More than 800 members of the AMA Medical Student Section (AMA-MSS) attended the 2016 AMA Interim Meeting, in Orlando, Fla., to participate in policymaking, learn from educational sessions, present research, practice clinical skills and participate in a community visit as part of the Doctors Back to School™ Program.
The MSS addressed policy proposals on a wide range of topics and voted to:
- Support policy that extends the length of universal paid parental leave, recommending a period of 14 weeks or longer
- Expand its policy on service animals to include animal-assisted therapy
- Support educational programs aimed at treating patients infected with hepatitis C
- Examine the structure and scoring of United States Medical Licensing Examination Step 1 and Step 2 Clinical Knowledge tests
A dozen educational breakouts addressed topics pertinent to the medical student experience, beginning with a session led by Todd Askew, the AMA’s director for congressional affairs, entitled, “How Do Presidential and Congressional Elections Impact the Future of Health Care Policy?”
Students also learned about the innovative ways food affects patient health and well-being in a session on “culinary medicine.”
They studied the implications of gun violence in a program entitled, “Gun Violence: An Understudied Epidemic.” The MSS also partnered with the Resident and Fellow Section, the Young Physicians Section and the Women Physician Section to host a joint session entitled “Gun Violence as a Public Health Crisis.”
Other sessions explored the opioid epidemic, how to prevent burnout and “Medicine, Diversity and the Physiological Aspects of Racism.”
In addition, more than 120 medical students attended the Clinical Skills Workshop, where they received training from physicians in blood pressure management, ultrasound administration, suturing, casting and airway management.
At the Research Symposium, nearly 500 medical students, residents, fellows and international medical graduates presented posters on their research. The Overall Winner for the Podium competition was Lucy Chau for her work in the Clinical Outcomes and Health Care Improvement category. Medical student Jillian Scott was awarded Overall Winner for her poster in the Surgery/Biomedical Engineering category.
The Assembly elected Karthik Sarma, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, to the AMA Board of Trustees for 2017 – 2018 and Helene Nepomuceno, University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, as MSS Governing Council chair-elect. Her term will begin after the 2017 AMA Annual Meeting in June.
The MSS also hosted a blood drive, in partnership with OneBlood. The AMA-MSS strives to be medical students' leading voice for improving medical education and advocating for the future of medicine. It is the largest organization of medical students in the United States.
Learn more about the MSS on the AMA website.
