Geneeskundestudenten In De Samenleving (GIDS)

GIDS (Geneeskundestudenten In De Samenleving – Medical students in society) is a student initiative from the Erasmus MC Public Health department. GIDSs main goal is to enable medical students to organize and contribute to social health programmes in Rotterdam. This gives the students a unique chance to become acquainted with society in all its diversity and cultures, get the opportunity to have experiences outside of the academic hospital (/world) and at the same time contribute to the health of people in Rotterdam.

Since their start in 2019, GIDS has developed into an organization that connects education, municipality and society.  In 2021, the GIDS student pool has grown to 62 volunteer medical students that are involved in various projects. During the COVID-19 pandemic, GIDS students were involved in educating people who were hard to reach by the government information about the virus and vaccination. GIDS also recruited students who could help vaccinating everyone in Rotterdam and contributed to making the The Twijfeltelefoon (Doubt line) accessible for non-Dutch speakers. In 2021, a successful pilot of the general health education programme named Vitale Tarwewijk was also carried out, with lots of potential in the future.

The efforts of the GIDS students were rewarded with a second place at the national Medical student of the year awards. GIDS can look back on 2021 as a year of connection and progress and hopes to help more people in the time to come.