Medical Education should be a concern of every medical student as it shapes not only the quality future doctors, but also the quality of healthcare. IFMSA has a dedicated organ which aims to implement an optimal learning environment for all medical students around the world- the Standing Committee on Medical Education (SCOME). It was one of the IFMSA's first three standing committees from the beginning of its foundation in 1951. IFMSA SCOME acts as a discussion forum for students interested in the different aspects of medical education in the hope of pursuing and achieving its aim.

Health Care is changing at an unprecedented rate and at multiple fronts. Technology has revolutionized archaic diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. Medical science has increased our understanding of the body and created an explosion of new information. Patients are increasingly questioning and less trusting their doctors. But medical schools are not or only slowly introducing changes in their curriculum. Teachers at many medical faculties are not educated to teach, they are doctors and mostly lack knowledge of how to show their skills to their students.

We question that students educated in a so-called traditional curriculum are able to face the needs of healthcare in a modern society. Scientific data show that modern medical curricula are a lot more likely to teach students in an appropriate way in order to create doctors equipped with various skills and knowledge. Although there are a number of innovative approaches to teaching medicine, partly based on findings of cognitive science, change in medical curricula occurs slowly and at few medical schools. The need for change is either not recognized or ignored in many universities.

As medical students are directly exposed to medical curricula, they should rightfully be assumed to be experts on their educational system, and should therefore have an influence on the creation of new curricula. From IFMSA experience, it is often the medical students who are the strongest proponents for adapting their education to the needs of their community.

Here SCOME comes into the game. We try to promote modern medical education. Convinced by many positive examples we go on that mission by teaching and training students and professors, exchanging experiences and spreading information.

As a global grassroots organization of medical students locally active in more than 90 countries worldwide, IFMSA has made meaningful contributions to improve medical education over the last decades.

In most of the cases it is rather hard to improve our educational system. In most of the countries there is no tradition of integrating students in faculty development. Sometimes they even are not member of decision-making bodies within the schools or they are only a minority in those. So statements and proposals of students do not have a high value for stakeholders. This situation is well known to most of us. Why would you write this here? Rather: We must be aware of this well-known situation causing multiple problems. Our strategy has to be adapted to these circumstances. How?

In the last years we worked mainly in three fields:

a) Locally

The most promising strategy for change is a local approach. Even if students do not have a majority within the faculty boards students could convince deans, professors, teachers and stakeholders to develop their education. In a constructive and cooperative way one can find many small solutions to make life easier. To get some ideas of how to approach see "concrete suggestion" below and exchange experiences with other NOMEs.

To enable NOMEs and LOMEs to facilitate improvement on the local level one of the main activities within SCOME are trainings. These trainings cover all fields within medical education, like assessments and exams, evaluation, teaching and learning systems, problem-based-learning, community-based-learning, computer-based-learning, policies of government and ministries, �). It is important to provide as many trainings as possible. These trainings will be held on general assemblies, as pre-GA-Workshops, on regional and national meetings and on special international training workshops.

b) International projects

(Check Project-Section to learn more about the recent projects)

We have different types of international projects:

<dl><dt>Database projects</dt><dd>The main objective of these projects is to collect information (e.g. about curricula, residencies, �) and to provide it to all, mainly on behalf the internet.</dd><dt> </dt><dt>Research in Medical Education</dt><dd>We support and encourage students to do research on the field of Medical Education. Therefore we work together with the scientific student conferences, where we initiate medical education sessions and provide workshops. Furthermore we have our own research projects.</dd><dt> Courses</dt><dd>After students found a lack of a special topic in their curriculum they initiate courses. Students also invite guest speakers and experts themselves. If these courses lead to a success and the interest of the students is high enough, the medical school will accept to integrate them in the curriculum eventually. There are many courses run by students.</dd><dt> </dt><dt>Trainings</dt><dd>To improve our knowledge and skills we organize training workshops.</dd></dl>

c)  International lobby

There are some international organizations dealing with medical education. We try to co-operate with them and to represent the students� thoughts and wishes on the international level. In some cases these ideas find their way back to the national and local level. Actually we are working together with World Federation on Medical Education to define, disseminate and implement global standards in basic medical education. It is the task of the NOMEs to find out which possibilities they have to work in a similar way on the national level.