The Students Associations of both Faculties of Medicine in Lisbon have a common project – The Medical Orchestra of Lisbon

The Students Associations of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon, and of the Medical Sciences Faculty of the New University of Lisbon have come together to work on a joint project: The Medical Orchestra of Lisbon.

NEWS@FMUL interviewed one of the students, Sebastião Castanheira Martins, who is in the second year of the Integrated Masters Degree in Medicine.

Newsletter: How did you come up with the idea of joining both Students Associations of the two Medical Schools of Lisbon in this project?Sebastião Martins (SM): The idea came up during the rehearsals of the last Cultural Soirée at the Students Association of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Lisbon (AEFML). While talking to some colleagues who played at that soirée, we all agreed we would like to rehearse together more often, so the idea of establishing an orchestra was born. We decided to join the Faculty of Medical Sciences because we felt this project should not be limited to the Faculty of Medicine alone and it would work better with both Medical Schools, as it does with the traditional music group. After doing some research, we found out there are various medical orchestras in Europe and given the innate ability medicine students have for music, we decided to move forward with this project in Portugal. From this initial idea, we now have its accomplishment.

News: How many members are there in the group?
SM: At the moment we have about 20 students, but more might join us throughout the year.

News: What are your future plans?
SM: We are going to start rehearsals in the next few weeks. For now we do not have any concerts scheduled. Our goal this year is to participate in the Cultural Soirée at the Faculty and to perform in some concerts, if the opportunity arises. The union between health professionals and students is one of the great goals of this pioneer project in Portugal so in the future we would like doctors and interns to participate as well.

André Silva
Editorial Team
news@medicina.ulisboa.pt