Medical Student Newspaper
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medical Student Newspaper is a free newspaper written and published by medical students, for medical students. MS was founded in 2004 by Johann Malawana of Barts and The London, to unite the 10,000+ medical students across London's five medical schools. The newspaper is available free at all of London's medical school campuses but is published independently.
Several months after its birth, Rohin Francis of St. George's Hospital Medical School took over as editor-in-chief and expanded the newspaper considerably.
In its first full year of existence, Medical Student won the 2005 Daily Mirror and National Union of Students National Student Journalism Award for Best Small Budget Publication in the UK.
Ferras Alwan, a student at Barts and The London took over the reins of editor-in-chief in the academic year 2005-06, and the paper has once again been nominated for the National Union of Students National Student Journalism Award for Best Small Budget Publication.
The key appeal of MS is that it remains the only large-scale medical publication in Britain written and edited entirely by full-time medical students, in contrast to other journals and magazines written by doctors or full-time journalists. This factor has ensured MS's popularity at a grass-roots level amongst London's medics. It has been instrumental in publicising and helping student causes as well as exposing threats to medical student welfare.
Emma-Jane Smith, of Royal Free and University College Medical School, is the current editor-in-chief. Since its inception, a recurring topic in the newspaper has been Modernising Medical Careers and the impact it is having on medical students and junior doctors.
Rohin Francis' writing in MS won him three nominations in the 2006 Guardian Student Media Awards. He was chosen as Diversity writer of the year, runner-up Columnist of the year and nominee in the Feature writer of the year category.
