Good question! This change has been tricky for all of us and we know there’s bound to be some confusion initially.

To put a long story short: the ALM exec you previously were familiar with in Dunedin was apart of OUMSA, like a “sub-committee”. At the other ALM campuses, they had their own ALM execs (CMSA & WHPSA) who operate independently from OUMSA. This meant that in day to day running, OUMSA essentially functioned as the ELM exec and then each ALM campus had their own exec - with the caveat that the Dunedin ALM exec was apart of OUMSA. But, the memberships for these associations were all sold through OUMSA at the start of ELM as a 5 year subscription.

A couple of years ago, OUMSA decided to switch the 5 year subscription to instead sell a 2 year membership that covered ELM2 & ELM3. This meant that from the 2025 ALM4 intake onwards, ALM associations would be responsible for selling their own memberships. There had been talk for a few years of ‘ALM OUMSA’ branching off to become an independent association, like at the other 2 ALM campuses. In 2024, it was decided that this would be as good a time as any to make this split alongside the new ALM memberships being rolled out.

And that’s how DMSAA was born! Being our own association now means we have control over our own finances, and therefore more freedom and ability to serve Dunedin ALM students in the way that YOU want us to. As you could probably guess, becoming an independent association comes with a lot of new challenges that we haven’t previously had to face but we have an awesome team who are committed to building up this association with a strong foundation to support all Dunedin ALM students, current and future.

Yes, if you are someone who plans to engage with social, welfare or education events in some way (e.g. buying leavers gear, attending social events, attending DMSAA tutorials) then your membership will save you money.

In a very rough calculation - we would estimate that the average ALM4 who pays $45 for their membership could save up to $120 in ticket/leavers gear costs (not to mention the freebies over your 3 ALM years like welfare packs & events)!

Outside of this massive money saving bonus, DMSAA needs your support to be able to do carry out the crucial work that we do. The time and effort that goes into planning social & welfare events, designing leavers gear, carrying out advocacy work through committees like SSLiC, being your contact for when things go wrong etc. - it all adds up very fast! We strongly believe that investing in us as your student association is the most cost-effective and meaningful way to genuinely impact student wellbeing. Our team of 16 passionate, hard-working students are ready and willing to bring ideas to life, but without an adequate budget, the full potential of our collective vision can’t be realised.

All 5 year OUMSA subscriptions are able to be transferred over to a DMSAA membership at no cost. Simply “purchase” the transfer option from the memberships above and enter your details. These details will then be cross-checked against our database of OUMSA members.

Sorry about that! Unfortunately, we had to go through all the membership records by hand and match them up with current student lists that had to collate ourselves - because of this, it’s entirely possible that people may have been marked as non-members incorrectly. This is particularly true if you had/used a different name at the time of purchasing your OUMSA subscription. Please get in touch via president@dmsaa.org and we can fix this ASAP!

If you bought a 5 year subscription, then we think it’s fair for it be valid for 5 years of your time actively at the medical school (rather than 5 years from the date of purchase). This means if you bought a membership in e.g. 2020 and it “expiring” at the start of 2025 BUT you took a year out at some point - then we are happy for you to get your full 5 years and transfer this membership over to DMSAA. Please use the transfer membership option, enter your details, and we should hopefully be able to figure it out but if we have any issues we’ll contact you!

Unfortunately, this means that if you bought your membership in e.g. 2020 but have repeated a year at some point (rather than taking a year off/away from the medical school) then you have used your membership for 5 years and it will expire at the start of 2025.