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We’d like to welcome our 5th and largest Association to the Tiromed Community: the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations!

IFMSA is an independent, non-governmental and non-political federation of medical students’ associations throughout the world. In 2007 IFMSA had 102 National Member Organizations from 100 countries on six continents and represented more than 1 million medical students worldwide. We encourage everyone to visit the new IFMSA profile page: www.tiromed.com/ifmsa, and to show your support by wearing an IFMSA badge:

-Team Tiromed

Hanni Stoklosa is a 3rd year medical student at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, Massachusetts. She spent the last year as the University Coalitions for Global Health Fellow at the Global Health Council where she catalyzed coalitions among global health organizations with a university presence. Hanni has extensive experience fighting disparities abroad in Egypt, Guatemala, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, China, and Taiwan. Conversant in Mandarin, she has conducted gender violence HIV/AIDS research and served as a prevention educator in Hubei Province of China and Taipei, Taiwan. She is also serving in on American Medical Student Association’s AIDS Advocacy Steering Committee and Global Health Education Consortium’s board.

TM: What is IFMSA and what is IFMSA about?

Hanni: The International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations is the intersection among medical student associations across the globe. Internationally, they collaborate on advocacy campaigns, service projects, and research & clinical exchanges.

IFMSA-USA offers future US physicians a comprehensive introduction to global health issues. Through our programming and opportunities, we develop culturally sensitive students of medicine, intent on influencing the transnational inequalities that shape the health of our planet. Specifically, we provide US medical students with international experiences as well as opportunities to share book and medical equipment excesses with the world. www.ifmsa-usa.org

TM: How did you get involved in this organization? What are your responsibilities as president?

Hanni: My passion is for abolishing global health inequalities. After attending a National Convention, I was drawn in by the world-changing work of other IFMSA-USA members. I’ve been hooked ever since!

As president I:

Chair and lead the National Executive Board,
Represent IFMSA-USA to IFMSA internationally and to the other National Presidents
Represent the NMO to the IFMSA-USA Board of Trustees.
Represent the NMO to the external organizations including the media.

TM: What are the benefits of IFMSA-USA membership? www.ifmsa-usa.org/join.htm

Hanni: Exchanges: clinical or research experiences abroad in IFMSA member countries www.ifmsa-usa.org/priorities/scope.htm & www.ifmsa-usa.org/priorities/score.htm

IFMSA internationally: international medical student peer collaborators in any area: global health, community and public health, medical education…..the sky’s the limit!

Information: our listserv provides global health updates; our interactive online forum offers global health discussion opportunities www.ifmsa-usa.org/forum/

Book-AID: donate your used books to those in need overseas nome@ifmsa-usa.org

Equip: collect excess medical supplies at your school and get them to clinics abroad

npo@ifmsa-usa.org

TM: Is IFMSA a political organization? What is your stance on global health and what changes would you like to see in the world.

Hanni: IFMSA-USA is not a political organization, but we encourage our members to get involved in advocacy through the American Medical Student Association’s Global Health Action Committee. It is vital for us to leverage our powerful voices to sway policy makers to prioritize global health. www.amsa.org/global

TM: What in your eyes is the most pressing issue in world health today?

Hanni: Human resources for health. Africa has 25% of the world’s disease burden, 13.8% of the world’s population, but only 3% of the world’s health workforce. The Joint Learning Initiative estimates that we’ll need 600,000 doctors, nurses, and midwives now; 1 million more are needed to achieve Millennium Development Goals.

TM: What are your plans after you graduate Medical School? Do you plan to go abroad?

Hanni: I would like to return to Wuhan, China in some capacity- perhaps establishing a twinning program with my university, to train more doctors and nurses.

TM: Can you talk about IFMSA’s Village Concept Projects?

Hanni: IFMSA-USA has 4 associated Village Concept Projects in Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, and Kenya. Their overall objectives are to provide sustainable improvement of the living conditions in underprivileged communities as well as to develop the capabilities of students. http://www.ifmsa-usa.org/village.htm

TM: What was your most memorable experience with IFMSA-USA?

Hanni: The IFMSA General Assembly in Serbia- imagine the globe-changing potential of 25 medical students from 25 different countries strategizing about HIV/AIDS Campaigns. Enough said.

TM: Are there any IFMSA-USA upcoming events?

Hanni: Yes-our National Global Health Convention will be coming up in January 2008. Stay tuned.

TM: Who are some of your heroes and why?

Hanni: Dr. Gui is an unbelievably courageous doctor who risked his life by exposing HIV spread in rural China. He perseveres day and night on behalf of his patients. I only hope that I can be half as gutsy and dedicated.

Canadian Dean Giustini has been a medical librarian for more than twenty years, and is currently the biomedical branch librarian at the University of British Columbia. He has presented workshops and lectures on Web 2.0 and written editorials for the British Medical Journal. He’s been a blogger since 2005, and has experimented with wikis and podcasting. He is the 2007 Canadian Hospital Librarian of the Year. He also started blogging with Open Medicine in April 2007, a blog that highlights research at the Open Medicine journal. His official MedLib blog is http://weblogs.elearning.ubc.ca/googlescholar

TM: For those unfamiliar with your blog, please provide us an overview of your blog, who your target audience is, and what role your blog fulfills.

DEAN: The UBC Google scholar blog tracks developments in information technologies in medicine and higher education, with a specific focus on expert searching and information retrieval. My readers are mostly physicians, librarians and those working in health care but I get academic librarians interested in Google scholar coming to the blog. I believe that my blog is the only one tracking Google trends for physicians.

TM: In your blog you talk a lot about Google Scholar. What is Google Scholar and what do you think is the future of Google Scholar?

DEAN: Google scholar is a search tool designed by Google Inc. It crawls content from across the web with a focus on scholarly content. It recently announced that it would crawl all of Elsevier Science’s journals which might put the total number of citations near one billion, according to my estimates. That makes it the largest index to the scholarly literature, ever. Google scholar is now a much-relied upon search tool and its future is assured.

TM: Some blogs are author-centric, some are topic-centric, some read almost like journalistic publications. Are there sub-categories within blogs? What types of blog styles do you find most compelling and why?

DEAN: I enjoy a range of blog styles and blog types. I like reading blogs for opinions, for interesting perspectives and views on current events and to keep up with what is happening in health care around the world. I read librarian, physician, nursing, educational technology blogs the most. I enjoy quirky blogs too like intueri.org (a psychiatric resident blog) or aphophenia (written by academic danah boyd) for her take on social networking. I like checking out rosie.com from time to time, and even the Huffington Post.

TM: Specifically, what recent advances in technology and/or tech companies have contributed to new resources and ways to access medical information for medical students and physicians? For the public?

DEAN: The ‘gold standard’ in searching is still PubMed, but there are a number of proprietary tools like ACP PIER, DynaMed, UptoDate and the Cochrane Library which are also important additions to any online library. The National Library of Medicine has some of the best sites for physicians and consumers; I’ve mentioned PubMed, but there is also MEDLINEplus, and what I call meta-search tools like the NLM Gateway and the NLM Entrez system. I have used all kinds of interfaces and search tools and I still believe that OVID’s search interface is the best on the market - but it is expensive.

TM: Looking forward, what changes do you anticipate seeing in the way that physicians and student doctors access and use medical information during and after their training?

DEAN: Digital, open, free and accessible will be the information mantra for the next few years. Physicians will continue to share information and build their own information tools and databases using wiki technologies, I believe. More open access journals like Open Medicine will be created and there will be new publishing paradigms that will allow greater control as well as access. AskDrWiki is an example of residents sharing information with each other after their training.

TM: If a student doctor or young physician has an idea about generating a popular blog, what suggestions can you make that might help them move forward and succeed in their endeavor?

DEAN: That’s a tough one. I think blogging is about the ‘love of sharing’. You have to want to tell people a story or share your knowledge. You might also want to enjoy writing. Although it might make little sense to give away expertise, I have found that blogging has opened up my contacts around the world and helped me to promote the work of health librarians.

TM: Do you have any other insights that you can add in closing?

DEAN: In closing, let me say that all of us should start to get ready for Web 3.0. I’ll be writing about that soon on the blog, so come and visit.