Australian Indigenous Medical Electives Database

AIMED is an Australian medical student research and elective opportunities website specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, set up by RUSTICA member, Marion Davies.  AIMED is the only Australian database specific to Indigenous health.  AIMED may be accessed by all Australian medical students. 

The AIMED website is currently being re-developed, but you can submit your Indigenous placement experiences that will be added to the website by clicking here.

Many Australian medical students gain the majority of their understanding of Indigenous Australia through electives.  It has been shown that education in Indigenous health is more effective if it is voluntary, task and experience orientated.

Indigenous health (urban, rural or remote) is an excellent and popular elective choice for many Australian medical students.  Yet finding information about where to go and how to make project contacts for an Australian Indigenous health project has been frustratingly and unnecessarily difficult - until now. 

"When organising my Indigenous health elective I found available information to be scattered and incomplete.  I went into my placement “blind”.  A less determined student would probably have not pursued their elective in Indigenous health.  So I developed AIMED to enable, encourage and inform future Australian medical students interested in doing an Indigenous health placement or research project."

AIMED offers up-to-date and comprehensive information on elective and research opportunities, grants and scholarships, conferences and courses and will offer access to many on-line resources.  AIMED has a forum where students can ask and answer questions, and share ideas about Indigenous health and placement or research projects.    

AIMED is an opportunity for Australian medical students with an interest in indigenous health to share their contacts, experiences and enthusiasm with like-minded Australian medical students.

AIMED was launched nationally at NURHC 2008 (National University Rural Health Conference).  AIMED has already been introduced to every rural health club and medical student society around Australia - with most establishing a link to AIMED from their websites.  AIMED will be heavily promoted to all Australian medical students over the next six months.  During the month of March 2008, AIMED was piloted at UTAS and received over 3900 hits- so the interest is obviously out there!

It is hoped that pharmacy, nursing and allied health sections will be added to the AIMED database this year.  Allied health students will certainly find AIMED a useful resource already, and they are encouraged to regularly check the site.

As for all databases - AIMED will only be as useful as the completeness of the data that it contains, so I encourage you all to upload your experiences today.  Keep checking AIMED regularly as data will be uploaded weekly.

Please note that the AIMED website is temporarily unavailable.

Medical Observer article, 4 July 2008

An article published in the Medical Observer 4 July 2008, written by Andrew Bracey - Website helps med students prepare for Aboriginal health acknowledges Marion's dedication to Aboriginal health with the creation of AIMED  The article also mentions Marion's NACCHO/RHWA award for outstanding contributions to Indigenous health, which was presented at NURHC 08.