Choose Sleep Interest Group
What is a Choose Sleep Interest Group?
A Choose Sleep Interest Group is an on-campus organization created and managed by you and your fellow colleagues. The mission of an AASM professional student interest group is to cultivate medical student interest in sleep medicine clinical care and research, provide opportunities for community outreach, and motivate aspiring physicians to become sleep medicine specialists.
Benefits of Starting a Choose Sleep Interest Group
Enable ExperiencesFacilitate medical student experiences with clinical care and research of sleep-wake disorders. |
Engage the CommunityEngage in community outreach to promote awareness of healthy sleep. |
Provide MentoringProvide structured mentoring for medical students, with opportunities to network with sleep medicine faculty and fellows. |
Host EventsOrganize programs to increase medical student awareness of sleep medicine with the intention to recruit applicants to sleep medicine training programs. |
Choose Sleep Interest Group Process
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has created several resources (below) to help you start a sleep medicine student interest group. Once you have decided to create a Choose Sleep Interest Group, you will need to complete an application for the current academic year. This application is then sent to the AASM, who, upon approval, will send your group a check for annual expenses per the application agreement. From there, all Choose Sleep Interest Group members have the option to join the AASM as student members free of charge. Throughout the year, you will want to track your professional interest group’s meetings and activities so you can provide the AASM with an end of year report.
Below are some important documents to help with your Choose Sleep Interest Group creation:
- Reference Manual for Choose Sleep Interest Groups – a downloadable guide with everything you need to know about starting your Choose Sleep Interest Group, including questions to ask your campus community, ideas for promoting the group, event suggestions, etc.
- Verification of Participation for Membership – form for your Choose Sleep Interest Group members who are interested in FREE AASM membership
- Bylaws – an example of Choose Sleep Interest Group bylaws to help get you started
- Constitution – a template for creating your constitution
- End-of-Year Report Template – a template for your end of year report that will need to be submitted to the AASM