My name is Christine Mausolf (she/her) and I am the President of Flinders Medical Students’ Society (FMSS) for 2023, following on from the incredible leadership by Kritika Mishra in 2022. Each year with a change of leadership, the FMSS evolves with new ideas, advocacy goals, and events. We value the great relationship between students allowing continuing growth within our roles to uphold our 4 domains: advocacy, culture, education and support.  This year our committee aims to focus on facilitating vertical integration between year levels and across our NT and rural sites, inclusivity among students, local community impact and maintaining our healthy relationship with the college, helping facilitate transparency and communication.

FMSS have had a busy and exciting start to the year. We have now welcomed a new cohort of first year students embarking on their medicine journey from all over the world, starting at both our Adelaide and Darwin campuses. Our dedicated team of volunteers have put on a full two weeks of events for the students, helping facilitate their transition to the MD but also importantly their new relationships between peers. This has included video guides on how to get around campus, welcome lunches, quiz nights and meet and greet events to get to know students from the other year levels, with a few of these events pictured below. There have been family friendly events for new students with kids to get to know each other as well as an introduction to all our special interest groups and clubs. From experience we know these first few weeks of med school can be overwhelming with emotions of excitement but also nervousness and self doubt. Looking back and having the support from events like these helped ease that transition, as well as set the tone of collegiality and non-competitiveness. With the ease of COVID-19 restrictions, we have been able to welcome international students from day 1, reintroduce some events and clubs (yes med-choir is back), but also, students have been able to access the clinical environment earlier in the degree.

Like every other year, FMSS has a calendar full of many exciting events lined up for our members. First on the list in March is our med-camp, followed by sporting nights and excitingly the AMSA Careers Conference which is being held in Adelaide. Looking at our year ahead, I can not wait to see what all our amazing new leaders in FMSS will achieve. They have a passion for not just supporting their peers, but also making lasting changes that will have a positive impact on many students to come. I hope we can continue to serve the students in the MD, empowering them through the many challenges faced throughout med school.

Christine Mausolf
President – Flinders Medical Students’ Society

FMSS activities in the early weeks of 2023