Manual
Joining the discussions on IFMSA Policy Statements Edition 1.0 - 2016 www.ifmsa.org
medical students worldwide
IFMSA The International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) is a non-profit, non-governmental and non-partisan organization representing associations of medical students internationally. IFMSA was founded in 1951 and currently maintains 124 National Member Organizations from more than 100 countries across six continents with over 1,3 million students represented worldwide. IFMSA is recognized as a non-governmental organization within the United Nations’ system and the World Health Organization and as well, it is a student chapter of the World Medical Association. For more than 60 years, IFMSA has existed to bring together the global medical students community at the local, national and international level on social and health issues.
Imprint SCOME - International Team
Zamzam Ali - Regional Assistant for Africa Lukas Rodrigues de Souza - Regional Assistant for the Americas Gem Wu - Regional Assistant for Asia-Pacific Abdulrahman Nofal - Regional Assistant for the EMR Katerina Dima - Regional Assistant for Europe Ying-Cing Chen - SCOME Director Stijntje Dijk - Liaison Officer for Medical Education issues
Writing and Design Stijntje Dijk - Liaison Officer for Medical Education issues
Publisher
International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations This is an IFMSA publication © Portions of this publication may be reproduced for non political, and non profit purposes mentioning the source provided. Disclaimer This publication contains the collective views of different contributors, the opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of IFMSA. The mention of specific companies or of certain manufacturers’ products does not imply that they are endorsed or recommended by the IFMSA in preference to others of a similar nature that are not mentioned.
Notice: All reasonable precautions have been taken by the IFMSA to verify the information contained in this publication. However, the published material is being distributed without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied. The responsibility for the interpretation and use of the material lies with the reader. In no event shall the IFMSA be liable for damages arising from its use. Some of the photos and graphics used are property of their authors. We have taken every consideration not to violate their rights
General Secretariat: IFMSA c/o Academic Medical Center Meibergdreef 15 1105AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands Email: gs@ifmsa.org Homepage: www.ifmsa.org
www.ifmsa.org Introduction
Dear reader, Welcome to the manual on joining the discusson on IFMSA policy statements. As our policy statements reflect the issues that we as medical students worldwide see as crucial topics to take a stance in, it is essential that these documents reflect the opinions of all our members. For this reason, we as the SCOME International Team created this manual to support those new to the field of advocacy with some tips on how you can make sure that your voices are heard when IFMSA decides on its policies. It can be used for other areas related to policy statements in IFMSA as well. If you need any additional support, please feel free to contact us at any moment through LME@ifmsa.org. Best wishes, The SCOME International Team 2015-2016
Introduction to Policy Statements What is a policy statement? A) A fancy document that is the concern of NMOs with a lot of experience in advocacy and the IFMSA Liaison Officers B) A statement of IFMSAs beliefs on an issue and is therefore the concern of every single member to ensure it represents our entire federation. The IFMSA Unites medical students worldwide to lead initiatives that impact positively the communities we serve. IFMSA represents the opinions and ideas of future health professionals in the field of global health, and works in collaboration with external partners. […] (IFMSA mission statement).
Example of a policy statement
Because a policy statement reflects the beliefs of IFMSA, and IFMSA represents medical students worldwide, it is extremely important that the content of these statements are well thought through and supported by all groups within our federation, such as the different regions, the different standing committees, the NMOs and the officials working in those respective areas. Therefore, whether you have much experience in using and writing policy statements in advocacy, or whether this is a very new area, it remains extremely important that you make your voice heard, and that our policies, upon which we base much of our work, are in line with what we all believe medical students should say on these issue. This manual is written for those (individual members, national officer, NMOs and everyone else) who are relatively new to policy writing, to help them give input to the proposals that are on the table for discussion during the IFMSA General Assemblies.
It comes from exactly this: there is a need identified, something that we think medical students worldwide should take action on, should encourage others to take action on, and that we should have an opinion on. From that, a group of people (this could be NMOs or TO members or both) creates the draft that was shared with you for a call for input and later on as a February 1st or July 1st document. (For more information on how to propose a policy statement, please refer to the IFMSA constitution and bylaws as 1. These rules might change over time and 2. Writing and proposing policy statements is not the intended goal for this manual).
The term “Policy statement” can sound intimidating, but in the end, it is only a term for a document that has IFMSAs opinion written on it, and the things we want to change in this world, the things we believe in.
You will have received the proposed policy statements from the IFMSA secretariat. These documents can look confusing and high tech from time to time. On the next page, we used an example of a “fake” policy statement to explain the basic principles behind them.
“A Policy Statement is a tool, not an end. “
- Agostinho Sousa, LME 2012-2014
Manual on Joining the Discussions on IFMSA Policy Statements - version 1, 2016
Example of a Policy Statement FAKE IFMSA POLICY STATEMENT
Ensuring Equal Access to Stroopwafels Proposed by: Liaison Officer for Medical education issues St. Paul’s Bay, Malta, March 2016 Summary The International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations is strongly committed to the improvement of health and wellbeing of all people. […] We believe that ensuring equal access to stroopwafels worldwide will drastically improve quality of life. […] Introduction Worldwide, on a daily basis 1.5 million people face problems related to demotivation, highly impacting their quality of life. (1) Studies have shown the direct corrolation between consumption and access to stroopwafels and wellbeing. Stroopwafels, or Dutch Syrup cookies, have been brought to international medical student conferences since 1951. (2) Either lacking access or too much exposure have shown to directly affect on behaviour. Main Tekst The International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations is strongly committed to the improvement of health and wellbeing of all people. […] Access to stroopwafels has been corrolated with important health and behavioural outcomes, such as developed social connections during lunchbreaks, focus during voting procedures and many others. However, not all people have equal access to this valuable source, making delegations with lacking or too much access to stroopwafels at risk for negative affect. We believe that ensuring equal access to stroopwafels worldwide will drastically improve quality of life. […] The IFMSA calls for • Governments to stop import taxes on stroopwafels to general assemblies, to ensure that socio economic status does not become a burden to accessing stroopwafels. • Manufacturers of stroopwafels to establish factories in various geographic areas worldwide. […] • Health professionals to monitor sugar levels of stroopwafel recipients to prevent negative health effects of overconsumption IFMSA commits to advocating for these principles to relevant stakeholders, and to ensuring presence of stroopwafels at National Food and Drinks parties of its General assemblies. References (1) Sun et al (2015). Direct causes for lacking motivation in the working age. International Journal on Happiness 3(3):133-144. (2) […]
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Checklist for providing input The previous example does not by any means intend to say that the IFMSA should have a policy statement on the issue of “equal access to stroopwafels, aka. Dutch Syrup cookies.” However it hopefully gives an image of how with a made up topic that requires no background information on the actual issue could still follow the template and the idea of a policy statement, and could therefore potentially make it easier to provide feedback to the actual statements that will be discused during the General Assembly. For any upcoming General Assembly, you will be find the proposals to be discussed on the mailiinglists, or in the NMO google drive folder. Currently existing policy statements can be found at http://ifmsa.org/policy-statements/ and will look more like these example:
Checklist The most important thing for you to do now is evaluate whether or not you would want to support the proposed policy statement. Below, you can find a short checklist of some of the things you could pay attention to. - Is there a need for medical students worldwide to have an opinion on this topic and therefore is there a need for this policy statement? - Does the proposed policy statement reflect what I think medical students worldwide believe in? - Does the proposal go in line with IFMSAs mission and vision? - Does the proposal conflict with other documents within IFMSA (such as other policy statements that state a different scenario). - Do the people who have been active in this field believe that this proposal reflects the topic and situation well (for example, for a policy statement in the field of medical education, what do the National Officers on Medical Education or the International Team think?) - Is the text clearly written and understandable? - Does the proposal address key stakeholders and what changes IFMSA would want to be seen made by them? - Are the references the statement is based on relevant (based on eg which year were the sources published and would they still describe the current situation, do they reflect various countries scenarios or only one, are the sources reliable etc.) - Has any discussion taken place on how the Policy Statement can be used after its’ adoption?
Manual on Joining the Discussions on IFMSA Policy Statements - version 1, 2016
Checklist for providing input How to provide effective feedback In the end, no matter who proposes the policy statement, we all want it to reflect what IFMSA believes, and therefore be of the highest possible quality. Providing feedback on the content or the writing is not at all a burden, it can only help improve the statement, lead to a very productive discussion of what medical students think on a certain topic, and improve it’s representativity. Here are a couple of tips that can help you to provide feedback in the most efficient way, so that your comments can be taken into consideration, discussed with all of those involved if necessary, and can lead to a better overall proposal: - Timeliness matters: As we said, all feedback and input is welcomed and extremely important to make sure that the policy statement reflects our members’ thoughts and beliefs. However, to take an informed decision, other people will need time to think about what you want to change, or to incorporate the changes into the original changes. There is a big difference between providing suggestions a week before the General Assembly and the day before the vote, because last minute proposed amendments can no longer be discussed within for example standing committee or presidents’ sessions, or within a hectic GA scenario even NMO hours. - Work together with the proposers: If you have small or larger suggestions to make changes in a policy statement proposal, try approaching the people submitting the proposal to see their thoughts. Perhaps it was something they had already thought about but had a specific reason not to include your suggestion, or perhaps they hadn’t thought of your suggestion yet and can work together with you to incorporate it into the final amended version. - Be specific: Some suggestions are easier to incorporate than others. To both make sure that your suggestions are heard and not misinterpreted, and to save the proposers a lot of time and thought, try to make your feedback as specific as possible. There is a big difference between stating “I feel the text is a bit too informal here and there, you should try adjusting it”, and “I noticed that on the second page of the proposal there were sentences such as “you’ve got to
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make sure everyone has got what they need.”, which we think is too informal for a policy statement. Our suggestion would be to change this to “We urge governments to ensure access to all necessary health services”. - Choose what you want to discuss in the sessions on beforehand: Unfortunately, we only have so little time during a General Assembly to discuss each topic. Therefore, make sure that you already have the most important things that you had in mind to bring to the table for discussion. Adding a comma to the text is something relatively uncontroversial and if you would inform the proposers about your suggestion, the chances are high they won’t mind adding it, however changing the stance of IFMSA on one of the issues is something a lot bigger for which you as well as the proposer would most likely want to hear the opinion of other members of. Make sure to address these suggestions in the time provided. If you think an item will require a lot of discussion, perhaps choose to inform the facilitator of the session before the start of it, to make sure that there is enough time to discuss your input. - Come prepared: Make sure that not only you are aware of the proposal and its context to deliver your input, but try to (as much as possible) inform within your NMO what the rest of your members think - Discuss the outcomes of the discussion-session with your NMO: After the standing committee/presidents’ sessions, you most often still have a chance to share the inputs, controversies and general opinion that was expressed in the policy statement discussion to your NMO, which may or may not result in a change of opinion and therefore vote. Sometimes, when there are multiple sessions or policy statements being discussed at the same time, not all members of your delegation will have had the chance to be present in the discussions, so make sure to keep them updated on what has changed. If you want a broader opinion, you can always ask other NMOs or TO members for their perspectives or dilemma’s you’re still facing.
Procedures for IFMS
Final versions must be submitted to the plenary team midnight before adoption. They should be shared with NMOs highlighting changes.
Policy Statements must be submitted before Feb/Jul 1st 23.59 GMT to gs@ifmsa.org in the template and proposed by the TO or 2 NMOs February July
midnight before adoption Final Submission
1st
-12h
Submission
There is an issue IFMSA should have a stance on January June
10th
Call for input
A call for input needs to be sent to the NMO mailinglist
before adoption
-1d
before adoption
Presentation
Amend
All policy statements must be presented to the GA at least one day before the adoption. During the GA they can be discussed in various ways.
Amend can o propo wording chair n than 2 befor plenary they are adop
February 2016 // LME@ifmsa.org Manual on Joining the Discussions on IFMSA Policy Statements - version 1, 2016
SA Policy Statements
n
Policy statements can now be used by all members and should have an active follow up as well as dissemination by relevant TO members Policy statements are voted upon during plenary during the plenary
after adoption
+1w
Dissemination
0
Voting
They are adopted through 2/3 majority
-2h
after adoptions
+3y
dments
Expiry
dments only be osed in g to the no later 2 hours re the y where e up for ption.
A policy statement will remain valid for 3 years unless revised and reproposed at a General Assembly
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What’s next? The policy statement is adopted, what now? This means that this statement now represents the beliefs of the IFMSA, and with that the 1.3 million medical students that we represent. But having a policy statement is only a tool, not an end. You can now use this statement to back up your opinions when representing your NMO. Unless otherwise stated, the policy will remain valid for the upcoming three years. After this moment, members of the IFMSA or the TO may decide to either let the policy statement expire (for example when the issue is no longer relevant), or to resubmit the statement (with room for adjustments, updated references, or the updated scenario as the world around us changes constantly). If the scenario changes, or IFMSAs opinion over time changes, we can also decide to resubmit the policy statement at an earlier moment, replacing the previous version. If you are unsure of how to get started using the statement, try approaching the proposers or the responsible IFMSA Official to discuss how you can get started within your NMO to tackle these issues. Finding more support Currently active policy statements can be found at www.ifmsa.org/policy-statements You are also always welcomed to contact a member of the International Team or the Team of Officials. For questions regarding the policy statements in the field of medical education, please write an e-mail to LME@ifmsa.org We’re looking forward to your active participation in the policy discussions at the GA to make sure that the voices of medical students worldwide are heard.
Manual on Joining the Discussions on IFMSA Policy Statements - version 1, 2016
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IFMSA International Federation of Medical Students Associations
Algeria (Le Souk)
Georgia (GMSA)
Oman (SQU-MSG)
Argentina (IFMSA-Argentina)
Germany (BVMD)
Pakistan (IFMSA-Pakistan)
Armenia (AMSP)
Ghana (FGMSA)
Palestine (IFMSA-Palestine)
Australia (AMSA)
Greece (HelMSIC)
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Grenada (IFMSA-Grenada)
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Guatemala (ASOCEM)
Peru (APEMH)
Bangladesh (BMSS)
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Peru (IFMSA-Peru)
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Benin (AEMB)
Haiti (AHEM)
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Honduras (ASEM)
Portugal (PorMSIC)
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Hungary (HuMSIRC)
Romania (FASMR)
Bosnia and Herzegovina - Rep.
Iceland (IMSIC)
Russian Federation (HCCM)
of Srpska (SaMSIC)
India (MSAI)
Rwanda (MEDSAR)
Brazil (DENEM)
Indonesia (CIMSA-ISMKI)
Serbia (IFMSA-Serbia)
Brazil (IFMSA-Brazil)
Iran (IMSA)
Sierra Leone (SLEMSA)
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Iraq (IFMSA-Iraq)
Singapore (AMSA-Singapore)
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Ireland (AMSI)
Slovakia (SloMSA)
Burundi (ABEM)
Israel (FIMS)
Slovenia (SloMSIC)
Canada (CFMS)
Italy (SISM)
South Africa (SAMSA)
Canada-Quebec (IFMSA-Quebec)
Jamaica (JAMSA)
Spain (IFMSA-Spain)
Catalonia - Spain (AECS)
Japan (IFMSA-Japan)
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Kenya (MSAKE)
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Colombia (ASCEMCOL)
Korea (KMSA)
Tatarstan-Russia (TaMSA-Tatarstan)
Congo, Democratic Republic
Kuwait (KuMSA)
Tanzania (TAMSA)
of (MSA-DRC)
Kurdistan - Iraq (IFMSA-Kurdistan/Iraq)
Thailand (IFMSA-Thailand)
Costa Rica (ACEM)
Latvia (LaMSA-Latvia)
The Former Yoguslav Republic
Croatia (CroMSIC)
Lebanon (LeMSIC)
of Macedonia (MMSA-Macedonia)
Cyprus (CyMSA)
Libya (LMSA)
The Netherlands (IFMSA-NL)
Czech Republica (IFMSA-CZ)
Lithuania (LiMSA)
Tunisia (ASSOCIA-MED)
Denmark (IMCC)
Luxembourg (ALEM)
Turkey (TurkMSIC)
Dominican Republic (ODEM)
Mali (APS)
Uganda (FUMSA)
Ecuador (AEMPPI)
Malta (MMSA)
Ukraine (UMSA)
Egypt (IFMSA-Egypt)
Mexico (IFMSA-Mexico)
United Arab Emirates (EMSS)
El Salvador (IFMSA-El Salvador)
Moldova (ASRM)
United Kingdom of Great Britain
Estonia (EstMSA)
Mongolia (MMLA)
& Northern Ireland (Medsin-UK)
Ethiopia (EMSA)
Montenegro (MoMSIC-Montenegro)
United States of America (AMSA-USA)
Fiji (FJMSA)
Morocco (IFMSA-Morocco)
Uruguay (IFMSA-Uruguay)
Finland (FiMSIC)
Namibia (MESANA)
Venezuela (FEVESOCEM)
France (ANEMF)
Nepal (NMSS)
Zambia (ZAMSA)
Gambia (UniGaMSA)
New Zealand (NZMSA)
Zimbabwe (ZIMSA)
Nigeria (NiMSA) Norway (NMSA)
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medical students worldwide