World Health Organization 62nd session of the Regional Committee for Eastern Mediterranean October 5th – October 9th, 2015 / Kuwait City, Kuwait

Statement of International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations on: Review of Medical Education in Eastern

Mediterranean Region

IFMSA welcomes that challenges, priorities and a framework for action in medical education, are being discussed today.

Reaffirming the need to ensure high quality medical education, we express our concerns for safeguarding education within the region; Considering rapid scale-up and uncontrolled growth of numbers of medical faculties, that only 40% of schools reported having any form of accreditation, and mismatch between licensing of new medical schools and needs assessment, we call for urgent action towards health workforce planning taking into account not only the number of medical schools, but also the needs of the population, learning and working conditions of medical students and motives for migration, distribution of health workforce global and in rural and urban areas, numbers of entry spots to both medical education and specialization. We, the future health workforce, who will face the consequences of decisions taken today, call for collaboration between all major stakeholders, including WHO, AMEEMR, and students, to ensure the implementation of the WHO Code of Practice on HRH, and to ensure that Strategic Priority 2 requires national accreditation to live up to international standards recognized by the WFME, for the quality education that our (future) patients deserve.

We applaud the framework discussing the need for student-centeredness and social accountability. However we are saddened to see major stakeholders missing throughout the framework, students themselves. Meaningful engagement has proven to both contribute to educational outcomes of students, as well as to outcomes of educational reform, as students as only stakeholders undergoing the curriculum bring a unique perspective. By including them in education processes, and by recognizing value of NFE activities such as exchanges, leadership and representative roles and community-oriented projects, they have the opportunity to demonstrate social accountability and understand the communities they serve. We, representing medical students throughout region are here today to share our voices with you.

We call upon all those present today, to show active leadership, to go beyond discussions of student-centredness, and be the example; to collaborate with your national student associations, to include their voices in the major curriculum reforms called for by this framework. We call upon member states to, together with us, safeguard our medical education and ultimately positively impact health within our region.

Ahmed Reda IFMSA Regional Director for Eastern Mediterranean 2015/2016 rdemr@ifmsa.org / www.ifmsa.org