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• Student Membership Form
• Student Benefits
• Student Medal Winners
• Student Elective Grant Winners

The AMA(SA) Inc has always had a close interest in the welfare and interests of medical students.

The AMA(SA) has a close relationship with AMSS, FMSS and AMSA. With representatives from both medical schools on the AMA(SA) Branch Council, the AMA(SA) ensures that the views and issues affecting current medical students are heard. Your current student representatives to the AMA(SA) Branch are

Rick Fielke (Adelaide University) and Shehnarz Salindera (Flinders University).

Nationally, the AMA has been lobbying hard to ensure that the new crop of medical students have somewhere to train when they complete their degrees. This is an issue which needs to be resolved now – not in five years’ time.

At a state level, the AMA(SA) continues to be deeply concerned - and vocal - about the lack of quarantined teaching time for both junior doctors and medical students. This problem has been raised with the AMA(SA) by every level of the medical profession, from senior specialist ranks through to junior doctors and medical students.

Put simply, senior consultants in our public hospital system lack the time to adequately train, mentor and supervise medical students and junior doctors, as their time is occupied by their clinical load. Responding to case-load demands may be a needful thing for the health system in the short-term, due to medical workforce shortages. But there is no end to the ‘short-term’ in sight! Over the longer term, it leads to a degradation of the medical capabilities of the health system.

The resourcing of the public hospital system is inadequate to allow staff specialists to fulfil the other important parts of their job descriptions – such as teaching and research. Public hospitals are not being adequately resourced for functions beyond that of meeting immediate patient demands, and despite the best efforts of many consultants who devote their own time after hours to teaching and mentoring medical students, a lack of quarantined teaching time, in which quality interactions can occur between teacher and student, will ultimately lead to system failure.

Put simply, the failure to properly teach the next generation is a failure of safety and quality in the health system.

The AMA(SA) regards the situation as dire, and we are seeking to work with South Australian medical schools to make strong representations to all levels of government to fix it.

Please contact the AMA(SA) with any issues that concern you. Contact by email dit@amasa.org.au

STUDENT BENEFITS

The AMA(SA) supports medical students practically by providing:

* AMA American Express Card (applications through AMSA)

* 10 editions of the AMA(SA) monthly publication, medicSA

* Elective Grants available to third year Flinders University medical students and fifth year University of Adelaide medical students (conditions apply)

* Sponsorship to AMSA

* Sponsorship to the Medical Student Societies

* Student medal/prizes

* Addressing the constant issues confronting the medical profession and its trainees

* AMA(SA) Mentor scheme

STUDENT ASSOCIATIONS

Australian Medical Students Association

www.amsa.org.au

Adelaide Medical Students Society

www.amss.org.au

Flinders Medical Students Society

http://som.flinders.edu.au/FUSA/FMSS/

STUDENT MEDALS

AMA(SA) Student Medals are awarded each year to one member from each Medical School. Past recipients of the medals are:

2007 AMA(SA) Student Medals

Arjun Venkataraman from Adelaide University

Steven Moylan from Flinders University

2006 AMA(SA) Student Medals

Dan Hubik from Adelaide University

Phil Stagg from Flinders University

2005 AMA(SA) Student Medals

Zoe Wainer from Flinders University

Heidi Beadnall from Adelaide University

2004 AMA(SA) Student Medals

Jessica Roediger and Marcus Dreosti from Flinders University

Andrew Fah and Andrew Perry from Adelaide University

2003 AMA(SA) Student Medals

Emily White from Adelaide University

Kathi Nyberg from Flinders University

The AMA(SA) congratulates these new interns and wishes them every success for their future careers.

AMA(SA) STUDENT ELECTIVE GRANTS

Grants of $500 each are awarded to six South Australian medical students each year. The grant assists students in covering the cost of undertaking electives in either a developing country or a remote or rural Australian location. MedicSA features articles from all the winners on their experiences. Applications are accepted each year with the closing date being August 31st. Past winners are listed below.

AMA(SA) 2007 Student Elective Grant Winners

AMA(SA) 2006 Student Elective Grant Winners

AMA(SA) 2005 Student Elective Grant Winners