The International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) was founded in 1951, with swimsa being one of the nine founding members. The first General Assembly took place in London in July 1952, with 30 participants from ten different nations. Since then, IFMSA has grown immensely and is today one of the world’s oldest and largest student-run organizations. As the umbrella organization, IFMSA unites over 1.3 million medical students from almost 130 nations (as of Dec. 2023). IFMSA is an officially registered non-governmental organization (NGO) and collaborates with various different UN bodies such as the WHO, UNESCO, UNAIDS and more.

IFMSA is divided into five regions, including Africa, Americas, Asia-Pacific, Eastern Mediterranean and the European Region. This division, which has now been in place for over 10 years, enables members of each region to address similar issues at a regional level more effectively. Each region has a regional team that coordinates the work within the region, as well as its own regional regulations, that are voted on at the annual regional meeting. In Europe, the corresponding meeting is the European Regional Meeting, also known as the EuRegMe.

IFMSA works on a local, national and international level mainly with a focus on six so-called Standing Committees (SCs). This structure allows the organization’s efforts to be divided into six main areas, which are intended to cover the most important health topics and interests of medical students. The work of each Standing Committee is coordinated by its own team, consisting of a Standing Committee Director, a Liaison Officer, five Regional Assistants and several SC International Team members. The six SCs include:

• • SCORA (SC on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights incl. HIV & AIDS),
  • SCOPH (SC on Public Health),
  • SCORP (SC on Human Rights and Peace), and
  • SCOME (SC on Medical Education);

as well as the two exchanges Standing Committees

• • SCORE (SC on Research Exchanges), and
  • SCOPE (SC on Professional Exchanges).

On a national level, these Standing Committees are represented by swimsa’s National Officers. Through the swimsa exchanges program, which is connected to SCORE and SCOPE, Swiss medical students are able to complete an international clinical or research exchange. 

In order to support and connect activities of a specific field organized by National Member Organizations (NMOs), IFMSA has created the IFMSA programs. Currently there are 13 different IFMSA programs that activities can be enrolled in (as of Jan 2024), such as teaching medical skills, mental health, gender-based violence and many more. There are several benefits that come with officially enrolling an activity in an IFMSA program, such as, the activity coordinator gaining access to the IFMSA programs toolkit, if needed, they receive support from the program coordinator team and gets the permission to use the IFMSA name and logo. To track the progress of an IFMSA program, enrolled activities are required to fill in the annual programs impact report in order to stay enrolled.

To make all of this possible, IFMSA relies on an international team of over 100 volunteers at each point in time. These volunteers include the IFMSA Executive Board (EB), the Standing Committee Directors, the Regional Directors, the Liaison Officers, the Supervising Council as well as numerous International Assistants (EB support Team, Regional Teams, SC International Teams, Programs Coordinator Team and many more).

If you would like to find out more about IFMSA, you are welcome to visit their website.

Do you have any questions or need further information? Please do not hesitate to contact the Vice President for Global Affairs (VPG) at vpg@swimsa.ch.