Megan Chiu, a third year medical student at the Bloomington campus, was recently elected to serve as the new president of Medical Student Council. This group of student leaders governs the IU School of Medicine student body and acts as a voice and advocate for learners across the state. We asked Megan some questions about her platform and plans for improving medical education.
You recently were elected President of the Medical Student Council (MSC) to serve the largest medical student body in the country. What are you most excited about?
I’m excited to continue the wonderful work that our outgoing president, Julie Bittar, has done during the last two years. There has been a great deal of evolution of MSC’s role, and I’m most excited to see how MSC continues to grow and become a stronger student voice on all aspects of our medical education experience. The entire executive board has many great ideas to continue to improve statewide communication and create a closer IU School of Medicine community!
You served as Secretary for Medical Student Council this year. What is one project you are most proud of that you led?
One of the projects that I’m most proud of this past year included the ! These guides were a collaborative effort to help students find academic, social and wellness resources available to them, both statewide and campus-specific. They are also made by students, for students. It was made possible in large part due to all of our house representatives! I have loved working with all of them on this project and hope to continue to make these guides even better and more accessible this year.
You have also served as the Bloomington House Representative, and your platform includes expanding communication and engagement with regional campuses. Can you share with us more about your vision in making IU School of Medicine 1 school with 9 doors?
I want to focus on increasing statewide social events. As a campus that was lucky enough to host a South college event, I found that college events are a great way to bring campuses together. I hope to continue encouraging more statewide events hosted at regional campuses and make sure there is financial support available for these events! Additionally, I would like to increase MSC Executive Board presence at regional campuses. To better serve regional campuses, I want to bring more MSC events hosted at regional campuses, whether that be an event regarding a Who’s Who at IU School of Medicine presentation or special topic discussions impacting regional campuses and resources.
One of your goals in your platform is to create a new position for Vice President of Curriculum. Can you share more about why you think this position is important?
As the curriculum has become standardized, it has become a large part of our MSC discussions. MSC has also become the voice for many of these concerns and a point of contact for MSE for students’ perspective. Some of the concerns that have been discussed in the past are stopping mandatory attendance at lecture and creating SCLC representatives. Since curriculum is such a huge part of our discussion, creating this new position within our executive board structure will help us better address concerns with curriculum as well as relay information regarding curricular changes to the student body. With this position, we would create a point of contact for MSC regarding curriculum as well as provide the student representatives on the curricular committees an additional resource and sounding board if needed.
What advice do you have for students at all campuses for becoming more involved?
There are so many opportunities at all the campuses to get involved, and it’s just a matter of finding what you are passionate about! If there is a SIG or a SIG Cluster event that you are interested in starting at your campus, please email mscexec@indiana.edu if you have any questions! Finally, If you have an idea on how MSC can improve or a concern that you would like addressed, please email myself, mzchiu@iu.edu or mscexec@indiana.edu.
