display project information on the IFMSA-Egypt web-site and the official projects database, receiving letters of recom-mendation from the Executive Board, support in grant applica-tions and fundraising attempts, and priority in promotional efforts within the IFMSA-Egypt network and our partner organizations.

    Food; it seems to some of us that it is a secondary or draft is-sue which does not deserve a systematic schedule. We only eat when we want to without thinking of the benefits or hazards of food. The quote we eat to live not live to eat is one of the most famous ones to be determined in our life especially us; Arabs.Nutrition is one of the most important is-sues in life from the early stages till death. Stages of

    Here in IFMSA-Egypt Projects Sup-port Division; we are working on providing the highest quality of projects within all our branches all over Egypt. Such quality can only be reached with hard work done by all its team starting from Stand-ing Committee members, Local Co-ordinators, National team of the project to the National Coordina-tors & National officers. All of them work hard to put the standard bass of the whole project to achieve its goals & objectives within the specified timeline & plan of action.

    We wish we could achieve more than what is expected, with all our strong projects within IFMSA-Egypt or all the IFMSA worldwide.

    Be happy and be thankful.More eyes see more, more minds think more. And in the end together we can achieve anything we want.The experiences of others are the clearest example that things can be done. You can also have great ideas, make projects, you can be a leader. You can change your society. And together may-be we can make it perfect.

    nutritional balance and systems differ from one stage to another.Early stages of life especially school period is the most hazardous pe-riod during life dealing with food due to the bad habits which are spread nowadays in our communi-ty that are endanger our students.

    So, serving the community especial-ly students at that age should be one of our most interesting tasks and one of our duties to spread health education among our communi-ty to spread the spirit of the well balanced nutritional life to Build our Bodies and Gain our Souls.

    March 2014

    Introduction from IFMSA-Egypt

    Projects Director

    Rami Abdallah ,IFMSA-Egypt Projects Director [email protected]

    Build Your Body

    National Coordinator: Osama Mohamed-Osama Hegazy E-mail: [email protected]

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  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    Drug abuse has many adverse effects, some of which are physiological and others that are social. It also has many de-structive side-effects that dangerously impair the health of the abuser. Most of its effects are long-term and it is very difficult to wean the body from these dangerous effects.

    In critically young age, this problem is much more disastrous. Ad-diction affects the students ability to study, practice sports and interact with family, teachers and fellow students, leading to de-creased learning outcome as well as many social and psychological problems which eventually lead to complete social isolation and even running away from their family and dropping schools. This results in, not only burden on the family, but on governments since addicts consume governmental resources without outcome return.As Medical students we know the risks, harms and consequenc-es so, we decided to fight this phenomenon, change the behav-ior of these students and direct them to know their abilities, and how to use them for the best of themselves and making the best use of the available resources for the best outcome.

    Thats why we are trying to apply this project in almost all schools to prevent the upcoming generations from even try drugs.

    people have been infected by TB bacteria but are not (yet) ill with disease and cannot transmit the disease.People infected with TB bacteria have a life-time risk of getting ill with TB of 10%.

    Drug abuse has been a huge problem facing governments for many years and with global increased stress, the problem is growing more and more. According to the Egyptian ministry of health, a research that included 40 thousand people among 26 governor-ates in the year 2011 showed that, the percent of drug addicts has increased in a devastating way in the past 5 years to:

    30% after being only 6.4 (Ran-dom drug addicts among age groups above 15 years)

    7% regular addicts.

    An addict possesses a huge burden on his family both financially and psy-chologically. With the increasing peer pressure addiction now begins at a very early age, the number of drug abusers among teenagers and high school students has been hugely ris-ing during the past few years making the burden on families much more.

    There is a shocking fact that the start-ing age of addiction has decreased to 10 years of age, in the past, it only af-fected the age groups between 40 & 50 making the situation much worse.Addiction affects both men-tal and physical health.

    What is TB? How does it spread? How is it treated?Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by bac-teria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affect the lungs. Tu-berculosis is curable and preventable.TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. A person needs to inhale only a few of these germs to become infected.About one-third of the worlds pop-ulation has latent TB, which means

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

    Anti-Drug Addiction

    National Coordinator: Rana Elneanaye E-mail: [email protected]

    Anti-TB & Smoking

    National Coordinator: Sharif Adel GhatwaryaE-mail: [email protected]

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    However persons with compromised immune systems, such as people living with HIV, malnutrition or diabetes, or peo-ple who use tobacco, have a much higher risk of getting ill.

    Smoking: A leading cause of death, illness and impoverishmentThe tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing nearly six million people a year. More than five millions of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. Approximately one person dies every six sec-onds due to tobacco, accounting for one in 10 adult deaths. Up to half of current users will eventually die of a tobacco-related disease.Nearly 80% of the more than one billion smokers worldwide live in low- and middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related

    illness and death is heaviest.Tobacco users who die premature-ly deprive their families of income, raise the cost of health care and hinder economic development.In some countries, children from poor households are frequently employed in tobacco farming to provide family income. These chil-dren are especially vulnerable to green tobacco sickness, which is caused by the nicotine that is ab-sorbed through the skin from the handling of wet tobacco leaves.

    March 2014

    Sexual harassment arises as a rapidly growing problem that has af-fected the entire community. There have been some really huge at-tempts exerted through activists in the streets and through all media available to address this problem and face it through different kinds of awareness campaigns and even stop-and-arrest campaigns in the street. The problem only grew wider and the acts against females in the streets have become more violent. Moreover, weve witnessed an opposing campaign on some media channels ac-cusing girls of being the main cause of the spread

    of this social disease. Others also defended those who were doing such acts to women in the streets give them enough justification that only made the problem worse.

    As IFMSA Egypt activists who have huge interest to make a change in our society this prob-lem took a huge side of our atten-tion. Looking at it from an analyti-cal point of view we realized that the problem has deep roots that extend into the culture and the mindset of the Egyptian commu-nity itself. We discovered that in order to solve such a problem we need more of a radical solution for it; we need to change that mindset.

    Anti-Sexual Harassment

    National Coordinator: Sara El-sayedE-mail: [email protected]

    Women empowerment has been one of the global priorities in the past period. For many years, social and political activists have been en-couraging people to share ideas on how to promote for and raise aware-ness about women empowerment until International Womens Day has grown to become a global day of rec-ognition and celebration across devel-oped and developing countries alike.

    Women around the clock

    National Coordinator: Karim Magdy SallamE-mail: [email protected]

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  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    One of the big problems is early marriage (child mar-riage) that leads to many physical, sexual and psycholog-ical problems due to lack of knowledge and experience.

    Early marriage is characteristic of rural communities. 36% of married women in rural families married under the age of 16, where this per-centage falls to 1.9% in urban areas. The Egyptian population census data mentioned that 11% of females between 16 and 19 years old are currently married or have been previously. Results of a research study done by the Social Affairs Ministry, General Direction of Women Affairs Analytical study of early marriage phenomenon indicated that 4 out of 14 families of the research study sample in El. Hawamedya and in Ba-drasheen districts have got their daughters married under the legal age.It is a widespread phenomenon; that is why we would like to raise the awareness of people about its dangers and mainly uni-versities students as a lot of them come from rural communi-ties so they can spread our message among their communities.Another problem is genetic diseas-es which related mainly to consanguinity.

    Since a strong body makes the mind strong too, Wom-en health is an important as-pect of women empowerment. And when it comes to the sen-sitive topic of reproductive health, in our culture, this as-pect is a nearly virgin land!

    In the critical youth age, the major-ity of young women lack the nec-essary scientific knowledge about the base of a healthy marriage. Young couple may face many phys-ical and sexual problems early in their marriage including infertility as a major bad outcome related to inadequate information, sex educa-tion and pre-conception examina-tion eventually ending in divorce.

    of the importance of communication and getting rid of violence.Last phase will be a national celebration in a pub-lic place organized with the help of Master Peace

    The international statistics prove that the Egyptians after being re-corded the most evolved society after their morals during the revo-lution turned into the most violent society who cant be tolerated.

    IFMSA-Egypt SCORP is the com-mittee that cares about Human Rights and Peace. Under the up-coming circumstances in the coun-try the role of the committee has increased. Our responsibilities increase and we have to carry it.

    The first step will be a TOT of peace sponsored by Y-Peer followed by a workshop to train school stu-dents and university students. 35 IFMSA-Egypt members will attend this TOT to spread the message to different students categories.Then there will be an awareness campaign held in a public place aiming to increase the awareness

    Peace

    National Coordinator: Mohamed ShoumanE-mail: [email protected]

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969

    Rights of Blind

    National Coordinator: Ramy Abd Elfatah FetouhE-mail: [email protected]

    March 2014

    When an individual becomes blind, he faces two major problems: First, he must learn the skills and techniques which will enable him to carry on as a normal, productive citizen in the community; and second, he must become aware and learn to cope with public attitudes and mis-conceptions about blindness which go back to the very roots of our culture and permeate every aspect of social behavior and thinking.

    The first of these problems is far easier to solve than the second. For it is no longer a theory but an established fact that, with prop-er training and opportunity, the average blind person can do the average job in the average place of business and do it as well as his sighted neighbor. The blind can function as scientists, farmers, electricians, factory workers, and skilled technicians. They can per-form as housewives, lawyers, teachers, or laborers. The skills of in-dependent mobility, communication, and the activities of daily living are known, available, and acquirable. Likewise, the achieve-ment of vocational competence poses no insurmountable barrier.

    In other words the real problem of blindness is not blindness itself, not the acquisition of skills or techniques or competence. The real problem is the lack of understanding and the misconceptions which exist. It is no accident that the word blind carries with it connotations of inferiority and helplessness. The concept undoubtedly goes back to primitive times when existence was at an extremely elemental lev-el. Eyesight and the power to see were equated with light, and light (whether daylight or firelight) meant security and safety. Blindness was equated with darkness, and darkness meant danger and evil. The blind person could not hunt effectively or dodge a spear. In our day, society and social values have changed. In civilized countries there is now no great premium on dodging a spear, and hunting has dwindled to the status of an occasional pastime. The blind are able to compete on terms of equality in the full current of active life. The primitive

    conditions of jungle and cave are gone, but the primitive attitudes about blindness remain. The blind are thought to live in a world of dark-ness, and darkness is equated with evil, stupidity, sin, and inferiority.Do I exaggerate? I would that it were so. Consider the very defi-nition of the word blind, the re-flection of what it means in the language, its subtle shades and connotations. The 1962 printing of the World Publishing Companys college edition of Websters New World Dictionary of the American Language defines blind as follows: without the power of sight; sight-less; eyeless; lacking insight or understanding; done without ade-quate directions or knowledge; as, blind search. Reckless; unreason-able; not controlled by intelligence; as, blind destiny; insensible; drunk; illegible; indistinct. In architecture, false, walled up, as, a blind window. The 1960 edition of Websters New Collegiate Dictionary says: blind. Sightless. Lacking discernment; un-able or unwilling to understand or judge; as, a blind choice. Apart from intelligent direction or control; as, blind chance. Insensible; as, a blind

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  • www.ifmsa-eg.org

    We have lost 2 main objectives which form the back-bone of blood donation (concept & motive):

    People have lost the concept of blood donation due to the ru-mors that have spread in the streets about selling the donated blood to the patients with high prices so they think instead of do-nating blood that will be sold they would keep it or theyd sell it on their own. This is due to many social problems in the com-munity; poverty and ignorance are the most prominent ones.

    The motive for donation was lost during the campaigns that were conducted by nonprofessional teams and un-experi-enced staff resulted in multiple injuries and spread of infections that made the affected donor lose the motive to donate again.

    Blood donation is essential to fulfill the needs of the pa-tients who need blood in a regular manner such as anemic pa-tients, cancer patients, accidents, leukemic patients and so on.

    IFMSA-Egypt Newsletter

    National Blood Dona-tion Project

    National Coordinator: Shrouk WagdyE-mail: [email protected]

    ProjectsSupport Division

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  • Inspiring Medical Students in Egypt since 1969