Mandate: Bring awareness of ASL and Deaf culture to UBC Medical and Health Professional students. Advocate for accessibility in healthcare for Deaf, Deafblind, and Hard of Hearing (DDBHoH) community members through education.
Description: The ASL x Health Initiative aims to bring people together through learning American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf Cultural perspectives. The club will offer an ASL Basics for Healthcare workshop, a Deaf Culture vs Medical Perspectives workshop, practice meet-ups to consolidate previous ASL knowledge, and facillitation of resources to further ASL learning.
Contact: laltow@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: UBC Accessibility in Medicine (AIM) is dedicated to fostering an inclusive, supportive environment for medical students with disabilities while promoting accessibility in healthcare. Our mission is to advocate for the rights and needs of disabled medical students, and to engage the broader medical and university communities in increasing accessibility for people with disabilities in healthcare settings.
Description: We focus on promoting accessibility in healthcare and supporting disabled medical students through four key pillars: Community Building, Education and Advocacy, Projects, and Events. We value inclusivity, collaboration, and advocacy to create equitable and accessible environments for all. Our goals are to:
(1) Foster a supportive community for disabled medical students, and advocate for their rights and needs within the medical program.
(2) Work with faculty and program administration to promote inclusive and accessible practices for disabled students.
(3) Highlight the importance of accessibility in healthcare and integrate accessibility-related topics into the curriculum through advocacy initiatives, social media campaigns, collaborations, and workshops.
(4) Partner with community groups to fund and implement projects related to accessibility, such as installing automatic doors, ramps, and Braille signage in healthcare facilities.
(5) Host events that bring together people with disabilities, community members, students, clinicians, and more to discuss accessibility topics and identify actionable steps on how accessibility can be increased in healthcare.
Contact: accessibility.in.medicine.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Our club was established Sept 2023. The Acetaminophriends Run Club is dedicated to creating a community of UBC medical students who share a passion for running to support mental and physical well-being. Our club mission is to promote physical fitness, mental wellness, and camaraderie among medical students while fostering a supportive environment that encourages a balanced lifestyle.
Description:
1. Weekly runs at a pace that is inclusive to all types of runners. We aim to provide nutrition and hydration to ensure our members are healthy and recover well.
2. Post-run social events to support our mission of creating a community of UBC medical students and camaraderie.
3. Support and camaraderie, as well as subsidized registration fees, for members who wish to pursue a end-of-year running race event. Having a fitness goal to work towards supports self-efficacy and confidence as well as physical and mental wellbeing.
Contact: ubcacetaminophriends@gmail.com
Mandate: To provide education around the psychosocial effects of acne on the general population.
To advocate for supports, awareness, and change in structure related to how we view and approach those with acne.
To educate the general population, especially, high-school students on acne knowledge and education.
Description: We will do presentations to high school students and ask for student volunteers from the Faculty of Medicine around acne education and awareness.
We will host events related to new research in the topic as well as provide networking opportunities for students.
Contact: acneeduproj@gmail.com
Mandate:
a) Provide Anesthesia education through in-person skills workshops and learning resources.
b) Provide information on the UBC anesthesia program through speaker series with Program members as well as residents.
c) Provide mentorship for students interested in Anesthesia.
Description: Our club will provide in-person hands on anesthesia skills workshops with residents, as well as speaker series regarding the UBC anesthesia program with residents/ program members.
Contact: ofodile@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: The Anesthesia and Therapeutics Club is dedicated to educating and inspiring high school, undergraduate, and medical students about the exciting and essential field of anesthesia and therapeutics. Our club is grounded in the values of healthcare passion, lifelong learning, service, and ultimately a commitment to patient care.
We strive to foster an inclusive and supportive environment, reaching out to students from diverse backgrounds to explore the world of anesthesia and therapeutics, and appreciate the critical role anesthesiologists, anesthesia assistants, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and many others play in ensuring patients receive essential medications.
Our first goal is to provide accessible and engaging educational resources and experiences to demystify careers in these fields and ignite interest in pursuing careers within them. This will be accomplished through outreach events to high school and undergraduate students, where we detail the different careers that are available to students in these fields, what they can expect, and why they should be interested.
Our second goal is to educate UBC medical students on evidence-based prescribing patterns through a partnership with the Therapeutics Initiative. We will be integrating findings from their bi-monthly publication with pharmacology resources that are developed for the first and second year curriculum.
Through these initiatives, the Anesthesia and Therapeutics Club seeks to empower high school, undergraduate, and medical students with the knowledge and resources necessary to pursue fulfilling careers in these fields and practice safe use of therapeutics when in them. By bridging the gap between students and professionals, we aim to inspire the next generation of students who will advance patient care and contribute to the medical community.
Description: We will offer workshops to high school and undergraduate students throughout the year. We will also offer opportunities for medical students to participate in the development of pharmacology resources for the year one and two curriculum using evidence-based prescribing practices. There will also be opportunities to join the leadership committees to help organize, coordinate, and improve the club.
Contact: anesthesia.therapeutics.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: To provide a safe and engaging space for musicians of all skill levels to connect and enjoy the wonders of band music.
Description: The Black and Blues band holds biweekly jam sessions at MSAC. During these sessions the band practices songs of various genres, and individual players can also refine their instrument and/or singing skills. In addition, members are given the opportunity to perform at multiple events throughout the year, including the Med Gala in spring.
Contact: blackandbluesubc@gmail.com
Mandate: CAMSAHT is a student-led, national organization, developed to address the lack of education within the healthcare profession on the topic of human trafficking (HT). As such, our organization is composed of medical students dedicated to education, research and advocacy on human trafficking. We also closely collaborate with NGOs, support groups, and other important players in the field of anti-trafficking initiatives.
Our chapter-specific goals are to:
1. Organize events for medical students/medical learners to attend and learn more about human trafficking.
2. Organize fundraising events.
3. Organize social events for CAMSAHT members in our chapter.
4. Develop partnerships with local/provincial anti-human trafficking organization/NGO/healthcare provider.
5. Further CAMSAHT’s goal of collecting data on the self-reported knowledge of medical students on the issue of human trafficking.
6. Represented CAMSAHT at conferences and events, and create materials that are disseminated to students using social media.
Description: Our club hosts a variety of fundraising events and initiatives to expand education, understanding and efforts against human trafficking across Canada. These include:
- Hosting a symposium and speaker series on a topic of national or global importance, relating to human trafficking.
-Expanding high school and medical student education regarding human trafficking through various workshops throughout the year.
- Human Trafficking awareness meetings to help medical students and healthcare professionals recognize the signs of human trafficking and how to respond.
- Creating materials, including podcasts, to expand social media reach and increased education for students and the general public on human trafficking.
- Host fundraising events, including pin and scrub cap sales, for supporting individuals who have escaped trafficking.
- Curriculum development to expand education on human trafficking for medical students and healthcare professionals across Canada.
Contact: ubc@camsaht.org
Mandate: The Society’s mandate is to foster fellowship among the Chinese-Canadian physicians of BC, promote health awareness in the Chinese Community, and to advocate on the health concerns of Chinese-Canadians. Given the linguistic and cultural barrier often facing immigrants, we try to bridge the gap with annual events within the community. We aim to provide opportunities for students with mentorship and Chinese medical language development. Students do not have to be Chinese in order to join.
Description: Our club’s most popular offering is the mentorship program, where they are paired up with a practicing physician member. They are also given the opportunity to gain Chinese language skills for medical settings. Students also have opportunities to provide service to the public at our Health Fair events, attended by thousands annually.
Contact: wanglinc@student.ubc.ca
Mandate:
1. Promote evidence-based recommendations for reducing use of unnecessary tests, stress and treatments
2. Engage students in learning about evidence-based medicine to support its adoption into their future routine practice
Description: In the past we have had trivia weeks, speaker series, social media posts, poster contests, jeopardy, and educational surveys, all to promote Choosing Wisely Canada principles and recommendations. We presented our work at the Choosing Wisely Canada conference in May 2024 to represent UBC and the efforts we made throughout the year to educate our peers and promote resource stewardship in early training. This year, we hope to continue similar events but also work to incorporate more CW principles into the curriculum.
Contact: bcchoosingwisely@gmail.com
Mandate: Our goal is to be a community where students feel at home and always welcome; to model Christ's love by supporting and encouraging each other; and to create an open space where students can discuss how faith and medicine connect. Everyone is welcome, Christian or not.
Description: We meet every Wednesday night, 7:00 pm, at the Cottles' house for dinner. We also have the opportunity to attend a student retreat in January and other events and speakers throughout the year on a variety of topics related to medicine and faith including a Welcome BBQ and CARMS night.
Contact: mmcottle@mac.com
Mandate: The Coffeehouse Club aims to create a sense of community within the med classes through a shared enjoyment of music. We value personal expression through music and art. Our goal is to host two coffeehouses each school year, a tradition that has persisted for many years, but has been interrupted by COVID in 2021 and has not taken place since.
Description: We will host two coffeehouses, one in the fall of 2024 and one in the spring of 2025. At these events, we will have music and art performances by medical students, residents, and faculty.
Contact: willswei@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: CWI promotes equity, opportunity, and safety for women in challenging circumstances through education, fundraising, and raising awareness. Our goals include the following:
1. EMPOWER WOMEN THROUGH EDUCATION
We believe that learning and sharing knowledge are pivotal in empowering women. CWI provides educational webinars and confidential virtual tutoring sessions to women and children.
2. ENGAGE OUR COMMUNITY BY RAISING AWARENESS
Local women’s organizations have expressed that there is a critical need to raise awareness of women’s issues in our community. We advocate for women by sharing their stories and creating easily accessible social media materials that promote women’s physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
3. FUNDRAISE FOR ORGANIZATIONS & SHELTERS SUPPORTING WOMEN
Currently, women’s shelters in Canada are overwhelmed and underfunded. CWI provides financial support to local women’s shelters and organizations by fundraising through a GoFundMe page and collaborating with local businesses and charities to host fundraising and item-drive events. Further, CWI serves as a liaison between community partners and shelters to ensure resources get to those who need them most.
Description: Our club hosts a variety of fundraising events and initiatives to benefit women’s shelters and organizations in need. These include:
1. Our annual item and cell phone drive, where we collect donations for local women’s shelters.
2. Other fundraising & awareness events that are primarily targeted to the medical student body but also open to the public, including spin classes, movie nights etc.
3. Fundraising campaign on GoFundMe, where donations support local women’s shelters.
4. Our annual menstrual product drive, where we collect menstrual product donations for local women’s shelters.
5. Spin Society charity ride in support of the My Sister’s Closet and Battered Women’s Support Services.
Our club offers a variety of services:
- Our education team offers unique educational sessions tailored to the individual needs of local women’s shelters and recovery houses. We design and present physician-reviewed webinars that educate women on topics such as healthy habits, stress management, suicide and mental health, overcoming language barriers, and more. Each week, our team members also provide one-on-one tutoring for children residing in women’s shelters to help the children complete homework, engage them in positive conversations, and relieve stress from parents.
- We are aiming to expand our efforts to include immigrant and non-English speaking populations, for a more inclusive education effort.
- Our awareness team works to educate the community about women’s issues in BC, Canada, and the world. We create concise, attention-grabbing, and educational material that reaches a variety of audiences.
Contact: cwivancouver@gmail.com
Mandate: To provide a safe and welcoming environment for medical students to explore the joy of dance while picking up dance skills for various dance styles through our affordable weekly dance lessons from professional dance instructors.
Description: We will offer weekly dance lessons from professional dance instructors during the school year. Students can make song requests so that they can learn how to dance to their favorite songs. We will also provide students the opportunity to film their progress from each dance lesson and the chance to participate at the year-end Spring gala.
Contact: ddr.ubcmeddance@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC EMIG exists to connect medical students and healthcare professionals to clinical, research, and collaborative opportunities in emergency medicine. UBC EMIG is a student-led interest group that hosts several emergency medicine related events per year for UBC medical students. These include information events with various EM physicians, research nights, skills nights, and CaRMS information nights.
Description: EMIG offers events focused on introducing students to the field of Emergency Medicine, including didactic and interactive speaker events by EM residents and physicians, skills nights that focus on EM-specific skills development (e.g. suturing workshops) led by residents, and case-based sessions focused on developing clinical reasoning skills from an EM perspective (e.g. ECG workshops).
Contact: ubcemig@gmail.com
Mandate: The ENT Interest Group serves to increase student awareness of otolaryngology as a specialty and provide opportunities for students to explore this specialty through speaker series, research night, and events with staff and residents. Further, the club works to foster opportunities for connection between students with a shared interest in ENT and ENT staff across the province.
Description: The ENT Interest Group facilitates interest in otolaryngology as a specialty and brings together medical students interested in otolaryngology to form a network and share experiences. We host workshops and speaker series with otolaryngology faculty and work closely with residents to promote career development opportunities and skills sessions.
Contact: ubc.entig@gmail.com
Mandate: Supporting nontraditional and underrepresented groups in medicine
Description: Peer support and debrief events (virtual or in-person); supports to underrepresented students
Contact: EquityDebriefUBC@gmail.com
Mandate: Exercise is medicine at UBC is a student-run group engaged in promoting the benefits of physical activity at the University of British Columbia. We aim to empower students, faculty, staff, and the greater UBC community to overcome barriers and integrate physical activity into their lifestyles and health care practices. This group represents one chapter of a global Exercise is Medicine initiative.
Description: EIMC UBC looks to fostering early collaborative inter-professional relationships between exercise and health care professionals. Students in the club work together on initiatives aimed at creating physical activity opportunities for both UBC students and the larger community and also to promote physical activity as a chronic disease prevention and management strategy. This year, we will be hosting two main events: A careers night to expose students to the many careers options that promote physical activity in different ways, and move month to engage student in a month of physical activity! We will also be hosting multiple exercise and yoga classes throughout the year to provide more opportunities for students to get active!
Contact: eimc.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Building a community within students from different years through music and singing
Description: Performances
Contact: ubcfifegirls@gmail.com
Mandate: FPC is a group of medical students with lived experience in caregiving who are interested in implementing family centred care in medical education. We host educational/advocacy events that partner with community physicians, and family and patient partners in care. Our aim is to raise awareness about the role that familial caregivers play both in individual health care and the broader health care system. Goals include introducing and/or enriching the family centred care model among medical students. Those interested will have the opportunity to learn more about the practicality of patient & family centred care, caregiver education, and consider this model for future practice.
Description:
Our club, Families as Partners in Care (FPC), will offer a variety of events and services aimed at advocating for and promoting family-centered care within the medical community. These events will provide students with unique opportunities to engage with family caregivers, patients, and healthcare professionals, deepening their understanding of the critical role families play in healthcare.
Planned Events and Services:
Guest Speaker Sessions:
We will host guest speakers from family advisory groups across BC, such as the Family Advisory Council (FAC) based in Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH). These speakers are community volunteers with extensive experience in caregiving and advocacy. They will share their insights on policy, quality improvement, public education, and collaboration with healthcare professionals.
We will also invite physician-patient/caregiver partners to discuss the family-centered care experience from both the provider and family perspectives.
Educational Workshops and Infographics:
We plan to develop and share infographics that provide guidance on physician-led caregiver education for specific medical conditions. These resources will be available digitally to ensure accessibility and reduce waste.
Workshops will focus on caregiver education, policy development, self-care strategies, and support systems for caregivers. We will also explore the holistic family-centered care model within multidisciplinary care teams.
Partnership with UBC’s Health Mentors Program:
We will collaborate with the Health Mentors Program at UBC to facilitate cross-presentations involving caregivers and healthcare professionals. These sessions will emphasize the importance of holistic, family-centered care.
Inclusive and Accessible Events:
Our events will be conducted primarily over Zoom, with features such as captions, dial-in options, and various methods for asking questions to accommodate all participants. We will also ensure that event content is available ahead of time upon request and that feedback forms are provided post-event to continuously improve our offerings.
Sustainability and Wellness Initiatives:
To minimize waste, all events will be conducted remotely or paperless if in-person events occur. We will also integrate wellness checks for all participants and presenters before each event, ensuring a supportive environment for those involved.
Through these events and services, students will gain practical knowledge and firsthand insights into family-centered care, enriching their medical education and preparing them to incorporate these principles into their future practice.
Contact: info.ubc.fpc@gmail.com
Mandate: FMIG aims to introduce UBC medical students at all levels of training to the broad, diverse and exciting field of family medicine. We aim to create a strong and welcoming community of family medicine preceptors, residents and medical students through mentorship, academic/social events, skills workshops and BCCFP/Doctors of BC meetings/conferences.
Description: We hope to bring together students interested in family medicine with many opportunities to connect with family medicine preceptors, residents and other medical students through speaker panels, residency information nights, social events, skills-based workshops, Dinner with Docs and annual BCCFP Conferences. At these events, students learn more about the diversity of family medicine practice (e.g., maternity care/OBGYN, emergency medicine, sports medicine, addiction medicine, anesthesia, surgical skills, geriatric care, palliative care, and more), the enhanced skills training programs (+1 programs for PGY-3s), financial pearls with respect to running an independent/group practice, procedural skills (e.g., suturing, bedside ultrasound, naloxone training, first aid) and urban/rural shadowing opportunities. We also have virtual and site-specific in-person events at VFMP, IMP, SMP and NMP to ensure that students from all sites can participate in FMIG events.
Contact: ubcfamilymedinterest@gmail.com
Mandate: The goal of the Fraser Health Interest Group (FHIG) is to promote interest, awareness, collaboration and community within medicine in the Fraser Health region. As the largest health authority in British Columbia, and only recently represented at UBC as a distributed site, the FHIG hopes to attract students interested in practicing and networking within the Fraser Health region. Examples of club activities include skills workshops, networking sessions, and quality improvement projects.
Description: The Fraser Health Interest Group (FHIG) is a club dedicated to fostering interest about healthcare within the dynamic and rapidly growing Fraser Health (FH) landscape. Through our club activities, which include skills workshops and community building sessions with Fraser-based practitioners, FHIG aims to engage and support medical students keen on working within FH. We are committed to connecting medical students early in their training with opportunities that promote their involvement with FH. Through these initiatives, FHIG empowers students to excel while contributing meaningfully to the health and wellness of the Fraser Health community.
Contact: ubcfhig@gmail.com
Mandate: Our club's mission is to educate the public about the risks associated with various substances of misuse, including opioid, nicotine/vaping. Increasing awareness about harm reduction services, free and sliding-scale counselling services, and MSP-coverage on nicotine cessation programs. Our mandate is to provide evidence-based, accessible information for schools and communities to make the best choice for themselves. We strongly believe in providing a non-judgmental space for individuals to discuss substance use. Further, to be successful, harm reduction requires a collaborative effort, involving individuals, communities, and government agencies. Finally, we recognize that harm reduction requires tailored approaches, and strategies will vary depending on the cohort and individual circumstances.
Description: Our group has collaborated with the BC Lung Foundation and QuitNow.ca to host workshops for BC secondary school students on the harmful effects of vaping. Our experience has taught us that in order to engage youth in this conversation, we need to create a safe and non-judgmental environment, as well as maximize group discussions during the sessions.
The main objective of these workshops is to help youth overcome addiction to vaping by providing various free resources, including chat services provided by QuitNow.ca, BC PharmaCare's Smoking Cessation Program, and a discussion about confidentiality with healthcare professionals. We also aim to inform students about the chemical components of vaping and the associated harms, enabling them to make informed decisions. To date, we have operated locally and hosted two workshops. However, given the overwhelming demand for workshops as evidenced by teacher’s feedback at the BC Teacher’s Federation Annual Meeting, we believe we can expand this club to a province-wide initiative that aims to reduce the prevalence of vaping amongst youth in British Columbia. Club members will be trained by BC Lung Foundation and QuitNow.ca on harm-reduction approaches, and accessible services provided by these organizations.
For the first semester, we will pilot the vaping workshops for youth, and routinely assess and revise audience interest, and meet to synthesize strategies. However, in the future, we are interested in expanding our workshop presentation to adults. We are also interested in assessing the efficacy of these workshops which will be done through a pre- and post- workshop survey that is designed to gauge knowledge, interest, and efficacy in harm reduction.
In the future, we envision expanding the projects of this club to encompass broader realms of harm-reduction. This includes providing education to youth about mental health and well-being, as well as raising awareness about sexually transmitted infections. As medical students, we recognize that we are in a privileged position to acquire diverse knowledge and skillsets that can be leveraged to promote health and well-being for individuals and communities.
Contact: advocacy@ubcharmreduction.com
Mandate: Our primary goal is to improve health literacy in BC, and equip community members with the knowledge and resources to manage their health. We aim to simplify common health conditions, promote preventative care, and highlight available provincial health resources in BC. We seek to empower and encourage community members to actively participate in decision-making about their own health, in collaboration with healthcare professionals. To cater to the cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity in our community, we aim to provide safe and inclusive health education/discussion, increase accessibility and visibility of inclusive health services, and provide a safe space for discussion of health-related information.
Description: The Health Translation Initiative is a student-led collaborative that hosts educational workshops in the community, focused on spreading awareness of common health conditions, highlighting the importance of preventative care, discussing evidence-based and publicly available guidelines on the management of conditions, and sharing health resources. Workshops will be held in the community in collaboration with local organizations. For example, we plan to collaborate with Vancouver Women’s Health Collective (VWHC) this fall. Workshops will be held once a month, and topics will vary each session.
Contact: healthtranslationinitiative@gmail.com
Mandate: To foster a community of medical students passionate about singing, providing a supportive space for them to express their musical talents and creativity.
Description: Our club will strive to create events where medical students can express their own musical talents, appreciate music made by fellow students, and be part of a community of students who share a common passion and love for music. Events will include karaoke nights, singing cafe/open mic nights, and rehearsals for + performance for the year-end art gala. We will also be open to any suggestions that participants have about the club.
Contact: chaehw@student.ubc.ca
Mandate:
1. Bridging Healthcare Professions: To foster a culture of understanding, respect, and teamwork within healthcare teams by exposing medical students early on in their educational journey to the diverse roles and responsibilities of allied health professionals (HCP) and how each HCP contributes to the team and holistic patient care.
2. Continuous Learning: To organize seminars, lunch & learn events, and experiential learning opportunities that familiarize medical students with the daily tasks, challenges, and contributions of other healthcare professionals. To provide education about topics in healthcare that aren’t part of our curriculum, but are very important in providing patient care (ie. understanding how pharmacare medication coverage works, applying for medication special authority)
3. Improving Collaboration and Professional Relationship Building: We believe that the best patient care is delivered when healthcare professionals work as a cohesive unit. Both club executives have seen this in action in their previous program (PharmD) and can speak to their experiences.
4. Enhancing Communication: By better understanding the scope of practice and area of expertise of allied healthcare professionals (HCPs), us students can become more comfortable asking questions to these HCPs during our rotations in clinic and hospital. We will provide opportunities for medical students to work along side allied health students in clinical settings
5. Continuous Growth: Embracing and championing the idea that there's always something to learn and share with our fellow healthcare colleagues.
Description: We organize seminar discussions and lunch & learn events that can help familiarize medical students with the daily tasks, roles/responsibilities, challenges, and contributions of other healthcare professionals.
For example: Pharmacare, Special Authority, and medication coverage can be quite confusing - we will host, either in-person or Zoom, a former preceptor or PharmD program faculty member give a short presentation about how this works.
We will have panel discussions with social workers, nurse practitioners, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, and speech-language pathologists to provide information sessions about their practices. We will have a family physician and internal medicine physician offer their advice and mentorship on how they maintain their interprofessional relationships.
New this year: We will provide opportunities for medical students to work along side allied health students in clinical settings, ie. a cardiovascular health clinic supervised by a family physician where medical students & allied health students will help seniors, refugees, and new immigrants measure blood pressure, blood sugar, and provide education on how to improve cardiovascular health
Contact: icares.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Our goal is to create a community of medical students who are interested in quality improvement and patient safety (QIPS). To do this, we plan to host events, workshops, and create mentorship opportunities for any interested medical students at UBC to help inspire interest in QIPS as well as create opportunities for medical students to learn, refine, and apply foundational skills in QIPS to facilitate QIPS endeavors in the future training and careers, overall to improve the quality and safety of BC's health care system.
Description: We will develop speaker series events to showcase student and clinician QIPS projects, host workshops that review foundational QIPS concepts using IHI open school resources, host social events for students interested in QIPS to meet and network, develop and facilitate a longitudinal IHI Basic Certificate Reflection Group where interested students can learn in parallel and reflect on course learnings in a safe, inclusive environment, as well as create a mentorship program to connect medical students with others interested and pursuing QIPS projects.
Contact: ihi.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: The IMP Neurology Interest Group is a student-led club dedicated to providing academic support and cultivating student interest in the field of neurology.
Description: Our aim is to provide opportunities for networking, professional development, and community engagement for IMP students interested in pursuing a career in neurology. Moreover, the IMP Neurology Interest Group will enhance and broaden the scope of IMP-specific student-led initiatives, making a positive contribution to the overall student culture within UBC Medicine. We plan to host a Neurology-specific career panel in first semester as well as a Neurology SIM night in second semester (more details below and on the budget form). We are also planning to improve the IMP shadowing database to connect students with practicing neurologists in Victoria. Another aim of ours is to improve student connections to opportunities to pursue clinical research neurology.
Contact: oireland@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: Basic Life Support (BLS) is a mandatory requirement for all medical students and health care professionals across Canada, and must be renewed every year through the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
With the assistance from Dr. Jeff Bishop, UBC medical students have become certified BLS instructors and volunteer their time providing BLS certification training for Island Medical Program students Years 1-4. The goal of this club is to provide UBC medical students the opportunity to maintain their BLS certifications at an affordable cost. Thus far, we have 8 instructors serving over 130 students in Victoria.
Additionally, we have taken on the project of developing a longitudinal program for the training and certification of med student BLS instructors that does not rely on the goodwill of our local staff. Our intention of the program is for our med student instructors to eventually become trained to certify new instructors entering med school, and repeat the process again in the future.
Ultimately our club aims to empower medical students by training them as BLS instructors, ensuring affordable maintenance of their certification while fostering leadership and teaching skills. By creating a sustainable program, the club cultivates a community committed to healthcare education, where current instructors mentor new ones, promoting ongoing professional development and preparing students for future healthcare roles through valuable teaching experience.
Description: The Peer-Led BLS Instructors will run both full and renewal BLS courses for UBC medical students in all years, helping students maintain their BLS certification. Active BLS certification is a requirement for all medical students, and students must pay to certify or renew annually. The majority of students pay for certification via local private companies, which charge for profit upwards of $80-100. Our club aims to reduce the financial burden on students in UBC medicine by providing set, very-low cost course fees ($10-20) that are designed only to cover the cost of registration with Heart-and-Stroke and additional costs incurred by instructors. These rates are significantly below market rates. Additionally, this club will provide select UBC medical students training to become BLS instructors themselves, providing students with valuable teaching opportunities. Our ultimate goal is to develop a longitudinal program for the training and certification of med student BLS instructors that does not rely on the goodwill of our local staff to train new instructors (and rather, we get senior medical students/residents to train new instructors).
Contact: ubcimpbls@gmail.com
Mandate: The Simulation (SIM) Club is dedicated to preparing future doctors by focusing on three core objectives:
Practical Skill Application: Enable members to confidently apply medical knowledge in simulated clinical environments, reinforcing and refining the skills learned in the classroom.
Critical Thinking and Decision Making: Cultivate the ability to think critically and make sound decisions under pressure, essential for effective patient care.
Teamwork and Communication: Enhance collaboration and communication skills, ensuring members can work effectively within medical teams to deliver high-quality care.
Description: SIM club involves events that are workshops where medical students will be practicing patient care scenarios in a realistic setting, with a high-tech mannequin and equipment you’d typically find in an ER or ICU environment. Cases will be instructed by a resident physician who will provide a didactic teaching component that relates to the case content. Events will occur on a monthly basis.
Contact: impsimclub@gmail.com
Mandate: The Island Medical Program Ultrasound Club is dedicated to providing MD undergraduate students with hands-on, extracurricular training in point-of-care ultrasound techniques to enhance their clinical skills and readiness for both clerkship and residency. Our mandate is to foster a collaborative learning environment where students can gain proficiency and confidence in utilizing ultrasound technology in real-world medical settings.
Description: Our club hosts monthly, two-hour events where 12 students practice point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) scanning on peers, following the cPOCUS Acute Care Core curriculum. Each session introduces a new scan technique, beginning with a 20-minute didactic lesson led by local Emergency Medicine physician, Dr. Caleb Dusdal, followed by hands-on practice.
Contact: dylan.dasilva@islandhealth.ca
Mandate: The Jewish Medical Student Association, UBC Chapter, is dedicated to creating a safe and supportive space for Jewish medical students and other UBC medical students who are interested in learning more about Jewish culture and Judaism. Our mission goals are as follows:
1. Facilitate programming and events for Jewish medical students.
2. Engage in advocacy work to promote Jewish students’ wellbeing in academic and clinical settings.
3. Represent a diverse coalition of Jewish medical students within UBC Medicine, liaising with the faculty and other student groups.
Description: The Jewish Medical Student Association will seek to provide a collective voice for Jewish medical students at UBC. We will host events to celebrate Jewish holidays, customs, and traditions. We will work closely with the Jewish Medical Student Associations across Canada and the Jewish Medical Association of BC regarding issues that pertain to Jewish people in healthcare.
Contact: jmsaubc@gmail.com
Mandate: To provide a safe and inclusive space where people interested in martial arts can hone their skills and learn new ones, all with the support of peers.
Description: Karotid Chop is the official martial arts club of UBC Medicine. We welcome people of all experience levels and martial arts styles, and our weekly training sessions are open to anyone looking to sharpen their skills or learn new ones! Every year, we perform at the annual Spring Gala, combining comedy and martial arts in our performance.
Contact: ubckarotidchop@gmail.com
Mandate: The Korean Canadian Association of Medical Students (KCAMS) focuses on identifying and supporting the health goals of Korean Canadians to deliver culturally sensitive healthcare. We are committed to building a lasting culture that unites generations of current and future physicians under a common concern and passion to serve BC Korean communities. We work to address how healthcare is differently delivered in Korea compared to Canada and support the expectations of Korean patients in the community. We aim to assist medical students in learning Korean culture to better serve Korean patients in oupatient settings. We also aim to improve the health literacy of Koreans with an emphasis on supporting the elderly and newly immigrated individuals. KCAMS welcomes all medical students regardless of ethnicity or religion, all you need is interest and motivation to bring about positive change!
Description: We will offer workshops and seminars where students learn Korean medical jargon including pathologies, lab tests, salutations, and common phrases used in a clinical setting. We will also offer social events where students can network with other medical students, trainees, and physicians for career mentorship and guidance.
Contact: admin@kcamsubc.org [NOTE: Subject to change in the coming weeks]
Mandate: To normalize conversations about mental health and to support the physical and emotional
well-being of medical students.
Description: Mental Illness Network for Destigmatization (MIND) is a UBC Medical Undergraduate Society club dedicated to decreasing stigma associated with mental illness and empowering medical students to advocate for and speak up about mental health. We offer MIND vent sessions where students can safely talk about their experiences in medicine, including stress, burnout, and any other topics they would like to discuss, an annual MIND Speaks Up event where physicians speak to students about mental health in medicine, and we also allocate the Laura Taylor Award in recognition of a student in each year who has gone above and beyond in fostering a sense of community or reaching out to a peer in need.
Contact: ubcmedmind@gmail.com
Mandate: Med Ink is a student-led educational initiative that provides UBC students with high-quality educational resources and infographics. The club's student designers create infographics to simplify complex medical topics, which are then hosted on a website and shared on social media, ensuring that they are publicly accessible and free of charge for all learners. Med Ink benefits its members by helping them consolidate class material and develop educational techniques, while also supporting student learners with simple, easy-to-understand study aids for navigating new and high-volume information in medical school or on the wards. This approach enhances student well-being by fostering confidence in their understanding of the material and making the consolidation of medical topics more manageable.
Description: Med Ink will offer and share high-quality educational infographics that simplify complex medical topics, making them accessible to all students and support the UBC undergraduate medical curriculum. These infographics will be available online, free of charge, through our website and social media platforms.
Contact: medinkresource@gmail.com
Mandate: To provide UBC Medical Students with the opportunity to mentor medical school applicants and students interested in a career in medicine.
Description: - Organise Q&A sessions with current medical students and doctors to offer insights into medical school and the medical profession.
- Facilitate MMI (Multiple Mini Interview) preparation through practice sessions and feedback.
- Conduct MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) information sessions, including study strategies and resources.
Contact: medmentors123@gmail.com
Mandate: Providing a fun/inclusive environment for med students to play pickleball and socialize.
Description: Bi weekly/weekly pickle ball sessions at Queen E weather permitting!
Contact: mawani@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: The Data Science Club aims to empower medical students with the knowledge and skills necessary to harness data science techniques for advancing medical research, improving patient care, and fostering innovation in the healthcare industry.
Educational Empowerment: Provide educational resources and training on data science concepts, tools, and methodologies relevant to the medical field.
Practical Application: Facilitate hands-on projects and research opportunities where students can apply data science to real-world medical problems.
Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Promote collaboration between medical students, data scientists, and healthcare professionals to solve complex healthcare challenges.
Innovation and Research: Encourage innovative thinking and research in medical data science, supporting the development of new technologies and treatments.
Professional Development: Assist members in developing the necessary skills for careers that integrate medicine and data science through workshops, seminars, and mentorship programs.
Description: Workshops and mentorship: facilitate peer learning by organizing mentorship programs where experienced members can guide new members in learning data science and programming skills
Guest speakers and networking opportunities: featuring professionals and researchers from the healthcare industry who can share insights on real world applications of skills
Project based learning and competitions: may involve analyzing medical databases, developing applications for healthcare management, etc. Can look into collaborating with faculty to access databases.
Contact: meddataubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Our club’s goal is to pair medical students with older adults living across the province to make a positive impact on their lives through connection. This club aims to reduce social isolation amongst the older adult population who have been referred to the program by their healthcare providers.
Description: We offer an orientation session as well as an orientation guide for students prior to matching them with an older adult. Through this orientation, individuals develop a deeper understanding of the program’s goals, protocols, and logistics. This ensures the safety of both the medical student and the older adult.
Contact: bc.mssoa@gmail.com
Mandate:
All reproductive health choices should be freely accessible to all people.
People are the experts on their own bodies and experiences.
All people have the right to make their own decisions regarding sexuality, health, and whether and when to have children.
Sexual health decisions such as abortion affect people of all identities.
All social justice movements intersect and therefore achieving our mission requires working collaboratively to overcome all forms of oppression.
All people are entitled to empathy and compassionate medical care without judgment.
Providing abortion care is a deeply moral decision. Abortion and contraception are vital aspects of medical care that should be embraced as standard practice and as fundamental to medical education.
Description: At the SMP, our chapter will offer in-person lectures and discussions around reproductive choice, sexual health, and gender-affirming care. We also organize hands-on workshops including IUD insertion, scalpel vasectomy, and surgical abortion.
Contact: kgorman@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: MSSI aims to educate medical school students about the dangers of diet culture and weight discrimination in the healthcare system. Our goals include advocacy among current and future healthcare providers, community outreach and education, student-led research, and medical school curricular reform.
Description: The club will offer speaker events and safe spaces to discuss size inclusivity and weight bias in healthcare. We also aim to have journal club/and or book club to look at the interplay between weight bias and research as well as the ways that they impact physicians’ clinical decisions.
Contact: mssi.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Our mission is to create a supportive community where students can unwind and indulge in their love for music, even amidst the demands of medical school. We believe that students should be able to pursue their musical passions regardless of their academic pressures. Additionally, we are dedicated to sharing the joy of music through performances with the broader community.
Description: We practice concert band and orchestral music once per week at the MSAC, offering students an opportunity to unwind, express themselves musically, and to be part of our musical community! All instruments and ability levels are welcome
Contact: ubcmuse@gmail.com
Mandate: To provide an opportunity for UBC NMP students to engage in artistic endeavours, learn about different arts and humanities, and explore how engaging in these endeavours can inform their skills as future physicians.
Description: NMP Arts and Humanities Club will offer 2-3 hour events where students can engage in various arts and humanities (including painting, poetry, philosophy, art history, etc.). These events will be organized by the club several times per semester as an opportunity for students to have fun and learn new skills.
Contact: laceyds@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: The Northern Medical Program seeks to meet the needs of people who live in the Northern Health Authority. Many hospitals and healthcare centers in the Northern Health region are run by rural physicians responsible for making critical decisions regarding diagnosis, management, treatment, and patient transfer with fewer resources than urban health facilities.
Point of care ultrasound (POCUS) is a tool used at the bedside in even the most rural and remote settings. With POCUS, physicians have the power to drastically improve health care outcomes by allowing for dynamic patient assessment, earlier diagnosis, expedient and highly precise patient management.
The NMP Pocus Interest Group aims to promote early exposure and hands-on learning opportunities for students in the northern, rural, and remote medical program. Through these initiatives, we hope to inspire curiosity in ultrasound and confidence in its use.
Description: Currently, we host one event per month whereby POCUS-certified physicians volunteer their time to teach medical students the foundational skills of ultrasound in a small group setting.
Contact: jboxeur3@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: The Neurosurgery Interest Group (NSIG) at the University of British Columbia is dedicated to fostering interest, knowledge, and engagement in the field of neurosurgery. Our goal is to provide medical students with a platform to explore neurosurgery as a career through educational initiatives, shadowing experiences, research opportunities, and mentorship.
Description: The NSIG will host a variety of events/services to nurture interest in the field of neurosurgery.
Educational Events/Services:
I. Journal Club Meetings: a monthly meeting to discuss the latest neurosurgical research and give medical students the opportunity to critically evaluate literature.
II. Neurosurgeon Guest Lectures: learn about neurosurgery and the different subspecialties from neurosurgeons. This will be an excellent networking opportunity for students interested in attending.
III. Neurosurgical Skills Workshops: hands-on sessions where students can practice suturing etc.
IV. Newsletter: students will receive research opportunities and links to neurosurgical videos.
Clinical Engagement:
I. Shadowing experiences: we will streamline shadowing for medical students so they can observe neurosurgeons in the operating room and clinic to gain first-hand exposure to the daily life of a neurosurgeon.
Research Opportunities:
I. Neurosurgical Research Initiative: we will help students find research opportunities in the field of neurosurgery. This will give medical students the opportunity to find a supervisor for FLEX project or a SSRP/research grant.
a. This will also give students opportunities to learn how to conduct different types of studies, from case reports to systematic reviews.
b. We will also organize all the dates for the different neurosurgical conferences so that students can submit abstracts and get a chance to present their research findings.
Community Outreach and Advocacy:
I. Our group would like to get involved in organizing public health initiatives for organizations such as Parkinson’s Canada.
Contact: ubcneurosurgeryclub@outlook.com
Mandate: OIG stands as a platform to bring students, clinicians, researchers, and patients together when it comes to learning more about cancer and treatment options, supporting patients with cancer, and inspiring the next generation of oncologists. Caring for patients with cancer is a rewarding opportunity that straddles cutting-edge research findings, challenging ethical decision-making, and satisfying physician-patient connection.
Description: Our club aims to provide opportunities for students to connect with oncology patients, as well as a chance to network with other students who share a similar passion for oncology or physicians who are currently practicing in the field. This will primarily be accomplished through speaker series events that invite physicians from different streams of oncology to talk about their careers, shadowing opportunities where students will be able to experience a day in the life of the specialty, mentorship opportunities, support group experiences where students will get to interact and speak to patients with cancer, and a tour of our local BCCA facilities.
Contact: ubconcologyinterestgroup@gmail.com
Mandate: Our club goal is to help provide a better insight into the field of ophthalmology by hosting various networking events for students.
Description: OIG hosts events to support medical students interest in ophthalmology . We organize various events including CaRMS Match Night, Residents Night, Careers Night, and Subspecialty Night. Our club has plans to create a research repository, host clinical skills nights, and organize shadowing days.
Contact: ophthalmologyinterestgroup.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: PLM is focused on the use of lifestyle or behavioural medicine strategies to prevent and manage chronic disease, both mental and physical. While we acknowledge the important role played by typical medical management, the use of behavioural strategies in our healthcare system is lacking, and education in this area is equally lacking. We aim to help fill this gap.
Description: Our club works towards quality improvement in the education and implementation of behavioural medicine strategies by running a student-run lifestyle medicine clinic that offers behavioural health coaching training (motivational interviewing techniques and Brief Action Planning) to medical students, and provides them the opportunity to practice these techniques through 1 on 1 health coaching relationships with community members throughout BC.
Contact: team@plmcoach.ca
Mandate: Through painting, running, and climbing, three complimentary expressions of creativity, we aim to foster a safe space where students discover how to best incorporate exercise, self-care and self-expression into their daily lives.
Description: Succeeding in the field of medicine requires immense focus and sacrifice, sometimes at the cost of personal identity outside of work. PaRC provides a safe environment for medical students to engage in a variety of creative activities, providing a therapeutic outlet for stress relief while allowing the exploration of oneself, connection with peers, and rediscovery of child-like fun. Our core activities will be bouldering and backpacking skills nights, running, and painting. Depending on the interest of our members, we will also lead trail runs, drawing nights, and dance classes. Our vision is a community of students sharing their passions outside of medicine with their peers to encourage a balanced lifestyle.
Contact: paint.run.climb@gmail.com
Mandate: The Palliative Care Interest Group welcomes medical students who share an interest in palliative medicine and end-of-life care. Death and illness are parts of life; we believe that it is important for future physicians to have a firm understanding of palliative medicine and pain relief, related social supports, and providing dignified care for patients and their families at the end-of-life. The goals of the PCIG are to familiarize medical students with issues surrounding the end of life; normalize conversations about death and dying within their medical education and clinical practice; provide medical students with clinical pearls and tools for one day treating patients needing palliative care or near the end of life; and educate medical students on the role of palliative care in diverse clinical settings.
Description: We will host a diverse number of events that will give student opportunities to meet physicians, discuss important topics of palliative care, and connect with other students who are interested in the specialty. Specifically, social events, speaker series, journal clubs, and hospice tours.
Contact: ubc.palliativeinterestgroup@gmail.com
Mandate: Cervical cancer deaths are almost entirely preventable due to advances in the HPV vaccine and population-based screening programs. However, despite these efforts, cervical cancer continues to affect people with cervices in British Columbia at a rate of 8.2 per 100,000 each year (BC Cancer Registry, 2021).
The intention of Papapalooza is to offer a culturally safe and trauma informed, accessible, and welcoming Pap test experience to people with a cervix who are due for a Pap but are unconnected to regular primary care, or who experience other barriers to accessing this screening (i.e., immigrant and refugee populations; First Nations, Inuit, and Metis populations; individuals with disabilities; and 2SLGBTQ+ populations, rural and remote communities).
Goals:
1. Expand Access to Cervical Cancer and Serve Underserved Populations: Provide culturally safe, trauma-informed, and accessible Pap test experiences to individuals facing barriers to regular screening, including immigrant and refugee populations, First Nations, Inuit, Metis, individuals with disabilities, 2SLGBTQ+ individuals, and those in rural and remote communities.
2. Enhance Health Literacy: Educate attendees about gynecological health and the importance of regular cervical cancer screening, while building capacity for continued engagement with traditional screening avenues.
3. Support and Follow-Up Care: Ensure that each attendee’s cytology report is reviewed by a local physician, who will be responsible for managing follow-up care and appointments for any abnormal results.
4. Research and Development: Conduct ongoing research to assess patient experiences and barriers to cervical cancer screening, and use findings to refine and improve outreach efforts and event planning.
Values:
1. Cultural Safety and Trauma-Informed Care: Prioritize creating a safe and respectful environment for all attendees, acknowledging and addressing the diverse needs and experiences of individuals from various cultural and socio-economic backgrounds.
2. Accessibility and Inclusivity: Strive to eliminate barriers to cervical cancer screening, ensuring that services are available to all individuals, regardless of their background or current healthcare situation.
3. Community Engagement: Collaborate with community clinics, physicians, and advocacy organizations to enhance outreach and effectively address the specific needs of underserved populations.
4. Education and Empowerment: Focus on providing not only necessary medical services but also educational resources that empower individuals to take charge of their gynecological health and understand the importance of regular screenings.
5. Collaboration and Capacity Building: Work with a broad network of stakeholders, including UBC medical students, local healthcare providers, and community leaders, to build a sustainable model for cervical cancer screening and health education across British Columbia.
Description: Between 2021-2022, our small but mighty team of medical students facilitated 15 Papapaloozas across BC, offering cervical cancer screening to over 1500 patients. Feedback from patients was overwhelmingly positive. Last year, we were officially ratified as an MUS club and have expanded our team to include the 4 provincial sites: VFMP, IMP, SMP, NMP. This year, we have already created a team of 43 medical students across the province dedicated to promoting outreach & development for BC communities in need. We hope to build on the success of last year’s Papapalooza to offer more specific events tailored to communities that experience barriers to accessing cervical screening. Specifically, we are planning to run one cervical cancer screening event for the Queer community and one for the Downtown Eastside Community. We also have an ongoing student-led research project underway assessing the Papapalooza patient experience, barriers to cervical cancer screening in British Columbia, and how community-based healthcare events, like Papapalooza, can mitigate these barriers in BC and more broadly across Canada. We plan to add 1 new research project as our last year's project is nearly complete. Our Education team will work to further improve advocacy, education, and health literacy through educational workshops, producing infographics, online newsletters, and social media clips to educate the public on cervical cancer, screening, and gynecological health. Furthermore, we recently met with members of the BC Cancer Agency to discuss possible collaboration and to learn how we can support the new HPV-Self Swab program and continue to enhance cervical cancer screening and awareness. The BC Cancer Agency are keen to partner with Papapalooza to help create educational material and support our future events and workshops!
Downtown Eastside Papapalooza
Queer-Positive Papapalooza
1-2 Educational article/newsletters per term
1 new research study related to cervical cancer screening/prevention,
cervical cancer in medical education, health advocacy/promotion, etc.
2-3 Workshops per term (how to perform
an HPV self-swab, what is an HPV self-swab, HPV vaccination, abnormal
uterine bleeding, basic pelvic anatomy)
Creation of Papapalooza website
Quarterly Papapalooza newsletter
Contact: ubcpapapalooza@gmail.com
Mandate: To increase awareness of and foster interest in all the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine specialties. We aim to make student participation equally accessible from all the UBC sites while representing each broad area of PaLM study at least once per calendar year.
Description: Our club runs events introducing medical students to many different aspects of path and laboratory med (Diagnostic and Molecular Pathology, Hematopathology, Neuropathology, Medical Microbiology, Medical Biochemistry). These events are often virtual but can be in person and will have a variety of speakers from the different subspecialties, who will share more about their specialty and their journey. Examples may include interviewing a forensic pathologist, meeting residents, or taking a tour of a morgue.
Contact: pathology.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC Pathways to Medicine is a club run by current UBC medical students that offers equitable access and guidance to students who would like to learn more about the field of Medicine and BC’s only Medical School. Through events and programming, we would like to highlight the range of unique pathways students can take to end up in a career of medicine and provide support to students on this journey. Our main focus is to assist people from communities currently underrepresented in medicine and those who may face additional barriers as we believe that a pathway to medicine, no matter what that looks like, should be accessible by all.
Description: Over the past year, we hosted multiple events for our mentees including a Cariboo Hill youth group presentation, a mentorship night with UVic, a BCCH talk for their SSRP program, two events in collaboration with UNYA, and a 1:1 mentorship program in collaboration with UBC medicine. These events supported students interested in medicine socially, professionally, and mentally. We used these zoom events to share advice and mentorship to underrepresented groups who may be interested in learning more about medicine. For our 1:1 mentorship program, we worked with UBC to pair high school mentees from underrepresented backgrounds with a mentor with a similar demographic background. We aim to fulfill our club mandate by offering similar programming this year to a wider audience.
Contact: ubcpathwaystomedicine@gmail.com
Mandate: Basic Life Support (BLS) is a mandatory requirement for all medical students and health care professionals across Canada, and must be renewed every year.
With the assistance from Dr. Kevin Shi, UBC medical students have become certified BLS instructors and volunteer their time running BLS courses for UBC medical students for a low fee. The goal of this club is to provide UBC medical students the opportunity to maintain their BLS certifications at an affordable cost. During each course, students participate in a team based scenario where students work together to complete a rescue with high-fidelity equipment.
Another goal of this club is to train members of the public in Hands-only CPR. It is well known that the chances of survival of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest victim is dependent on immediate CPR being provided by a bystander. Consequently, wide-spread public CPR education is an important topic to consider in response to cardiac arrest emergencies. As any individual trained in BLS is able to teach Hands-only CPR, both instructors and UBC medical students will be able to participate in events held in the community to train individuals in providing this life saving procedure.
Description: The Peer-Led BLS Instructors will run both full and renewal BLS courses for UBC medical students in all years, helping students maintain their BLS certification. Active BLS certification is a requirement for all medical students, and students must pay to certify or renew annually. The majority of students pay for certification via local private companies, which charge for profit. Our club aims to reduce the financial burden on students in UBC medicine by providing set, very-low cost course fees that are designed only to cover the cost of registration with Heart-and-Stroke and additional costs incurred by instructors. These rates are significantly below market rates.
Additionally, every year a handful of students will be chosen to become certified as BLS instructors through the HSF. This training is generally quite expensive, however, with our training partners at the VGH Sim lab we are able to cover the cost of this training. Without a doubt, this training will open many opportunities to the instructors in the future, including further training opportunities as advanced providers.
Contact: ubcmedbls@gmail.com
Mandate: Peer Mentorship in Medical Education (PMME) is a student-led initiative that seeks to create formative peer mentorship connections through a unique delivery of teaching sessions and workshops.
We aim to integrate theoretical and clinical knowledge for medical students using "consult scenarios" that incorporate practice taking histories, conducting physical exams, interpreting labs, and finalizing an assessment and plan; much like you would do as senior clerkship students on wards. We seek to also connect UBC medical students from all years with resident mentors in a longitudinal cohort where exchange of experience can occur across various stages of training. We envision this peer mentorship to reciprocate as students move along their years of training, transitioning from mentee to mentor.
Description:
- 1 hour workshops every week either in person or online with first and second year medical students and residents from various specialities
- Possible opportunities for occasional consult workshops lasting 4–6 hours
- Opportunity to join PMME leadership committees to help organize, coordinate, and improve PMME, there will be additional time commitments for meetings and tasks (up to 4–8 hours / month)
Contact: pmme.mentee@gmail.com
Mandate: The purpose of PSIG is to cultivate and expand students' interest in pursuing a plastic surgery residency (plastics) through events, opportunities and exposure. We feel plastics is an under-represented specialty in undergraduate medical curricula and thus students do not get exposure to what this career path can offer. Additionally, plastics is often misrepresented in media depictions which perpetuate a false narrative that it is mostly cosmetic enhancement procedures. On the contrary, there are many sub-specialties within plastics that provide critical surgical, reconstructive, and wound-healing care to patients with great medical need. This misrepresentation and lack of exposure within the curriculum has meant that students with interest in plastics have few resources to gain accurate information about the profession. Our goal is to dispel these myths and expose students to what a career in plastics really is like.
Description:
- Charity Events to support RWI (Dr. Nancy Van Laekan)
- Professional events to connect students with residents/faculty/staff
- Career planning/CARMS talks
- Research opportunity mixers
- Journal club events
- Suturing workshops
Contact: ubcmdplasticsinterestgroup@gmail.com
Mandate: Medical Imaging is an increasingly important aspect of all fields of medicine. The Radiology Interest Group’s aims to provide all students with opportunities to learn to interpret diagnostic imaging and understand its significance in making clinical diagnoses through our educational series on approaches to chest x-rays, MRI, CT, etc. We also hope to provide students interested in the field of radiology with opportunities to learn more about the specialty and engage with members of the radiology community to form valuable mentorship connections.
Description: To provide students with insights into medical imaging, we have several events planned for the year. First of all, we will have recurrent radiology quizzes and educational trivia nights for high-yield concepts in radiology. Questions will involve radiographic images that are part of the Year 1 and Year 2 Radiology curriculum.
In addition, we will have our annual Careers in Radiology Speaker Series event. During this event, radiologists and residents from various subspecialties present to students about their careers and duties at work. This event attracts all medical students who are potentially interested in the field of radiology and those who would like to learn more about the specialty. This also offers students an opportunity to network with residents and current staff.
Furthermore, senior residents from the Department of Radiology will present an approach to interpreting chest X-rays and will utilize a case-based approach to demonstrate common pathologies on chest X-rays. We also plan on an Ultrasound, CT, MRI Interpretation Night, as medical students are not often exposed to the different modalities of imaging. This will be of educational value to all medical students, regardless of their specialty of interest.
We will have a Radiology CaRMS Night following Match Day (March 2025). This event will feature a recently-matched 4th year medical student, senior residents and Dr. Will Guest, the current residency program director. They will present tips for success for matching and give insight into what it is like to be a radiology resident.
Finally, we collaborate with the Canadian Association of Radiology (CAR)'s Medical Student Network (MSN) where we work with and gain ideas from Radiology Interest Groups across the country. We also work Mentorship In Radiology (MI-RAD), which is a resident-run mentorship program for current medical students to be grouped with radiology residents and staff. These partners have been invaluable for us in promoting our events, engaging UBC students in both local and national events and initiatives, offering mentorship and networking opportunities, and expanding the field of radiology.
Contact: rig.ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: The Reading Bear Society (RBS) is a not-for-profit initiative that promotes early literacy and healthy living in children through intergenerational mentorship. Our aim is to strengthen empathy and compassion while improving lifelong learning and health outcomes across British Columbia. We are volunteer-run and supported by physicians, medical students, educators, academics and community members.
Description:
We have two main educational programs:
1. A visit to Dr. Bear and
2. Community visits. https://thereadingbear.ca/what-we-do
Through our programs we facilitate outreach visits in the community and virtually to familiarize young children (preschool-grade 2) with the doctor’s office through our A Visit to Dr. Bear program. Each visit includes an interactive story, which introduces children to common reasons for visiting the doctor. Throughout the story, medical students use teddy bears to demonstrate procedures that children might experience at a doctor’s office, such as a checkup, a vaccination, x-rays, or listening to their heartbeat. After story time, the children are able to participate in stations where they can practice procedures on stuffed animals with toy instruments, work on proper hand washing and wearing a mask, perform mindful bear breathing, and listen to their own heartbeat with a real stethoscope. The one hour visits are geared towards preschool, kindergarten and Grade 1-2 students.
Community visits: During Kindergarten and StrongStart classroom visits, student ambassadors share the joy of books and bears with young children in a 50-minute visit involving reading, singing, and tons of bear facts. The key is to make a positive impression of reading on young children and support their learning and curiosity in a multicultural and loving atmosphere.
We also work with students who are interested in pediatrics by hosting a workshop/ speaker series with community physicians and health care providers from Northern BC who have expertise in pediatrics. These workshops aim to inform students about the careers of pediatricians and other pediatric specialists working in Northern BC and provide them an opportunity to learn hands-on skills in pediatrics taught by specialists.
Contact: info@thereadingbear.ca
Mandate: The goal of the UBC Refugee Health Initiative (RHI) is to empower medical students to help refugees adapt to life in BC. This model involves pairing medical students with a refugee family for one year to help them navigate the health and education system in BC, manage their health issues, integrate into their new community, and pursue their aspirations.
Description:
Students in RHI will complete the following:
Family Meetings: ~1-2 family visits per month for ~2 hours each, with appropriate follow-up to address the family's concerns.
Debrief Meetings: Attendance at regular de-briefing meetings with the RHI team (approximately 1-2x a semester)
Reflections: Completion of an online reflection after each family visit to document each visit
RHI Workshops: RHI workshops are put on throughout the year; they address various topics such as trauma informed care and working with vulnerable populations
Optional: involvement in related research projects, create and present workshops to refugees at local non-profit organizations, hold workshops for medical students to teach them about various aspects of refugee resettlement.
Contact: ubc.rhi@gmail.com
Mandate: The rural medicine interest group (RMIG) at UBC is focused on encouraging students’ interest in rural medicine, and to help students learn more about the opportunities and challenges rural doctors experience.
Description: We are currently planning to host several speaker events to discuss the experience of both family doctors, and specialist in rural areas. We will also be hosting a post-CARMS night for applicants who have been accepted into rural FP sites at UBC to allow current students to gain further insight into the application process. Finally, this year we are planning on developing more in person events to encourage participation at the distributed sites. These events include workshops to develop important hands-on clinical skills such as POCU and suturing, as well as highlighting the opportunities opening up to rural doctors within specific health authorities.
Several of our speaker events will allow students to have the opportunities to learn more about rural areas of practice in a low stakes and non-judgemental setting. They will also have the opportunity to ask many of our speakers, questions, and to help build connections with current practitioners with experience in their field of interest. We are also planning more in-person workshops this year to both help students further their professional clinical skills, and to have a chance to connect socially during these events. Our photo contest that we host every year provides a chance for students to express the beauty of rural areas in an artistic light. This photo contest also encourages students to continue doing activities that they enjoy including mountain biking, hiking, climbing, and kayaking as many photos are submitted from by students in the midst of these activities.
Contact: ubcmed.rmig@gmail.com
Mandate: “Rx Reads Book Club” aims to foster both personal development and community fellowship amongst UBC medical students through reading for leisure and pleasure. We hope to either introduce or further cultivate reading as a joyful, curiosity-fulfilling, and soul-developing activity. At the same time, we aspire to foster a community that shares book recommendations, knowledge, opinions, and ideas in a safe space.
Description:
Monthly newsletters:
-Monthly member feature containing their “reading profile” (when they started reading, their favourite book, their favourite authour, book recommendation for this year, etc.)
-Monthly book reviews written by members
-Reminders of the book per month that will be recommended reading for the upcoming monthly gathering + brief description of the book/how this book was chosen
Monthly book meets:
-Separate reading time in-person with coffee/tea/snacks
-Sharing about the monthly book in small groups eg. what you liked/disliked, what you thought might have happened, what you thought it meant for others/you, etc.
-Members get a chance to connect with each other and mingle
-Making the book recommendation for the next month
Book Swap and Reading Workshop: Blind Date with a Book
-Tired of judging a book by its cover??
- Before the event, members will be asked to bring in a book they want to swap
- Books will be then wrapped and labeled with a description
- Members will be able to choose & keep a book based on its genre / content
-They get matched to have a 1:1 conversation about the book chosen
-Everyone gets back together at the end and participates in social mingling
Annual Book Charity Drive:
-Encourage medical students to donate their books for charity
-Sell them near MSAC or LSC; leftovers can be sold to second-hand book stores
-Donate the money made to a cause voted upon by members of the club
Year-end social/awards night:
- Celebration with members of the club to reflect back upon our year of reading for leisure and pleasure.
- Mingle and chat, with photo slideshow of year-end recap memories
- Book discussion highlights
- Literary trivia & prizes → topics being the books read during the year + member profiles + member book reviews
-Will have an awards ceremony (with prizes!) eg. best received book by the club, most active member, best book review, most troll book recommendation, etc.
Contact: rxreadsbookclub@gmail.com
Mandate: Our goal is to help facilitate students’ interpretation, presentation, and writing of academic/peer reviewed papers and research. We also aim to support students academic and career interests in medicine. Over the year we hope to host regular journal club nights in which we discuss various topics and peer reviewed papers and give students the opportunity to present their own research. We also aim to host various skills night. Last year we had a very successful POCUS night where we practiced POCUS skills and took time to review evidence outlining the efficacy and usefulness of this skill.
Description: Our goal is to help facilitate students’ interpretation, presentation, and writing of academic/peer reviewed papers and research. We also aim to support students academic and career interests in medicine. Over the year we hope to host regular journal club nights in which we discuss various topics and peer reviewed papers and give students the opportunity to present their own research. We also aim to host various skills night. Last year we had a very successful POCUS night where we practiced POCUS skills and took time to review evidence outlining the efficacy and usefulness of this skill.
Contact: smpjounrnalclub@gmail.com
Mandate: SMP Wellness recognizes that a mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy medical student is essential to learning how to provide empathetic, safe, patient-centered care to our future patients. We acknowledge that the act of self-care and wellness requires continuous and conscious practice and aim to promote health and well-being among the SMP students through events and community building.
Description: Our club provides a space to destress and foster a sense of community across all four years by offering activities such as wellness/fitness workshops and social events that allow students to build community and support each other.
Contact: smpwellness23@gmail.com
Mandate: S.W.A.M. Canada is the parent organization behind a nation-wide network of not-for-profit, university student-run organizations providing barrier-free, one-on-one, water-safety and swimming instruction to children with disabilities.
Description: S.W.A.M. builds on the institutional strengths and successes of existing swimming lesson organizations. We are able to be more effective in injury prevention by providing lessons specifically targeted and adapted to those children at highest risk of drowning in our society. We recruit our volunteers from the abundance of university-aged, qualified swimming instructors and work with our community partners to properly train, educate and prepare them for the rigours of working with children with disabilities. We rent out pool space once a week, batch lessons together and assign one instructor to each child. By using innovative techniques to dramatically cut our operating expenses, as well as by actively fundraising, we are able to offer private swimming instruction at a rate affordable even by those living under the poverty line.
Contact: vancouver@swamcanada.ca
Mandate: Our goal is to raise interest in internal medicine and provide opportunities for learning through a series of educational initiatives.
Description: To provide introductory clinical opportunities for medical students, SIIM organizes bedside mentorship shadowing sessions in CTU for MSI1 and 2s. SIIM also provides clinically-relevant education through speaker series with IM clinicians, IM-specific training sessions (i.e. ABG, ECG) and discussion groups with IM residents, as well as a journal club
Contact: siimubc1@gmail.com
Mandate: The SIMS Club aims to increase exposure to medical simulations and to provide opportunities for medical students to participate in simulations. We believe that high-fidelity training in low stakes settings will help reduce stress in the real world scenarios that students may encounter in their clinical experiences. We aim to foster inter-professional collaboration through simulation sessions with nursing and other allied-health professionals. Lastly, we hope these experiences will help medical students supplement their existing academic curriculum.
Description: The SIMS club creates opportunities for medical students to explore simulation-based learning. We host workshops to increase access to simulations to develop clinical, procedural and communication skills. We collaborate with allied-health programs to provide interprofessional simulations. We also involve UBC residents and medical faculty to provide feedback sessions after simulations.
Contact: melissachan231@gmail.com
Mandate: Students Interested In Pediatrics is a club for all students interested in a career in pediatrics. The club holds events to help students learn more about the field of pediatrics and career options. Events include speaker series, including speciality nights and residency/CaRMS information evenings, as well as speaker workshops on play in pediatrics and rural pediatric practice.
Description: We aim to host events highlighting the field of pediatrics to the students of all years in UBC Medicine. Through various events, we aim to showcase the wide variety of careers that work in the field of pediatrics and help students understand what it means to provide care for children within our healthcare system in both community and hospital settings.
Contact: sips4ubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Terpsichore aims to create an inclusive environment by embracing diversity and creating an environment where dancers of all backgrounds feel welcomed and valued. By cultivating a sense of togetherness, teamwork, and mutual support among members, dancers are able to be creative in a safe environment. Treating fellow dancers, instructors, and collaborators with kindness, empathy, and consideration is of high priority to all Terpsicore dancers.
Description: Terpsichore is a fun and energetic contemporary/jazz club for students with previous dance experience. It provides a space for students to continuously improve their abilities, participating in regular weekly practices and coming together to create choreography which they perform at the annual Spring Gala. Students are given the opportunity to lead warm ups and choreography for weekly classes.
Contact: terspichoreubc@gmail.com
Mandate: The Reading Bear Society (RBS) is a not-for-profit initiative that promotes early literacy and healthy living in children through intergenerational mentorship. Embracing our motto "Educating the Heart-Mind," our aim is to strengthen empathy and compassion while improving lifelong learning and health outcomes for young individuals across British Columbia. We are volunteer-run and supported by physicians, medical students, educators, academics and community members.
Description: Our organization facilitates and runs various outreach visits in the community and online to: 1) familiarize children with the doctor’s office through our "A Visit to Dr. Bear" program; 2) promote early childhood literacy through community outreach with our partnership organizations (ie. Mom2Mom and Canuck Place) and our school buddy reading program; 3) develop evidence-based early childhood resources.
Contact: info@thereadingbear.ca
Mandate: The Anti-Oppression Journal Club hosts round-table sessions for medical students to learn from experts in important areas of health advocacy, discuss their ideas and experiences, and learn strategies to practice medicine and advocate for patients with an anti-oppression framework. Through analysis of relevant articles and further discussion, our event attendees have an opportunity to challenge their views and reflect on ways that they can better understand and advocate for their patients in both individual interaction and within the larger medical system which often marginalizes particular groups. We aim to equip students with the tools they need to work with patients with complex social issues and serve their communities with compassion and an anti-oppression mindset.
Description: This club will host workshop events. These events have a discussion format where students sit in a circle and work through a particular topic that is grounded in an accessible and relevant reading. These events will also feature a knowledgable guest speaker/facilitator who guides the discussion and uses their expertise to share information with the group and probe participant's reasoning. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions, reflect on their own experiences, and look forward at their own clinical practice and how they can implement anti-oppression work into their role as a physician.
Contact: aojc.mus@gmail.com
Mandate: A club working to promote parents who are struggling with new parenthood in Vancouver, combining lessons in post-partum care, neonatal outcomes and social advocacy.
Description: Our club provides students with the opportunity to get involved in helping prepare kits for new parents in need. Opportunities to create resources, connect with local community organizations and advocate for this will also be available!
Contact: backpacksforbabiesvancouver@gmail.com
Mandate:
Mission:
The UBC Black Medical Students’ Association (BMSA) aims to promote medicine among Black students across Canada, providing networking and mentorship for UBC Medicine Program admission. We foster a safe community for Black medical students at UBC, supporting their personal and professional goals through events, mentorship, and networking opportunities.
Vision:
Our vision is a diverse medical field where Black students thrive academically and professionally. We strive for equal opportunities, representation, and impactful contributions. The UBC BMSA envisions an inclusive community that empowers Black medical students to make a positive impact in medicine and contribute to equitable healthcare.
Description: The UBC BMSA is concerned with fostering a safe community for Black medical students, particularly aiming to support their personal and professional goals. This means that we aid our members by connecting them to professional resources such as workshops, webinars, and career planning opportunities. We also host or join events where students are able to network with physicians/residents, learn more about different specialties, and develop relationships with mentors. Furthermore, our club promotes the wellbeing of our members by holding community study sessions, providing occasions for members to connect, and creating a safe space where our cultural heritage as Black students can be celebrated.
Contact: ubcbmsa@gmail.com
Mandate: Our club aims to promote awareness to the various cardiovascular medicine specialties.
Description: The club aims to provide exposure to medical students to medical specialties and subspecialties focusing on cardiovascular medicine, particularly ones not covered in the MD curriculum (e.g., cardiology fellowships, cardiac surgery, vascular surgery, cardiac anesthesiology). The club also aims to run in-person events to gets hand-on experience with surgical/procedural technologies (e.g., stents).
Contact: ubccardiovascmedig@gmail.com
Mandate: The River Song Health Initiative is committed to enhancing the well-being of Indigenous and rural communities across Canada through education, empowerment, and community engagement. Our goals are to promote healthy, active lifestyles by integrating traditional Indigenous knowledge with modern health practices. We value cultural respect, inclusivity, and collaboration, striving to create sustainable, community-driven wellness programs. Our ultimate aim is to build stronger, healthier communities by providing accessible resources, fostering a deep connection to cultural heritage, and supporting individuals on their journey to better health.
Description: The River Song Health Initiative will provide a variety of events and services focused on promoting holistic health within both UBC Medicine students and Indigenous and rural communities. Our offerings will include culturally tailored wellness workshops, interactive educational presentations on healthy living, and outreach programs that engage with local community leaders and health professionals. These activities are designed to foster a deep understanding of health from multiple perspectives, blending traditional Indigenous knowledge with modern medical practices.
Contact: riversonghi@gmail.com
Mandate: CALMS UBC (Rebranded from Comunidad Medica (CM) UBC as part of a national movement) is a student driven initiative aimed to increase the ability of medical students to serve the needs of the growing Latino/a/x community in BC and Canada at large.
CALMS UBC acts as:
- an advocacy organization for all students (regardless of background) who are interested in learning and teaching others about healthcare issues that affect the Latino/a/x community
- an eventual hub for Latino/a/x students to connect throughout medical school, engage with the larger Spanish, Portuguese, and Indigenous languages speaking communities in BC and Canada, and raise Latino/a/x voices
Description: We plan to organize social gatherings for Latin learners at UBC, outreach events to Latin pre-medical students, teach Spanish/Portuguese for the Clinic classes, and engage in advocacy campaigns in BC and Canada that affect Latin health
Contact: comunidadmedicaubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Club focused on developing a community of students to integrate action, communication and student-led advocacy on climate change and planetary health. Students have led sustainability curricular initiatives, organized workshop events promoting planetary health, and developed workshop series on environmental health.
Description: Enviromed, our medical student club focused on environmental action, is dedicated to integrating environmental sustainability into the medical field. We offer a variety of events and services aimed at promoting eco-friendly practices among students and the community. These include sharing sustainability tips and vegan cooking ideas through our Instagram, hosting hands-on workshops like beeswax night at MSAC, and organizing vegan cooking nights. We also conduct a climate health Zoom workshop series, organize clothing swaps, and lead beach plogs at Jericho Beach, where we combine jogging with garbage collection. Additionally, we actively participate in larger environmental movements, such as Fridays for Future strikes and the Fairy Creek protests, to advocate for climate action and environmental justice.
Contact: ubcenviromed@gmail.com
Mandate: French in Medicine enables students to improve their knowledge of French language and culture to better serve francophone patients. Our club strives to develop a community with shared values within UBC Medicine, contributing to a mandate of cultural safety and wellness.
Description: Our club provides participants with opportunities to practice their French in an effort to deliver language-concordant care to patients. We regularly partner with Réso Santé, an organization that increases access to french health services, welcomes francophone newcomers, and introduces them to the Canadian healthcare system. We aim to have virtual and in-person meetings once a month. Club members are able to come on a drop-in or regular basis. These get togethers are informal and geared towards improving French language through events such as game nights, cafe nights, and learning medical French. All levels of French are encouraged to attend and we often switch between English and French in our sessions.
Contact: ubcfrenchinmedicine@gmail.com
Mandate: GHI seeks to enhance global health education by providing a variety of workshops and the opportunity to participate in a global health project.
Description: GHI is a UBC-wide student-led initiative. GHI provides skills training to UBC students via a series of skill-building workshops. GHI also offers students the opportunity to participate in several global health projects. Further, GHI works with faculty to develop core competencies used to drive future curriculum development related to global health.
Contact: ubc.ghi@gmail.com
Mandate: The Health Education Alliance (HEAL) is an interdisciplinary collaboration dedicated to advancing health education through community outreach.
The club aims to further public health education through workshops at schools, religious institutions, and community centres. In addition, we will host events such as flu immunization clinics, and blood pressure workshops.
HEAL strives to promote interdisciplinary teamwork as advancing health education requires collaboration from a variety of professions. We welcome partnerships from across disciplines and are looking for people from all backgrounds who share a passion for health.
Description: UBC Health Education Alliance (HEAL) is a collective of healthcare students striving to empower youth to take control of their health. We want high school students to understand how the healthcare system works, and understand how to manage their own health, as they transition into adulthood. We run workshops in high schools regarding accessing healthcare, health and the environment, etc to allow for students to learn about healthcare through hands on workshops.
Contact: healubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Promote physical fitness and mental well-being through regular hiking activities.
Foster a sense of community and connectedness among members.
Encourage appreciation and conservation of natural environments.
Description: The UBC Med Hiking Club organizes monthly guided hiking trips that cater to various skill levels, ensuring inclusivity for all members. To facilitate participation, efforts are made to arrange transportation for each hike, making it easier for members to attend. Following each hike, social events are held to help strengthen community bonds and foster a sense of camaraderie among participants. These post-hike gatherings provide an opportunity for members to connect and share their experiences, further enhancing the club's community spirit.
Contact: gsidhu6@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: The purpose of the UBC Med Badminton Club is to promote the physical well-being of medical students and develop a close-knit community of badminton enthusiasts at the University of British Columbia. Our goal is to promote an active lifestyle, maintain overall fitness, and provide opportunities to de-stress from academic and extracurricular workload.
This will be accomplished by:
1. Providing a suitable training atmosphere for members of any skill-level by hosting regular drop-in workshops and annual club tournaments
2. Assisting members in learning to play and appreciate the sport of badminton
4. Equipping members with ample experience in badminton matches/tournaments
5. Organizing social events for members to build team-work and club unity
6. Arranging mentorship opportunities for novice members to train regularly with experienced players
Description: UBC Med Badminton aims to bring badminton enthusiasts from all years and skill levels together to train and improve our badminton skills. We hold regular drop-in sessions and training workshops for members in a variety of locations as well as an annual tournament. It’s a great way to socialize and connect with your peers through some much-welcomed exercise! No previous experience required.
Contact: UBCMedBaddy@gmail.com
Mandate: MMAC is a registered non-profit organization providing a national platform for Canadian Muslim physicians and medical students to collaborate on clinical services, community health promotion and outreach, professional education, networking, mentorship, advocacy, and research initiatives.
Description: We will offer welcome mixer events (picnics, lunches, dinners), fundraisers (donation drives, bake sales), entertainment (laser tag, pickleball), educational opportunities (info sessions with physicians), mentorship (matching med students with residents for advice), etc.
Contact: ubc@muslimmeds.ca@gmail.com
Mandate: To promote Bhangra, the regional dance from Punjab to the medical community at UBC. To engage fellow medical students in dance as a means of social and physical well-being.
Description: UBC Med Bhangra is a club for anyone and everyone interested in learning a new dance and being a part of a team environment. By joining the team, students will learn bhangra dance moves and choreography and will be exposed to Punjabi/Indian music. During the start of the year, we hold weekly drop-in sessions for students to get a feel for bhangra and what's in store for the year. With weekly practices, the team works together to create a synchronized dance and performs at the UBC Med Gala. With all 4 years participating, this club is a great way for students to get to know their colleagues and get some much-needed self-care! If you haven't seen our performances or want to get a taste of what bhangra is like, check out our Med Gala videos on YouTube!
Contact: ubcmedicinebhangra@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC Medicine Golf Club is a student-led initiative that aims to increase accessibility to the sport and provide a community where fellow golfers can connect. We also sponsor medical students to participate in the annual UBC Medical Alumni & Friends Golf Tournament, which remains medical students’ favourite networking events of the year.
Our goals for this year are three-fold: 1) To increase accessibility to the sport of golf by partially subsidizing green-fees and providing our own rental clubs 2) To consistently host events throughout the year including pitch-n-putt tournaments and driving range training sessions and 3) To raise funds for medical student sponsorship in the annual tournament.
Along the way, we plan on organizing several social media campaigns to increase student engagement, such as raffle prize draws where entry requires a creative picture/video of medical students playing golf.
Whether you’re a beginner who has never held a club, to a scratch golfer itching to get on the greens, the UBC Medicine Golf Club aims to have something for everyone.
Description: Drop-in driving range days - for medical students to practice as a community
Pitch-n-putt days - a social event for medical students to connect and explore the Greater Vancouver Area.
Full course events - for club members to have good-spirited competition
Annual UBC Medicine Scramble Tournament
Contact: ubcmedgolfclub@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC Med Improv Club aims to promote wellness, teamwork, the ability to think quickly on one’s feet, and fun to the UBC medical school community. This club hopes that students will not only experience the joy of improv theatre, but also develop transferable communication skills for clinical practice (collaboration, active listening, empathy) that are demonstrably improved with improv training. And it’s a great chance to blow off some steam and have a laugh!
Description: The UBC Med Improv Club will offer a variety of events during the year, including: Improv Games Nights, Medical Improv Nights, a workshop, a showcase, and going to see improv shows as a group.
Contact: ubcmed.improv@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC Med Tennis Club aims to provide UBC medical students opportunities to partake in practice hitting sessions, tennis games, as well as tournaments. We promote health and physical activity through tennis and related activities while fostering a close-knit community at the same time. Maintaining physical well-being and leading an active lifestyle is critical for medical students, especially in helping to relieve the academic and extracurricular stresses of medical school. Our goal is to provide the social and instructional support necessary for UBC medical students to learn and play tennis, regardless of skill level.
Description: The UBC Med Tennis Club will promote physical activity and tennis competency through hosting regular drop-in hitting sessions and workshops for members. We will play at a variety of tennis courts across Vancouver as well as at the UBC Tennis Center and the UBC Tennis Bubble. There will be many opportunities to socialize and connect with peers while playing tennis. Any and all skill levels are welcome!
Contact: ubcmedtennis@gmail.com
Mandate: My goal with creating this club is to provide free yoga classes for med students held at MSAC. I recently trained as a yoga instructor and want to share my yoga knowledge & love with the UBC med community. I think that medical students need more affordable opportunities to engage in mindfulness, fitness, and balance. I hope that this club can offer this!
Description: We will offer free yoga, meditation, & mindfulness practice for students.
Contact: dcooner@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: To increase medical students' awareness and knowledge of the business side of medicine.
Description: We plan to host a speaker series of physicians that have unique medical practices. We intend to create an open space where physicians can share aspects of how their practices operates and for students to ask business related questions. We intend to explore topics of how to run a successful practice, different types of practices, benefits/challenges of running a practice compared to being employed.
Contact: dhilbers@student.ubc.ca
Mandate: We strive to maintain a high level of integrity and accuracy in our work, to encourage collaborative production and cross-disciplinary communication, and to stimulate critical and independent thinking. We have a goal of establishing ourselves as one of the leading student-driven publications in Canada and internationally, and expect high quality from our submissions. Overall, we hope to engage students in medical dialogue and showcase the amazing work being done by students associated with the Faculty of Medicine at UBC.
Description: The University of British Columbia Medical Journal (UBCMJ) is a student-driven academic journal with a goal to engage students in dialogue in medicine. Our scope ranges from original research and review articles in medicine to medical trends, clinical reports, elective reports and commentaries in the principles and practice of medicine.
Contact: external.editor@ubcmj.com
Mandate: The VFMP Chapter of Medical Students for Choice aims to bring reproductive health awareness and education, including family planning and abortion to its medical students through hands-on skills workshops and institutional advocacy.
Description: This year, we hope to host the following events:
1. Abortion & surgical contraceptive skills training
2. Career workshops for networking in maternal medicine and women’s health
3. Introduction to externship & shadowing opportunities with family planning service providers locally & internationally through parent organization
4. Connections to opportunities to attend National and International conferences through parent organization
5. Trauma Informed Care Workshop
Contact: MSFC.vfmp@gmail.com
Mandate: The mission of UBC Medical Students for Climate Action is to help medical learners incorporate evolving knowledge and evidence on climate change and the environmental determinants of health into their practice through knowledge translation products like our online learning modules (https://www.ubcmedicalstudentsforclimateaction.com/), events, and journal club meetings. We also facilitate connections between learners and experts in the climate change and health field, and engage in advocacy for the integration of climate-health concerns into medical curricula and continuing education in BC and Canada.
Description: - Climate change and health learning modules: Over the past 4 years, this group has developed and shared planetary health modules in partnership with a number of FLEX students through our website: https://www.ubcmedicalstudentsforclimateaction.com/. We will continue to add modules and offer research/FLEX project opportunities over 2024-2025 year.
- Educational events: We organize educational events, including inviting physicians from varied specialties to showcase how planetary health and sustainability can be integrated into clinical and academic practice (e.g. reduction of carbon emissions in anesthesia, public health and clinical interventions for wildfire smoke and extreme heat, reducing single-use plastic waste involved with surgery).
- Networking/research opportunities: Our club will continue to forge connections between medical students and medical professionals working in climate-health research and advocacy, facilitating mentorship and networking opportunities in the climate change, medical education and clinical care space. To strengthen this part of our mandate, in 2024-2025, we will be creating a database of research and clinical faculty open to working with students on related research, QI, and advocacy projects for student use.
- Journal club: To further academic discourse, we host planetary health journal club meetings every 8 weeks. These meetings provide a platform for students to engage deeply with the latest scientific literature on climate change and the environmental determinants of health, review pertinent guidelines for practice, and imagine other ways in which to apply this evidence to clinical care.
- Advocacy and knowledge translation: We engage students in the advocacy and knowledge translation aspects of the knowledge cycle, which offers them experience in these domains that is valuable from the point of view of meeting CanMeds competencies for CaRMS applications on the short-term, and of meeting professional development goals on the long-term.
Note: This club can be differentiated from EnviroMed, another MUS group, in
1) the sharpness of our focus on integrating climate change considerations into (preparation for) medical practice, and
2) our activities to create opportunities for students to grow and apply their knowledge of the environmental determinants of health, ie., through mentorship, research, self-study, and formal education.
However, we recognize the significant scope for collaboration with EnviroMed (in addition to other MUS groups), and we are in contact with EnviroMed’s executives to identify opportunities for synergistic events and activities.
Contact: ubcmdclimatehealth@gmail.com
Mandate: Create a fun and inclusive social environment in which UBC Medical students are able to explore the sport of hockey by both playing and observing the intricacies of the game. We value diversity and inclusion and actively promote engagement with the sport of hockey and a healthy lifestyle.
Description: Our club will offer regular social gatherings to watch televised and live hockey in Vancouver. We will also offer the opportunity for regular games for members of the club to hone their skills and stay active while enjoying the camaraderie of being on a team. We will also offer events to introduce those new to hockey to ice skating and basic skills. We also want to promote engagement by creating an annual hallmark event. In order to be accessible, we feel that ball hockey will allow beginners and experienced players alike to enjoy the thrill of hockey in a fun, competitive environment. We hope to host an annual ball hockey tournament in this spirit.
Contact: ubcmedhockey@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC Medicine Spring Gala is a celebration of the arts: an evening where UBC medical students from all four years come together to showcase talents outside of the medical realm and enjoy the performances and artistry of their peers. Alumni, family, and members of the community are also welcomed as an essential part of the celebration! The event takes place at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the UBC Vancouver Campus. All proceeds go towards a charity chosen by the students each year.
Description: See above. Our show is a 2 hour presentation of the vast depth of talent the UBC medical community contains, with all members of the community invited to take part.
Contact: ubcmedgala@gmail.com
Mandate: Mission: The Volleyball-Spikeball Club exists to provide exciting and unique opportunities for group student enjoyment, community building, learning volleyball skills, and athletic recreational participation. Our club will strive to bring students together from diverse backgrounds, and to unite them under the common interest of volleyball and spikeball.
Vision: To create connections and build community amongst students while having fun and learning volleyball.
Description: We would like to provide an organization to meet medical peers who are interested in volleyball, spike-ball, board-ball, cross-net and alternative volleyball-like sports. This would be open to ALL skill levels.
We would provide coaching sessions for teams or individuals that want to learn OR improve in volleyball. We want to provide the opportunity for students to play at a higher competitive level if desired.
We would also provide the option for competitive play. We will host tournaments amongst students. These players may request coaching from us. This would allow athletes to play competitively in an organized format while testing their newly learned skills.
Contact: ubcmedvolleyspike@gmail.com
Mandate: The OSIG aims to increase knowledge of orthopaedics and its role in medicine, to provide insight into orthopaedics as a career, and to support students with resources for each stage of their medical training.
Description: OSIG plans to offer events that cater to students at all levels of training. We aim to provide knowledge based sessions as well as career and CaRMs related sessions for members. We hope to engage students, residents and staff at all sites.
Contact: osigubc@gmail.com
Mandate:
To promote interest in psychiatry by offering mentorship, career building resources, research opportunities, and connection with other students with similar interests.
Description: PsychSIGN is a student interest group that connects MDUP students across sites to explore career planning in Psychiatry together. Our club will continue to offer professional development opportunities, including our annual Research Night, Post CaRMS Night, and Journal Club. The club will work on expanding social and recreational events to strengthen connections between students and facilitate mental/emotional wellbeing, including film events/discussions and pet therapy visits.
Contact: psychsignubc@gmail.com
Mandate: The purpose of Run for Rural Medicine is to raise funds to support rural health charities and initiatives while increasing public awareness of the shortage of physicians in rural BC.
Description: The Run for Rural Medicine is a fundraising run/walk that has taken place in-person in Vancouver (prior to 2021 and back again in 2023) and has also been run as a month-long virtual challenge (in 2021-23 due to provincial health guidelines). Last year, we expanded the run to all sites (NMP, IMP, SMP) and added a 10k ride option at VFMP.
The purpose of the run is to raise funds to support rural health charities and initiatives while increasing public awareness of the shortage of physicians in rural BC. This year, the Run for Rural Medicine will donate its proceeds to the charity Hope Air, a registered national charity that provides complimentary flights for rural Canadians who must travel to access healthcare in urban centres but cannot afford the airline ticket costs. Last year, we raised $14,148.23 to support round trip flights to individuals in financial need who must travel far from home for medical care. In addition, this event helps support a healthy and active lifestyle amongst its participants! Last year, the event also featured weekly challenges throughout the month on March/April and engaged around 150 runners, walkers, and cyclists from the medical community and beyond. This year will be the 21st annual event, with medical students from all of UBC Medicine’s four distributed sites participating.
For the Run for Rural Medicine 2025 event, we plan to include both a virtual event and an in-person race. Similar to last year, we will be exploring creative and fun ways to make this event engaging for the medical and running community! We plan to once again incorporate cycling into this event and contribute to the UBC Med Run & Ride initiative. The goal of this initiative is to encourage people to run/cycle, make new connections, and train/build up to Run for Rural medicine where we'll have teams competing for top mileage and fundraising goals.
Contact: ubcmed.ruralrun@gmail.com
Mandate:
1. To provide a substantial voice in promoting skin cancer awareness and skin health in British Columbia and Canada.
2. To cultivate SCAN members to be strong community health advocates and educators.
Description: UBC SCAN is centred around skin cancer and skin cancer education. Specifically, we are largest medical school-related organization at UBC that works in this area of skin cancer and skin cancer advocacy. We currently work with several other organizations in BC to provide presentations to high school students around sun safety and skin cancer, and we also have resources we are creating to send out to these students.
Contact: med.ubcscan@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC South Asian Health Club aims to enhance students' understanding of South Asian population health and improve health literacy within this community. Through blood pressure clinics, educational campaigns, and collaboration with local organizations, we provide hands-on experiences for students while addressing health disparities. We value inclusivity, respect, and cultural competency, and are committed to serving the South Asian community in a meaningful and impactful way.
Description: The UBC South Asian Health Club organizes blood pressure monitoring clinics at community centers and places of worship across the Lower Mainland, with plans to expand to other locations in the coming months. These clinics provide students with practical experience while offering essential health services to the South Asian community. Additionally, we will collaborate with grassroots organizations to host educational campaigns and workshops aimed at improving health literacy and addressing specific health challenges within the South Asian population. These events are designed to engage students from all years and sites, fostering cultural competency and community involvement.
Contact: ubcmedsahc@gmail.com
Mandate: This interest group is dedicated to introducing medical students to the fields of Sports Medicine and Physiatry, also known as Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R). Both are distinct yet complementary disciplines focused on musculoskeletal health. All students from all sites are welcome to participate.
Description:
1. Raise awareness and spark interest in the dynamic and exciting fields of Sports Medicine and Physiatry.
2. Organize educational sessions featuring physicians from diverse specialties, including family medicine, emergency medicine, orthopedic surgery, and physiatry, as well as experts from other disciplines such as physiotherapy, athletic therapy, occupational therapy, dietetics, and strength & conditioning.
3. Enhance medical students' understanding of musculoskeletal (MSK) injuries and the various medical approaches to treating athletes.
Contact: smpigubc@gmail.com
Mandate: Our club’s goal is to establish a UBC Student-Run Clinic (SRC) at the Coast Resource Centre in Vancouver in partnership with Coast Mental Health (CMH) that is supervised by physicians. SRCs improve healthcare access and address the service needs of vulnerable populations. Our values are providing experiential learning to medical students, expanding understanding and empathy for vulnerable individuals with unstable housing and who are living with mental illness, and fostering health leadership skills in the MDUP program.
Description: Establishing the clinic, administrative duties, building relationships with stakeholders – outlining the operational and organizational structure, liaising with faculty, upholding relationship with Coast Mental Health leadership and staff, identifying and addressing barriers related to liability, physician supervisory capacity, and acquiring funding to support the initiative, such as through grants, and design of quality improvement or research projects. Students may also incorporate part of this work into their FLEX projects.
The club will also provide educational workshops in combination with peer support staff at Coast Mental Health, including on lifestyle management and chronic disease prevention, which students can take an ownership role in designing and co-facilitating.
Contact: coastsrc@gmail.com
Mandate: SIGN provides opportunities for students to explore a career in neurology, create a network, and build connections with the UBC neurology community. Our main goal is to provide insight into the field of neurology and assists students with their career ambitions.
Description: SIGN hosts events to support neurology interest in medical students. We organize an annual Neurology Career Night, interactive workshops, shadowing opportunities, and a school wide art contest. Due to the limited clinical exposure to neurology through medical school, we also run clinical skills workshops for all students to practice their physical exam and decision making.
Contact: ubcsign@gmail.com
Mandate: UBC Surgical Club is a community of medical students, surgical residents, and faculty that offers surgical skills workshops, shadowing opportunities, and speaker series to support the exploration of diverse surgical specialties.
Description: The Surgical Club runs events and services dedicated to helping students explore surgical interests and navigate career options in surgery. Speaker events touch on many topics such as the history of surgery as well as information nights about the various specialties and resident/program director panels. We run workshops that teach important technical skills and shadowing opportunities that provide hands-on experience.
Contact: ubcsurgicalclub@gmail.com
Mandate: To teach medical students basic hands-on Point of Care Ultrasound (PoCUS), foster the next generation of ultrasound users, and enhance clinical care.
Description: We organize and facilitate hands-on ultrasound teaching events (5-10 workshops and a full-day Symposium) led by enthusiastic ultrasound-trained faculty and residents. These are very popular and well-attended. We also collaborate with other interest groups (e.g. radiology, anesthesia, emergency) on focused sessions. This year, the ultrasound club has also procured an ultrasound machine of its own to use for student events, thus being able to run far more events than ever before.
Contact: ultrasoundubc@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC Urology Interest Group's (UBC UIG) mandate is to create a welcoming and collaborative community where medical students interested in urology can gain exposure to this field, build mentoring relationships with faculty and residents, have better access to educational opportunities and resources, and connect with each other.
Description: The UBC UIG plans to offer events and initiatives such as educational and research talks, journal club nights, career planning and CaRMs-related sessions, a mentorship network to connect faculty and residents with students, and a social media presence/e-mail newsletter where we promote urology-related opportunities and resources for students (e.g. research projects, conferences, abstract submissions, award/grant opportunities, workshops, etc.)
Contact: ubcurologyinterest@gmail.com
Mandate: UBC Wilderness Medicine Club aims to increase exposure to careers in remote and resource-limited medicine while facilitating opportunities to develop applicable practical skills.
Description: Zoom speaker series, in-person hands-on workshops/SIM nights.
Contact: ecarr@student.ubc.ca
Mandate:
- Our primary goal is to promote diversity in surgery, increase the representation of women in surgical specialties (including underrepresented ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds), and address barriers to advocate for EDI in medicine.
- We aim to encourage and spark interest in surgery for prospective students (high school, post-secondary, and medical students), provide networking opportunities with surgical residents and surgeons, highlight women-led contributions in surgery, and advocate and raise awareness of current gender-related barriers to create a safe and inclusive environment in surgical careers.
- At its core, our initiative will foster a safe, inclusive, and collaborative community for UBC students and supporting-faculty and surgical residents/surgeons. We will work towards addressing significant barriers toward the path of medicine and surgery, and advocating for EDI in surgery.
Description:
- We will host workshops/seminars led by female-identifying surgical residents and surgeons to increase transparency of surgical specialities, offer networking opportunities, and discuss successes and important challenges that remain prevalent in surgery.
- To inspire future generations of women in surgery, we will organize hands-on educational workshops for high-school students (e.g., teach very basic surgical skills).
- To increase evidence-based research on the gender gap in surgery, we will share opportunities for engagement in clinical research opportunities related to gender and surgery at UBC.
- To address EDI in surgery, we aim to collaborate with women surgical residents/surgeons to better understand existing barriers and how to best devise advocacy plans to address these challenges.
- To increase advocacy and address policy-related barriers in surgery, namely parental leave and workplace and sexual harassment.
- Throughout all initiatives, we will share resources to support students throughout their academic and career path.
Contact: ubcwisurgery@gmail.com
Mandate: Our club's mandate is to improve the health of women at every stage of their lives through education, outreach, fundraising and mentorship. Health is a complicated field as it has many facets through which it is influenced. Ultimately, whether it is teaching future physicians skills specific to women’s health or outreach to youth, our initiatives aim to increase a women’s ownership and empowerment around their health, instead of it being a taboo or uncomfortable subject. Health is one of the most intimate aspects of one's life; therefore, having positive experiences with health can lend way to positive outcomes in other aspects of one’s life.
Description: The UBC WHI was started in 2012 by a medical student who saw the need for more education and outreach regarding women’s health in the UBC Medicine community. Through speaker series and round-tables, the WHI aims to expand awareness about topical issues in women’s health to medical students to complement the learning they receive in medical school. The WHI brings in physicians and other healthcare professionals that medical students would otherwise never get a chance to meet and hear from, providing valuable perspectives on women’s health. The WHI also works in outreach, specifically with educating underprivileged populations about women’s health.
Contact: ubcmedwhi@gmail.com
Mandate: The mandate of the UBC Zumba and BollyFit Club is to promote physical fitness, well-being, and social connectivity among students. By providing access to Zumba and BollyFit classes, we aim to enhance physical fitness, promote mental wellness, foster community, and encourage work-life balance by providing an enjoyable outlet for students to engage with. The patient facing component of our program aims to engage with patients through teaching them Zumba and Bollywood dance lessons, and empower them to take charge of their health through physical activity.
Description: Events our club will offer include dance classes and social events. The dance classes will provide the opportunity to learn Latin and Indian dance rhythms while promoting physical activity. The social events aim to promote community by creating opportunities to connect with others. Furthermore, our patient outreach team will visit local inpatient/outpatient health programs and care settings to engage patients/residents in a fun approach to dance and physical activity. The events and services that UBC Zumba and BollyFit Club will provide will promote all-around well-being, including physical and mental well-being and social connectedness.
Contact: ubc.zumba.bollyfit@gmail.com
Mandate: UV&Me is a community service based organization whose mission is to reduce the burden of skin cancer by delivering interactive educational presentations on sun safety to children in their elementary school classrooms. To accomplish this goal, members visit community schools, in-person or online, to deliver interactive presentations that have been pre-approved by UV&Me board-certified dermatologists for this purpose. UV&Me is dedicated to preventing skin cancer by educating and motivating children to adopt a sun-safe lifestyle.
Description: UV&Me is dedicated to preventing skin cancer by delivering interactive presentations to children in their elementary school classrooms, with the goal to educate and motivate them to adopt a sun-safe lifestyle. We will also have social media campaigns to raise awareness about sun safety on Instagram, with prizes for participants. Lastly, we hope to attend elementary school-aged outdoor events such as sports tournaments and summer camps to promote sun safety.
Contact: uvandmeubc@gmail.com
Mandate: The UBC Geriatrics Interest Group (GIG) promotes awareness of health and wellness issues that are especially relevant to older adults. We aim to provide interdisciplinary clinical skills training and professional learning activities for students interested in geriatric medicine.
Description: We offer educational seminars, opportunities for students to connect with geriatric physicians and potential research, and our annual practice OSCE for 1st-2nd year students. We also run the Grandpal penpal program aimed to connect older adults and children in local communities through creative activities to foster more intergenerational friendships.
Contact: Gig.ubcmed@gmail.com
Mandate: A group of UBC medical students meet with populations in and around the downtown eastside of Vancouver to foster community and engage in socialization and physical activity through pick-up soccer.
Description: Recreational soccer drills and games with community in the downtown eastside and nutritious meals to players at the end of each session.
Contact: ubcmedvancouverstreetsoccer@gmail.com
Mandate: Our ultimate goal is to help medical students develop the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to develop and implement innovative solutions to challenges in healthcare.
Goals:
1. Develop Entrepreneurial Skills: Provide medical students with the opportunity to learn and practice key entrepreneurial skills such as creating a business plan, acquiring funding, legal/government applications/permits, project management, etc.
2. Facilitate Networking: Create opportunities for students to connect with entrepreneurs, investors, healthcare professionals, and the overall industry for collaboration and mentorship
3. Encourage Innovation: Support innovative thinking among medical students to address current/future challenges in healthcare.
4. Social Impact: Help create projects that aim to improve access to healthcare, enhance patient outcomes, and address public health issues, particularly in underserved communities.
Values:
1. Innovation: We value creative thinking that can transform healthcare and improve patient care.
2. Collaboration: We believe in teamwork and we will create a supportive environment where members can share knowledge, resources, and experiences.
3. Diversity/Inclusion: We are committed to creating an inclusive community where everyone is welcome and valued.
4. Excellence: We aim for excellence in all our activities, seeking to continually learn, grow, and improve.
5. Impact: We are driven by a desire to make a meaningful and lasting impact on the healthcare system and the lives of patients.
Description: Workshops and Seminars: Regular workshops and seminars on entrepreneurship, innovation, and healthcare trends.
Networking Events: Opportunities for members to meet and connect with industry leaders, entrepreneurs, and investors.
Competitions: Platforms for members to develop and pitch innovative healthcare solutions.
Mentorship Programs: Pairing members with mentors from the healthcare and startup industries.
Contact: ubcentrepreneurshipclub@gmail.com
Mandate: Our mission is to foster medical student resilience, mental health, and community by promoting awareness, integration, and collaboration of UBC MD Undergraduate Program wellness resources.
Description: As a student-run division of UBC Medicine Student Affairs, WIN executives work with Undergraduate Medical Education committee members, Student Affairs, MUS, and class councils to advocate for student wellness in our curriculum. WIN also holds events throughout the year that are aimed at creating positive interactions with our colleagues and exploring our core beliefs that affect the way we handle adverse situations. As an MUS club concurrently funded by UBC Medicine Student Affairs, we also sponsor other wellness events throughout the year, including the Arts in Medicine Coffeehouses and MedPlay!
Contact: ubc.med.win@gmail.com
Mandate: It takes an average of two years longer to diagnose the same conditions in women compared to men, a disparity rooted in cultural and historical biases that excluded women from preclinical and clinical research. Research and clinical practices are only now beginning to address the gaps created by decades of medical evidence based primarily on studies involving males. UBC Women’s Health in Research, Education, and Medicine (WHREM) aims to advance women’s health by broadening the traditional focus that often equates women’s health solely with reproductive issues. WHREM works to address health disparities by supplementing medical students' training with the latest research on these topics and fostering collaboration between graduate and medical students.
Description: WHREM's goal is to address historically under-researched and under-diagnosed conditions in women, such as autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular conditions, mental health conditions, and menopause. By bridging the gap between research trainees and medical students at UBC, WHREM strives to accelerate the translation of crucial research discoveries into clinical practice, addressing the “17-year delay” in research findings reaching patient care.
Our initiatives include:
1. Expert Seminars: Feature talks by and discussions with leading clinicians and researchers on pertinent women’s health topics.
2. Annual Interdisciplinary Networking Event: Opportunities for medical students and researchers to connect, share ideas, and explore potential collaborations.
3. Journal Club: Bimonthly discussions of recent peer-reviewed articles on women’s health, fostering critical thinking and staying updated with the latest research.
4. Social Media Outreach: A dynamic and regularly updated presence on social media, sharing “fast facts” and insights from seminars, journal clubs, and significant research developments in women’s health.
Contact: ubcwhrem@gmail.com
Mandate: We are a club dedicated to providing an inclusive and welcoming space for UBC medical students to learn, practice, and/or experiment with fibre arts such as crocheting and knitting. We also hope to contribute to meeting the needs of vulnerable populations in the community by making and donating clothing items to local organizations.
Description: We welcome people of all experiences in fibre arts to join us. We will host workshops to teach students how to crochet/knit, as well as regular gatherings to socialize and work on projects together. We will also have community-facing events, such as clothing drives to donate handmade garments for local shelters, care homes, community organizations, etc.
Contact: ubcyarnatomy@gmail.com
Club Directory Last Updated: 2024/11/11 at 14:50:50