This month,the International Federation of Medical Students' Associations (IFMSA) established a new partnership with the United Nations Refugee Agency. Our activities within the field of refugee health, community development, peace, and human rights will hopefully see the benefits as the partnership develops.

This development comes soon after the international training in refugee health, held in Pakistan in August. Eighty medical students from more than 10 countries participated in a week long course which included theories of resolving conflicts and the role of the media in refugees' health. Participants also visited one of the oldest refugee camps in Pakistan, near the Afghan border.

The workshop grew out of a partnership between IFMSA Pakistan and IFMSA member organisations from the developed world, including Denmark, Taiwan, the United States, Sweden, and Finland.

You can find out more about IFMSA's activities regarding refugees and peace by visiting www.ifmsa.org/scorp

Events coming up

MedSIN UK

• Sexpression is holding its annual conference on medical student led sex education on 8 and 9 November 2003. Get Jiggy will train medical students on teaching methods for engaging young people as well as exploring current issues in sexual health education (email sexpression@medsin.org).

Europe

• The Scandinavian countriesDenmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Swedenare holding their annual meeting on 20-23 November 2003. The agenda will include training and project development, as well as a hectic social programme (www.imcc.org/fino).

Africa

• The first IFMSA training congress for medical students from the whole African region will take place in South Africa in March 2004. Watch this space for more details.

Eastern Mediterranean

• "More than just medical students" is the slogan of an IFMSA international workshop in Cairo, Egypt, in February 2004. Student participants will learn not only about innovations in medical education, but also how to influence their local and national curriculums (www.emsa-egypt.org/projects).

Opportunities

A partnership between IFMSA-USA and a community organisation of the Western Provice, the Kenyan Village Concept Project is one of several such projects looking for student volunteers. Village Concept Projects are initiatives led by students that aim to provide sustainable improvement of the living conditions of underprivileged communities around the world, while developing the capabilities of the student volunteers. The projects are multidisciplinary, with students of medicine joining those from other subjects such as agriculture, education, and environmental sciences (www.vcp.interconnection.org).

Video recordings of patients (or actors) in a clinical consultation are a valuable way to raise awareness.³ Students can observe patients' concerns and suggest where the clinician could have enhanced his or her communication. We have used a video of women describing their experiences when undergoing screening for Down's syndrome and open neural tube defects in pregnancy. After watching the video the students can explore different ways of discussing risk with patients and presenting test results in ways that are helpful. One of the issues discussed was the difficulty for patients in appreciating the magnitude of a risk in relation to everyday events (table). Furthermore, the way in which information was presented may influence subsequent decisions.¹¹ If the probability of having a child with Down's syndrome was framed negativelyas a 20% risk of an affected childwomen were more likely to have an amniocentesis than if the risk was framed positivelyan 80% risk of no abnormality.

We believe that integrating medical statistics with communication skills in this way helps students appreciate the relevance of probability by learning it in context while also developing skills in communicating risk. Edwards et al have shown with general practice registrars that these approaches and benefits may also be relevant to postgraduate learning and skill acquisition.¹²

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