IFMSA-NL and Global Health

“We've noticed that public health remains an underexposed theme in many medical curricula,” explains Sie Meng Lee, who has been involved with IFMSA-NL for eight years. This drives the organisation's mission to supplement existing Dutch medical education with a broader perspective on global health challenges.

IFMSA-NL’s approach to global health

IFMSA-NL's approach combines experience with policy engagement. Its international network facilitates exchanges between medical students across borders, enabling future healthcare professionals to understand how healthcare systems function in different cultural contexts. The experiences that healthcare professionals have are essential in developing a global perspective on healthcare delivery. “We're preparing healthcare personnel of the future with extra knowledge and cultural competence to deal with healthcare challenges,” Lee notes. "At the same time, we're working to create more public awareness for global and public health matters generally." This dual approach reflects the organization's understanding that tomorrow's healthcare challenges require both practical skills and public engagement. The organisation's work extends beyond existing medical education. Lee’s experiences over the last eight years illustrate this broadness: from organizing month-long internships for students from Brazil and Italy to working on European-level projects addressing mental health among medical students and healthcare personnel. Currently, her focus has shifted to healthcare policy, ensuring that future healthcare workers have the knowledge and skills to advocate effectively for policy decisions that will affect their clinical practice.

Partnering with the Global Health Hub

In the context of the Global Health Hub Netherlands, IFMSA-NL finds value in the network's diversity. “The Hub brings together a large number of partners who are all working differently on the three themes of the strategy - whether it's SRHR, global health systems in the broadest sense, AMR or climate health and planetary health,” Lee explains. Collaboration is crucial in the current climate of changing healthcare priorities and funding landscapes. “With the current cuts to development cooperation, keeping global health on the agenda in the Netherlands is quite challenging,” Lee says. “Through the Hub, partners can work together and amplify each other’s efforts to do more with fewer resources.”

Looking ahead, IFMSA-NL sees opportunities for deeper collaboration within the Hub network. “Our biggest goal is getting to know each other better and to find out how we can help each other,” Lee says. “We know many of the partners, but we don't yet have a good view of everyone involved and what we can mean for each other.”

Bezoek de website van International Federation of Medical Students' Association