![National Medical School Widening Participation Forum [NMSWP]](https://nms-wpconference.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/cropped-nms-wp-logo-1-e1744681548771.png){kind=logo}
Monday 16 November
The Importance and Impact of Widening Participation in medicine
This session will cover the why WP work in medicine is needed and how it benefits society in the long run, which WP programmes are available to those wishing to enter medical school at undergraduate and postgraduate level, what support is available to WP students while at medical school and after graduation and what the current best practice guidelines are on WP work.
Amina Ismael Abib
I am a 3rd year medical student, and currently the secretary for the NMSWP committee.
Dr Charlotte Aunty
I am a recent graduate from the University of Manchester, currently working as an FY1 in Nottingham. I spent more time doing local Widening Participation work in medical school than I did studying medicine so I’m really excited to be continuing this work at a national level now!
Troubleshooting your WAMS work
More info coming soon!
Tuesday 17 November
How to approach student research in WP?
The effectiveness of widening participation activities is by nature difficult to evaluate and even more difficult to research. This session invites you to consider some of the challenges you may face and help you network with others to form national research project teams.
Mohammed Sahir
Mohammed is a final year student, the current President of the BME student network and President of Warwick WHAM society. Mohammed qualified as a secondary teacher before joining medical school and has an interest in widening participation in medicine. As a teacher, Mohammed worked with WP students to help widen access to medicine and is now working on initiatives to continue this work.
Emily Roisin Reed
Emily is Director of Student Experience, Employability and Progression for Warwick Medical School and leads Widening Participation at WMS. Her research interests are in medical careers, social justice and widening participation. She takes pride in supporting many student outreach initiatives which have reached over 9000 local WP school pupils across the last four years.
Sylva Adeeko
Sylva is Academic FY1 and founder of Warwick WHAM Soc. Sylva was involved in widening participation and the ‘Horizons’ outreach programme at Warwick for four years. She completed a systematic review which she presented at the BMJ Leadership Conference and is undergoing publication. She is passionate about widening participation in medicine.
AspireMed
AspireMEd is a national organisation run by medical students with a passion to inspire and empower aspiring doctors to fulfil their dreams of becoming a doctor. It was founded by three medical students, Jun Yu Chen, Wentin Chen, and Luke Yanyang Zhu, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown which saw the subsequent postponement and cancellation of many outreach activities. Recognising an inherent and distinct scarcity of information on medical careers, AspireMEd hopes to deliver free high-quality information, resources and support for medicine applicants from all backgrounds, particularly students from widening participation backgrounds. Their work extends over several social media platforms: Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. In just over four months, AspireMEd amassed over 1,300 followers on Instagram and 500 on Twitter. On Instagram, they post under daily themes to target all aspects of the application process. This includes UCAT/BMAT questions, medical interview tips, work experience opportunities and online courses, and personal statement advice. They also discuss recent developments in medicine and health news to engage and inspire aspiring medical students.
In this session, AspireMEd will discuss the idea, planning, and delivering of the AspireMEd Medicine Applicants Virtual Conference. Recognising the immediate and overwhelming need to support aspiring medical students through the lockdown and share critical applicant information, particularly regarding changes to the application process, AspireMEd held their inaugural conference on 8 August 2020. With 1,500 attendees the conference was received with great interest from secondary school and university graduate students, parents, schools, teachers and educators, representative bodies, widening participation champions, and medical education organisations. With unparalleled support from the NMSWP Forum, AspireMEd held a free one-day all-inclusive conference spanning 8 hours of live content. This included inspiring talks, informative sessions from the Medical Schools Council and UCAT/BMAT about changes due to Covid-19, and interactive workshop sessions covering various aspects of the application process. AspireMEd were also grateful to have received the support of national and international organisations including the General Medical Council, AMEE, IAMSE, BOA, GPs at the Deep End, the University of Birmingham, and the Royal Benevolent Medical Fund, among others. They also collaborated with over 50 widening participation societies and organisations around the UK, showcasing two minute videos of their work and the support and resources they offer medical applicants.
A practical guide to using social media for digital outreach
To empower WAMS societies to effectively use social media to reach
young people in their communities considering a career in healthcare.
Kirsty Morrisson
Kirsty is a fifth-year undergraduate medical student at the University of Birmingham who has been actively involved in WP work throughout her time there. She set up her medical school’s first full-day access conference (Dr.eam) in 2018 and was President of the WAMS society in 2019/20. She is a founding member of the National Medical Students Widening Participation Group, and also helped create the online widening access organisation ‘We Are Medics’ during COVID lockdown.
@kirstymorrisn
Wednesday 18 November
WP Evaluation
Info coming soon!
TBC WAMS
Info coming soon!
The hidden curriculum in medical education
This session aims to introduce the concept of the hidden curriculum and explore how it can impact students from widening access backgrounds as they move into their medical careers
Anna Harvey
Anna returned her final year of medical school at King’s College London in August 2020 having spent the last year working full time at the BMJ as Editorial Scholar, where she oversaw all the content the BMJ produces for students, including podcast Sharp Scratch. She has a longstanding interest in medical education and was a founding member of the National Medical Students Widening Participation Working Group, as well as creating education resources for medtech startup Medics.Academy.
She has written on widening access to medical education for the BMJ. Her clinical interests are in pregnancy and complex social factors, maternal and foetal medicine and assisted reproduction and she is President of the British Undergraduate Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Outside of medicine, Anna can usually be found in one of London’s independent music venues or running somewhere very slowly.
Jade Scott-Blagrove
Jade is a radiology registrar in Cambridge who is passionate about widening participation and teaching. In May this year, Jade founded the non-profit organisation Widening Participation Medics Network (@WPMedicsNetwork) to support current and prospective medical students form underrepresented groups.
Thursday 19 November
Widening participation at medical school and in foundation training: a policy discussion workshop
Widening participation doesn’t end when a student is admitted to medical school. This workshop aims to explore the issues widening access students might face throughout their time at medical school and in their foundation years. Attendees will be invited to contribute to a policy discussion that may inform the NMSWPG’s future work in this area
Anna Harvey
Anna returned her final year of medical school at King’s College London in August 2020 having spent the last year working full time at the BMJ as Editorial Scholar, where she oversaw all the content the BMJ produces for students, including podcast Sharp Scratch. She has a longstanding interest in medical education and was a founding member of the National Medical Students Widening Participation Working Group, as well as creating education resources for medtech startup Medics.Academy.
She has written on widening access to medical education for the BMJ. Her clinical interests are in pregnancy and complex social factors, maternal and foetal medicine and assisted reproduction and she is President of the British Undergraduate Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. Outside of medicine, Anna can usually be found in one of London’s independent music venues or running somewhere very slowly.
Leeds WAMs
Info coming soon!
Widening Access to Medical School During the COVID Pandemic
We would like to take you through our work during the lockdown period and how we quickly designed and implemented a new virtual UCAT series to support students during an unprecedented and difficult time. We will also showcase the new virtual work experience created that replaced our usual in-house work experience, and how this enabled us to deliver to a much wider audience.
We will reflect upon the challenges we encountered, and what went well, and how we can use this to continually improve our sessions. We will also have a look at the year ahead, and how we are adapting all our usual workshops and events to align with current restrictions imposed by both the Government and schools.
WAMS Peninsula Medical School
Plymouth Widening Access to Medical School (WAMS) is a student body working in close liaison with the faculty to inspire and support students primarily across Devon and Cornwall aspiring to study Medicine. Our work starts from engaging primary school age children to learn about medicine and allied healthcare professions, going up to providing specific application support during sixth form. This includes visits to schools across the south west, hosting in-house workshops as well as running an e-mentoring program which provides one to one support. During lockdown, we have run multiple cycles of UCAT sessions, as well as the successful delivery of a live and interactive 3 -week work experience program for core widening participation students globally.
Friday 20 November
A Structural Approach to Cultivating Safety
Drawing on students’ research on structural competence and hidden curriculum, we re-negotiate ways toward cultivating safety in health education and healthcare.
Natasha Chilambolo
Natasha Chilambo is a final medical student and Undergraduate Research Fellow at King’s College London. She holds an MSc in Leadership & Development from the African Leadership Centre. Natasha is working on “Structure and the Clinic” – a space to take an interdisciplinary and transcultural approach to teaching medicine as a social science.
Twitter: @dimah_uk IG: structureandtheclinic
Nivethitha Ram
Final year medical student at King’s College London and a masters graduate in MA Philosophy, Politics and Economics of Health with an interest in decolonising the medical curriculum and teaching on structural factors that shape health.
Twitter: @dimah_uk @structureandtheclinic (Instagram)
Dr Valerie Farnsworth
Lecturer in Curriculum Studies, Twitter: @dimah_uk;
Shuangyu Li
Senior Lecturer in Clinical Communication & Cultural Competence, GKT School of Medical Education, King’s College London, Twitter:@dimah_UK
Disability as a medical student: on the wrong side of the curtains?
Aims of the session:
• Discuss and challenge what a “disability” is
• Reflect on our own practice with more consideration to the difficulties faced by those living with a chronic illness
• Highlight the value of disabled
Erin Lawson-Smith
Erin is a fourth year medical student at the University of Birmingham. In the past year, she has been diagnosed with Idiopathic Hypersomnia, a sleep disorder similar to Narcolepsy.. This change in her health has forced her to quickly learn how to live with a chronic illness, which encouraged self-reflection on the responsibilities of a health professional from the unique perspective of being both a patient and a caregiver.
Her experiences have shown her how much more needs to be done, and as a result she is a keen advocate for supporting disabled people into healthcare careers. She hopes by talking about her own experiences that she can encourage more discussion and thought about disability in healthcare, and in society as a whole.
Erin has a keen interest in psychiatry (particularly forensic), sexual health and is also a big supporter of #TeamGP! You can find her on Twitter: @medstudenterin
National Medical School Widening Participation Forum [NMSWP] 