MIMSA (Masaryk International Medical Students Association) is the official association of international students studying at Masaryk University Faculty of Medicine in the English program. ….. It was all born as a vision.

In the December of 2004, Iraklis Kontoes, a student from Greece studying in the faculty of medicine together with David Utulu a colleague of his from Nigeria made a first thought: “why don’t we try to create a student club?” This was their dream. Unfortunately though, there was no response from the faculty at the time to their project presentation due to the small number of foreign students studying in English (50). Nevertheless their hope did not die….

Two years later, in October of 2006, Miguel Marau Gonçalves, an equally visionary and hopeful student from Portugal who was studying in medicine came up with a plan: “we will unite the English parallel” he said, and started to bring together the students of the English program for the first meetings. Everyone was excited and full of hope for the new project which was starting with the name IMSA Brno (International Medical Students Association of Brno. At the time the number of foreign students had increased to almost 300. The faculty board responded to the idea. Nevertheless they requested some prerequisites before proceeding. The exam period was at the gates, so the work was postponed.

In the summer of 2007 Miguel Marau Gonçalves left Czech Republic to continue his studies in his home country Portugal. Everyone seemed numb…

During the winter of 2007 and after the project had been postponed due to summer exams and holidays history was about to begin. Iraklis Kontoes, previously mentioned, together with two colleagues of his that were already members of the board of the unofficial IMSA Brno, Robin Guha Niyogi from the United Kingdom and Chilindi Maloiso Unangoni from the Republic of Botswana decided to have a coffee meeting to discuss about the future of the idea of their colleague Miguel which was far forgotten by almost everyone. They discussed for hours. Their target was to talk with the board of the faculty and convince them that this is a project that should not disregarded. After numerous meetings with their colleagues that were previously chosen by Miguel to embrace him in his idea there was only a common voice: “Let’s do this!!”

On December 14th of 2007 the “Association of English students of Brno” unnamed at the time was officially recognized by the Faculty of Medicine of Masaryk University of Brno and the Dean Collegiums led by Professor MUDr. Jan Žaloudik Csc. as an official and independent body with the aim to bring about the projects and services that had been previously stated and presented, for the students that study in the English program of the faculty, under the full support and devoted aid of the Faculty’s Administrative Board. Later on, the name MIMSA (Masaryk International Medical Students) replaced the first unofficial IMSA Brno. And here we are…