How to participate

Are you interested in becoming involved in the School of Medicine?

• By joining the network of friends
  
• By helping to choose tommorrow's doctors
  
• By being part of our teaching program
• • Be interviewed by medical students to help them understand about living with a chronic disease
  • Be being a patient 'actor' for student exams
  • By Supervising a medical student in your community organisation
    
• By joining a School of Medicine Committee

Network of Friends

Underpinning all the work of engagement in the SoM is our network of Friends. Becoming a Friend can mean merely receiving regular updates of SoM activities and invitations to SoM events, through to becoming a Community member on committee, participating in research and providing teaching & learning opportunities for medical students.  The current Network is a very diverse group, ranging from interested individuals through to large NGOs and government departments.  Becoming a Friend is a formal relationship but we welcome membership from our diverse communities.

If you would like to join the network of friends, please send your contact details to medfriends@uws.edu.au

A range of activities are undertaken in the SoM that rely on community participation and which provide for a community perspective to be embedded in SoM’s activities.  These activities, listed here, rely on the SoM’s Friends and have been a crucial component of the SoM’s success to date.

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Community Committee

The SoM’s peak body is the Community Committee.  Members of the Community Committee play a twofold role in the SoM. The first is to ensure members are able to play an active part in the life and work of the SoM. To this end, all relevant SoM committees were reformed to include community membership on each.  Nominations from Friends and Partners (see above) are called when vacancies on these committee occur, and a selection process is undertaken. 

The Community Members on SoM committees combined, constitute the SoM Community Committee. As each member has a ‘portfolio’ of responsibility within the SoM, the Community Committee is able through the combined broad experience of its members to advise the SoM on its functions and policies from a community perspective, and is able to develop pathways for improving the SoM engagement processes.

Community Partners

Community Partners include a growing number of key services and departments working with and for the people of Greater Western Sydney. Community Partners are crucial contributors to the SoM’s innovative teaching and learning and research programs.  The 3rd year Community rotation, Medicine in Context, provides an intensive introduction to health issues in the community, and this introduction is provided in collaboration with our Partners. 

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Student Interviewers

Becoming a medical student is a quite complex, and very competitive process.  At UWS, the final part of the selection process is a structured interview in the form of a Multi-Mini Interview (MMI). The School of Medicine at UWS draws its interviewers from the Friends Network as well as from among UWS staff, health care professionals and medical practitioners. The School of Medicine requires volunteers who are available to participate in the first week of December.

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Patients in the Community Student Assignments

Students in the UWS SoM are introduced (or reintroduced) to the community from the beginning of their degree.  In first year for example students undertake the Patients in the Community assignment. This involves student interviews which are set up formally to assure you that your and our risks are managed. If you are interested in participating by providing a learning setting/opportunity please email medfriends@uws.edu.au with 'Student Assignments' in the subject line.

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Patient Actors

We need volunteers to be actors in a range of simulated clinical situations to assist the students’ learning. Send an email to medschool@uws.edu.au with 'Patient Actor' in the subject line.

Your Ideas

The School of Medicine is keen to listen to community views and ideas about ways of working together other than those listed above. Send your input or ideas to medschool@uws.edu.au with 'Ideas' in the subject line.

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