Regardless of whether you are part of an established medical student organization that is joining IFMSA or a brand new medical student organization, it will be very important for you to establish the Standing Committees of IFMSA in your organization. Almost all of the activities of IFMSA are organized through the Standing Committees - this is really where the work of IFMSA is accomplished.

Remember, you do not have to have all six Standing Committees established in your organization to join IFMSA - in fact you do not have to have any! The important part is that you need to establish goals to increase the number of Standing Committees in your organization over time - but you do not have to have them all at the start. This is a process that usually takes many years!

There are six Standing Committees in IFMSA:

• Standing Committee on Medical Education (SCOME)
• Standing Committee on Professional Exchange (SCOPE)
• Standing Committee on Public Health (SCOPH)
• Standing Committee on Reproductive Health including AIDS (SCORA)
• Standing Committee on Research Exchange (SCORE)
• Standing Committee on human Rights and Peace (SCORP)

All of the Standing Committees of course are very important. However, if you are going to start with one Standing Committee, it is probably the best to start with the Standing Committee on Professional Exchange (SCOPE). This is the most common Standing Committee in IFMSA and it is probably the best known. SCOPE is also the most effective way that IFMSA can help your students study in other countries. All of the countries of IFMSA are eligible to participate in the exchanges, so you have many options!

So probably the most common strategy is for a new organization to start to build their exchange program through SCOPE, and as the organization begins to grow, then it begins to build the other Standing Committees too. (This is not the only strategy - of course you do not have to build the exchange program first! You have to decide what works best for you!) As your organization grows more active in IFMSA, more students will become interested - and there will be more leaders available to help build the other Standing Committees.

At the IFMSA-International level there is a Director for each Standing Committee; this person is a very important resource for you and as you build each Standing Committee in your country. The Standing Committees in each country are led by a National Officer. And at the local level for each Standing Committee there is a Local Officer for each medical school faculty in the country. For your organization, the most important thing for you is to find a good National Officer for each Standing Committee. Then the National Officer will recruit Local Officers at each medical school faculty as part of their job.

It is extremely important for you to identify quality leaders for your Standing Committees. It is hard work to be a National Officer and much of the success of your IFMSA National Member Organization will depend on how hard your National Officers work. So if you have a classmate that you know is a hard worker and a good leader, then try to recruit them to get involved in IFMSA!