Indira Fernando for MAS Here for Good scholarship

Speaker: Indira Fernando, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery

Indira Fernando: Kia ora, My name is Indira Fernando. I've been a medical student representative and advocate for the past 5 years. I started off as a member of the Otago University Medical Students Association. I then went on to be a co-founder and primary Executive member of the Rainbow Otago Medical Students Association, something that I'm immensely proud of. And I've now come to the New Zealand Medical Students Association where I've been for the past 4 years, culminating now as my term as the 2024 President. I've loved every minute of my volunteering time as a medical student rep, it's been really rewarding, being able to speak not only on behalf of medical students but advocate for them to ensure that they have good quality education and good quality support, as they study and then as they move on into the workforce. One of the things that I'm proudest of is that last year, we managed to buck the trend of many medical students not being able to secure offers of employment post-graduation, and ensure that every single medical student who graduated from a New Zealand University who wanted a job in New Zealand, was able to get an offer which again is just so fantastic. And one of my primary goals going forward as I continue in my role this year is to make sure that's something that's not only offered to this year's graduating class, but to future graduating classes as well.

Indira Fernando: Being a recipient of the MAS Here for Good scholarship is really valuable to me. Obviously poor medical students, any kind of money is good. But I'm really hoping to be able to use this money to help me in my role as the NZMSA President. I have to do a lot of traveling both regionally and across the country, trying to advocate for students, meeting with key stakeholders and meeting with student groups as well. And so that obviously incurs a cost, some of which is covered by NZMSA, but not all of it. And I try to decrease my costs to NZMSA because I recognise that that's money that could be going to my peers. So, the scholarship is really helpful for me because it means that some of those costs of flying around the country, you know, putting myself up, feeding myself while I travel to represent medical students can be abated. I'd really love to be able to do more in terms of encouraging other medical students to consider themselves as advocates and pass on all of the things that I've learned purely through experience to the next generation of medical student voices, so that they can continue this awesome mahi that I've had the privilege of being a part of.

Indira Fernando: As someone who's been in medical student advocacy and representative spaces for quite a while, it's always really valuable when you can meet organisations and groups that really have a vested interest in supporting your work and supporting you and your peers. And MAS is one of those organisations is that whenever I speak to other medical student groups, we all recognise that MAS is a group that wants to support us and really gets behind us. Many of us don't have very much to insure at the moment, but we all really recognise that MAS does a huge amount for us and without really asking for lots back from us. They support medical students through a variety of different ways, financially with you know, advice, with support, turning up to our events and helping us make the most of our time here at medical school. And that's something that you really can't underestimate the power that that has and how grateful all of the medical student representatives and organisations who I speak to about this are myself included.