Lack of involvement, or lack of opportunities?

IFMSA, 2017

This article was exclusively written for the Sting by María José Jaramillo Cartwright, a 22-year-old medical student from Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Quito, Ecuador.  She is also affiliated to the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA). However, the opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

The power of having people that are willing to change the world, but don’t have the opportunity to do so, is tantamount to not having anyone at all.

There are millions of medical students who every day strive to achieve new projects and ideas that could be transcendental within not only their own lives, but the community’s that surround them; yet their efforts are limited by lack of adequate education, practical opportunities and difficulty reaching ideal scenarios for them to apply their knowledge.

Educational systems are completely different throughout the world. Specifically, when speaking about medical schools, it is incredible how divergent the same topic can be, given the local conditions and reality of public health problems. Yet, what most people don’t understand, is that this isn’t a reason for medical students to receive some topics only superficially, or not receive them at all. I do understand that sometimes there are plenty reasons that cause this rather than only usefulness within the local environment, for example, not having enough budget to obtain technologies or supplies that are needed to teach a specific matter.

This is what entities with the possibility of supporting medical schools should take into account and not to be conformed with future physicians that have only heard of procedures and technologies, but have never experienced them or used them. This could spread young physician’s ideas and abilities, while obliterating a handful of current global health problems, but this gap is not seen by some entities or governments although it could be a great prospect for them.

It is indelible that we, medical students and young physicians, cannot defeat barriers by ourselves. We require entities that can support us in order to mitigate all of those impediments and actually create changes in our world. How? Simple. We need to reach that ideal scenario by educating the world the importance of health and how to obtain it, by collaborating with governments and other partners who can abridge the process and show results.

As mentioned before, there are motivated students who are willing to create consciousness within our populations, but up until now, they are hardly heard or given openings for them to try; therefore, becoming unheralded and future physicians who think that they should only stick to what is already prevalent, although it is not the most effective system for their goals.

You may listen quite often that youth is the future, yet I believe that youth is the present. The world needs to stop nullifying and obliterating their work just because they lack experience. We are constantly in a learning process, with new concepts and ideas that need to be applied in our realities.

So this is an open call to anyone who has the capacity to improve our actual situation, to rectify this existing gaps and wallow the world into new possibilities regarding global health and wellness.

About the author

María José Jaramillo Cartwright is a 22-year-old medical student from Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Quito, Ecuador. She is currently the Vice-President of Internal Affairs in AEMPPI Ecuador, an organization part of the International Federation of Medical Student’s Associations (IFMSA). She works along with different youth representative organizations, national and international, with the purpose of creating opportunities for young people within different aspects, specially regarding health topics.