The advantages to give youth participation in making health policy

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Ms. Nuthchaya Mejun, a third year medical student at Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand and Ms. Tanaporn Meejun is a fourth year medical student at Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand. They are affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. 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.

         Nowadays in the 21st century, many resolutions occur to change our societies in many aspects. The youth are considered to be brilliant citizens who bring up with creative ideas, knowledges and solutions. However, they often lack opportunities to show their initiate empowerment to develop societies. In health care system, medical students who are the new waves of medical workers have no enough roles to determine the future of health governance. Therefore, I would like to raise three benefits if giving space for the youth to make decision in health strategy.

1. The engagement of young medical students to propel new health policy will increase the interesting among them. When given the opportunities to the youth, young people who are selected to be the best representative are desired to express extracted and refined ideas that are concluded from the rest. Certainly, this health policy will receive wider recognition from young generations.
2. Medical student’s role in the direction of health governance leads to be  more practical ways because the participation can promote the real perspective adapted from their experiences. While the world is changing too fast, young citizens can catch up this phenomenon better than the older do. So, the up-to-date ideas in health policy is easily created from the youth.
3. In making health governance, the participation of youth is described as double check method. It helps to strengthen and further the overall direction of the strategy. Moreover, it will decrease the dissent between the different age groups, and also bring up sustainable outcomes which will be accepted among everybody.

In the conclusion, from the three advantages I raised up above that are more interesting among the youth, more practical aspects and more accurate way, it should inspire the authority to include the medical youth to attend in decision making of health governance. A way to build successful health policy should be balance from various generation of people. Finally, better decisions and outcomes will follow after the participation of the youth.

About the authors

Nuthchaya Mejun is a third year medical student at Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. She is currently the Red Cross Project Coordinator and local team of standing committee of medical education for IFMSA Thailand.

Tanaporn Meejun is a fourth year medical student at Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand. She is currently the observer member of IFMSA Thailand and has organized numerous events to her university.