My culturally-injected Friends,

I hope you are as enthusiastic as I am about starting The Cultural Injection Project at your FMO.

We are always happy to answer your e-mails and Facebook messages, which are coming in great

amounts. However, if you are facing some sort of crisis among members of your EMSA/IFMSA or

for other reasons you feel the lack of current perspective for ‘injecting’ the project into your

students, I’m going to offer you an alternative. A small step towards big things that hopefully will

occur at your University soon :) Ladies and gentlemen - the idea is called: The Day of Culture! It

simply means a little, one-day festival in which you could make an attempt to join the two

worlds we all genuinely love – art & medicine – and invite the students to take a deep, cultural

breath with you.

* * *

The Day of Culture could and could be organized at your University or in one of the dormitories

for medical students, or in a club associated with your School. After you choose a place, think

about the programme you can have (oh yes, this needs massive brainstorming and thorough

planning!). Here we present some potential points in the agenda you can try to take into

consideration. Remember not to overload your programme and mind the hours! Consider

everything, add your suggestions but be reasonable! Even the best medicine becomes a poison in

too generous amounts…

The plan can be as follows:

1. Invite a Star:) You can get someone from the artistic environment (a writer, an actor or a film

director). They can speak about their job in general OR you can get a person who, while

working on his/her project, was strictly cooperating with medical environment. There are for

instance doctors who write medical crime stories or directors who focus on movies with

medical background. They can speak about how difficult/important it is to joint well both

aspects in their works - medicine and fiction.

2. Cooperate with your choir/orchestra/student’s drama club. Encourage them to make a

performance during your festival. It should be a great opportunity for them to get a free

advertising space and for your FMO to add some colours to the whole enterprise. Bilateral

benefits rule !!!

3. Conference with the author of the book. Why not organize such a meeting during your event?

Offer some book publishers a place at your University to host their writers who would like to

talk about their books on this particular day. A great advantage of this idea is that your

Cultural Day would draw attention of some external media which could help you to get

sponsors for your further plans, including The Cultural Injection Project.

4. (If possible) invite a doctor or a medical professor that would talk about the benefits of art,

music or painting for the patients (there are whole articles on that! Check out ** The Cultural

Injection ** Facebook website too find some examples). This could take a form of a lecture.

5. Make a quiz on students’ knowledge about culture. An alternative option can be - my personal

favourite – THE SAMPLE competition. You expose a small piece of a famous (or maybe less

popular?) paining and ask people to guess its title. It can stay exposed for the whole day while

people would be dropping answers into a box. At the end of the day you can make a lottery

and award a winner with a very special cultural and/or medical prize. How about finding

sponsors for the prize and letting them present themselves during your festival? (see point ‘a’

bellow)

6. Movies & Medicine. Since cinema is an important branch of art , make a M&M show during this

Special Day. Try to invite a professional film critic to comment on a movie screened and a

doctor (professional, to make chances even:) to see the thrilling confrontation of two

different points of view – medical and cinematographic.

How to make this day really AWESOME...

a) Your partners. Before thinking about the programme please consider inviting some theatres,

cinemas, museums or bookshops to cooperate with you. Each and every institution invited could

have their own separate stall on your festival. In this simple way they can freely advertise their

company and obviously give some ‘good stuff’ to the participants :) For example, theatres and

cinemas could present their own posters, leaflets, lists of shows available. Bookshops for a

change could make a little spot with the bestsellers and new items they have (depending on the

physical space you can offer and the range of cooperation). Make a little cultural village in the

middle of your University! AN IMPORTANT NOTICE: DON’T FORGET TO ASK ABOUT FREE

TICKETS AND DISCOUNTS FOR VISITORS!!! Your cooperators might be eager to offer something

in exchange for letting them advertise their business. If you get the tickets you will be able to

make lotteries, competitions, quizzes… which would leave even more students happy. Think

seriously about getting some partners.

b) V.I.Ps of your University. You will agree that a headmaster or a rector making an official

opening would add indisputable prestige to any EMSA or IFMSA project . Maybe this way you

will even get access to the website of your University and place information about the event

there?

c) Independent hidden talents. Do you have some young artists at your faculty? Some enthusiastic

photographers? Let them shine during your C-Day! You can make a mini gallery with their works

(give them a free hand or suggest a proper topic – art in medicine/medicine in art etc.). In this

way, apart from having plenty of stalls, you can get some fresh air by decorating the hall with

paintings or photographs prepared by students. Well-adjusted topics and high quality of their

works should create an unforgettable atmosphere.

d) Speaking of atmosphere… What about setting some speakers with classical, film or jazz music,

lingering gently in the air for the whole day? :) You just need a few sound boxes, a CD or two and

a computer. In my opinion, the ratio between the amount of job required to provide the music

and the final effect is no less than EXTREMELY POSITIVE :)

Money, money, money…

Please, notice, that you really do not need much financial input to bring this plan into life. Let’s

see… I don’t think you have to pay for the place at your University – especially to hold such a

high-brow event. The institutions you invite make part of the festival and should consider this a

form of advertisement. Guests such as artists, at least in Poland, come to participate in such

events (e.g. for an hour) in the form of charity (+ promoting their image :). The photo or

paintings gallery might require some special preparations. However, try to encourage the

authors to take care of it themselves or ask the University to support you. Speakers, sound

system, laptop… all this you can probably rent from your School or maybe you already have it in

your FMO office. And remember to ask your partners (theatres, cinemas, bookshops etc.) to

support you with tickets, discounts… AND MONEY. They might consider it an interesting

perspective to appear as a student-friendly or a university-friendly association. Don’t be afraid

to ask – there is nothing to lose!

You might want to invest some money into a buffet for your guests. Or at least coffee and

cookies. Depending on the extent of your project.

Inform people about how much fun you are preparing

Do not forget to make a lot of noise around your event – before and after. Before, to get people

interested and after, to let ex-participants remember you till the end of their academic lives! :)

Use the website of your University, websites of students associations invited and all possible

‘Facebooks’. Send e-mails, using your FMO mailing lists. Use internet forums and discussing

groups of the faculty. Get some creative people to design posters informing about what is going

to take place. Maybe you can prepare a special website of this event? That would be really

amazing! You know best who or what do students of your University listen to. Take use of it!

Congratulations!

If you got to this point of my appeal, you are really brave :) Please, consider this all a modest

introduction into a chapter that our FMO and your FMO can passionately write together within

the following year. I placed here some suggestions, some options that me and my EMSA-mates

came into when discussing the idea of such a festival. Feel free to add more. Do not hesitate to

ask questions. Make a little storm of brains at your faculty when you get back after holidays and

share your doubts and reflections with us. Let’s talk, then plan and – finally – let’s act…!!! It’s

going to be plenty of fun, no doubt.

To give you a little more courage; during the following academic year, our FMO is going to host

such an event for the first time. We are extremely motivated, even more scared but above all –

totally twisted about EMSA & *CuLtUrE* which hopefully is going to let us achieve the goal we

have set. What I’m trying to say is that we will be novices in this field – novices, just as you! But

together, hand in hand, we can share this experience, shift ideas over the borders of our

countries and make this day very, very special - TOGETHER, helping each other. What would

you say?

Warsaw is in, as always! ;)

Big Polish hugs for the whole EUROPE,

Olga Rostkowska

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European Coordinator of EMSA ‘Cultural Injection’ Project

olga.rostkowska@emsa.waw.pl

Tel.: +48 602 293 313 or +48 505 412 967

www.kulturalnia.emsa.waw.pl www.emsa.waw.pl