AMSC 2019 Special Issue

Abstract

Welcome to the Asian Medical Students’ Conference 2019 hosted by Singapore. Our theme for this year’s AMSC was ‘Healthcare Without Borders: The Problem of Access’.

There is no such thing as a universal healthcare issue – across the globe, each individual, community and nation deals with challenges unique to them and their situation. The healthcare landscape is fluid and nuanced, and therefore, few problems can be considered truly ‘global’ in nature. However, the problem of access itself is certainly one of them.

The fundamental truth is that healthcare - be it prevention, treatment etc. - is pointless if people do not have access to it. As such, we chose to focus on the concept of access to healthcare in order to address what we feel is one of the most prominent issues at the moment - because no matter where you are from, there is always someone unable to receive the care they need. This is not attributed to just one problem alone but rather a widespread manifestation of many individual issues that we hope to address in a multi-tiered approach, with sub-themes focusing on barriers experienced by the individual, the community, and the world.

In this journal, we publish the works of all the chapters which participated in the Scientific Paper and White Paper competitions. We hope you enjoy these entries and get enriched with knowledge from around the world! Happy reading!