Trinity medical students ask public to give generously to the men and women in the ‘white coats’

Posted on: 02 November 2005

More than 300 medical students to take to the streets to raise much-needed funds

At 7 a.m. on November 3rd, more than 300 medical students from Trinity College, many dressed in traditional white medical coats, will take to the streets of Dublin to help raise much-needed funds for deserving causes.

Trinity College Med Day, the annual fundraising event organised by medical students at TCD, will be donating all the funds raised to the Palliative Care and Oncology services in the AMNCH Hospital (Tallaght) and to the Trinity Access Programme (TAP). The funds will be used to help initiate a complementary therapies service for patients and also to establish a scholarship into medicine for a second level student from one of the Dublin schools affiliated with the TAP programme. Last year the students raised more than €52,000 for the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital in Tallaght and TAP.

Med Day Committee Chairperson Dave Martin, a 5th year medical student said, “We were thrilled to learn that hospital management at Tallaght have kindly agreed to match all funds raised by Med Day so every euro donated will become two! The Committee and students welcome all support on the day and ask that people will please give generously to these very worthy causes.”

Cancer services in Tallaght Hospital are developing rapidly. The last two years have seen the opening of a new Oncology Day-Ward and the appointment of new specialists in the areas of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, cancer surgery and palliative care. Further service expansion and development is ongoing so that patients can be offered ever higher standards of care. The money raised by Med Day will allow the service to develop in new directions with the provision of complementary and supportive therapies to patients.

For the first time since Med Day’s inception four years ago it will include a Public Health Initiative to be run in conjunction with the College Health Services. This will consist of a number of stations in and around Trinity Campus where senior medical students will be offering to take blood pressures, measure weight and height and calculate Body Mass Index. They will also be handing out information on diet, exercise and healthy living.