Invitation: Internship Opportunity at the Patient Safety Education Unit, WHO Geneva

IFMSA was cordially invited by the Patient Safety Education Unit for an internship experience in the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization.

The programme, WHO Patient Safety, aims to coordinate, disseminate and accelerate improvements in patient safety worldwide. It also provides a vehicle for international collaboration and action between WHO Member States, WHOs Secretariat, technical experts, and consumers, as well as professionals and industry groups. Each year, WHO Patient Safety delivers a number of programmes covering systemic and technical aspects to improve patient safety around the world. Patient Safety Education is one of the units under the Patient Safety Programme. For more information, please see the attached pdf.

However, unlike our established partnership internship programs with other WHO departments (ex. Public Health and Environment), the Unit kindly requests interested IFMSA members to apply via the WHO e-Recruitment System (http://www.who.int/employment/apply/en/).

Patient Safety Education will accept interns for the summer period, which is from May to October 2013. Applications for this period will be accepted via the erecruitment system from December 1, 2012 to January 31, 2013.

Please check all the requirements, eligibility criteria, conditions, and procedure at http://www.who.int/employment/internship/interns/en/index.html.

Patient Safety Education also reminds applicants to explicitly indicate in the cover letter and/or online personal history (in the e-recruitment system) that they are particularly interested in working with the Patient Safety Education Unit under Dr. Agnes Leotsakos and that you are a member of the International Federation of Medical Students Associations. The e-Recruitment office will then forward your application papers to the Unit and the Unit will give priority to your application.

Patient Safety Education also requests that each interested intern should print a copy of their cover letter as well as the online personal history (the one in the eRecruitment system) in pdf and send them to Dr. Hao Zheng (zhengh@who.int). She will be responsible for liaising with you once you get accepted.

Finally, please fill out the attached IFMSA WHO Internship Application Form and submit along with the above-mentioned pdfs to lwho@ifmsa.org. Please put Application to IFMSA WHO Patient Safety Internship as the subject of the e-mail. This step is important so that IFMSA can track and document your application.

For further inquiries that are unanswered by the WHO e-Recruitment system webpage, do not hesitate to contact lwho@ifmsa.org.

Reminder: Application starts on December 1, 2012 and ends on January 31, 2013 for the period of May to October 2013.

Ramon Lorenzo Luis R. Guinto, MD Liaison Officer to the World Health Organization International Federation of Medical Students Associations