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Monday, November 22, 2021 at 07:15 p.m.

The student Luciana Nechifor, new president of the CEEM

The student, who is studying a Bachelor's degree in Medicine at the URJC, has been chosen to lead the new team of the State Council of Medicine Students, the most important national body representing universities in this field.

Albert Rose

Vocation, work and responsibility are three skills that describe Luciana Nechifor's profile very well. The URJC medical student has recently been elected president of the State Council of Medical Students (CEEM).

This was decided by the General Assembly of the CEEM in its XCI State Conference on Medicine, which was held from October 20 to 23 in the Balearic Islands. For Nechifor, this election is a great challenge that he faces with enthusiasm and responsibility: "There are many medical students, almost 45.000 people, and speaking for so many people carries great responsibility."

Regarding her first contacts with Medicine, the student acknowledges that she was not clear about her vocation within the Health Sciences branch and was about to have studied other careers such as Biotechnology, until in the end she opted for the degree in Medicine at the Rey Juan Carlos University, where he is currently in his fifth year.

Chairing an organization as prominent as the CEEM and studying at the same time for a degree is not an easy task for anyone. “It is super difficult to combine studies with representation. I have to be constantly traveling, keep up to date and read the media and in the end I dedicate more time to it than to university education, so I try to make the study part very efficient”, says Luciana.

The president of the CEEM claims the need to give a voice to medical students: "Students are the pillar of the Council, without them there is no Council and without the Council, the higher bodies, such as the Ministry or representation of Deanships, do not really know what they want students and what they think about a fact or what proposals they have to change something”.

Mental health and the fight against disinformation, among the challenges of the CEEM

According to Nechifor, every year the demands of the students vary a little, but some are always fixed. Mental health is one of the main challenges currently defended by the Council: “It is an area that has been greatly affected by confinement, but not only because of it. We did a study before the pandemic that shows that up to 11% of students have had suicidal ideas.”

Another of the lines that is being followed is the fight against misinformation "because in recent months we have seen many cases of people who do not belong to health groups influencing the population, for example, with vaccines, but there are many more cases. ”, points out Luciana Nechifor.

The need to return to the pre-pandemic situation

Logically, COVID-19 affected the entire educational development of medical students. One of the main concerns has been to be able to carry out internships and have face-to-face training normally, due to the pandemic situation. “We are trying to return to the situation before. Last year there were communities where internships could not be done and it was one of our most important pillars. As far as we know, right now they are being done in all the faculties”, celebrates the student.

Nechifor says that returning to the pre-pandemic situation in university education is essential to continue defending the interests of students: “Once everything has returned to the situation before COVID-19, we will continue trying to improve issues that we claimed before as plans of studies and other matters”, he concludes.