We don’t have proof of when our organisation appeared, maybe because the priority then was fieldwork over archiving and documenting. Even so, we estimate that that moment was at the end of the 1950’s. AIEME, former name of IFMSA-Spain, is born with the goal of developing the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations exchange programme; hosting in 1962 the 10th IFMSA General Assembly, which confirms that we definitely existed at that point.

The first AIEME statutes were registered at the Education and Science Ministry in 1970 and only reflect the IFMSA exchange conditions and the election of the National Exchange Officer (NEO). The goal at that point is still the participation in the IFMSA exchanges, a second IFMSA international event is organised in March 1962.

At the end of the 80s, parallel to the critical changes that IFMSA undergoes, AIEME also experiments a process where there is a dismissal of the coordinators in Madrid, and a new Executive Board is formed by members from all the local committees that participate in the Association. To the initial NEO position, other posts are added so that in 1992 the first Executive Board as such is formed. The national secretariat is then established in the Medical Faculty of Valladolid in 1988.

In this new phase and with the new spirit of not only being an exchange association, but to also work on education and development cooperation programmes as well as public health, new statutes are approved in 1990 that are followed by bylaws in 1992 that cover all the programmes that are part of AIEME. The different programme’s budgets are also unified in one account and an optimisation of the finances is achieved. The administration stabilised through the Executive Board renewing image and name of the federation to IFMSA-Spain; all of this is reflected in the new statutes, that stand today and that are passed during the National Assembly in Málaga in 2000.

To sum up, IFMSA-Spain (before AIEME) emerged from the necessity of coordinating the exchanges between some medical faculties in Spain and IFMSA at the end of the 50s; nowadays, half a century after, it brings together the majority of the medical faculties in Spain adding to the exchange programmes achievements like the IgGb12 project in South Africa under the public health programme or the Emergency and Disaster’s summer school in Oviedo under the Human Rights and Peace. These over 50 years of existence and participation in IFMSA turn us into an experienced Students’ Federation that plays a key role in talking about international relations of the medical students in Spain.