Staff attended a medical education conference at a local university to support and educate the next generation of medical students.
This year’s conference theme was ‘Socially responsible medical education: current and emerging themes’ and was the first medical education conference since COVID, which is held annually at the University of Sunderland.
The conference aims to bring together educators, researches, practitioners, students and leaders in medical education to discuss and explore the latest advancements, challenges and trends in socially responsible medical education. With the day exchanging good practice, ideas and fostering collaboration.
Clinical undergraduate manager Andrea Ellner said: “Our undergraduate team manned a stall and submitted posters on supporting topics. We also delivered a presentation on the day called ‘Turning the undergraduate department green – reducing the environmental impact of medical education on the planet.”
“It was great to be asked to be involved in the conference. The University of Sunderland’s Medical School first opened its doors in 2019 and has been going from strength to strength. It’s a privilege to be able to help shape our doctors of the future and to take the time out to discuss how we can continue to improve and practice responsible medical education.”
Other topics during the day included ‘Promoting a Collaborative Ethos by Dr Mark Shipley, ‘Changes made in the delivery of PGMDE to be more socially responsible’ by Professor Namita Kumar and several workshops throughout the day such as ‘Making the most of opportunities to help students develop their clinical reasoning in patient consultations’ by Dr Anna Hammond.
Whole education team approach
North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust was represented by Dr Dolon Basu, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, director of medical education and director of clinical sciences (University of Sunderland), Andrea Ellner, clinical undergraduate manager, Elizabeth Webb, undergraduate clinical educator, Hannah Cussons, undergraduate clinical educator, Dr Liam McHale undergraduate GP lecturer and IMP block 1 lead and Dr Vikram Mitra, consultant gastroenterologist, medicine block one lead and assessment lead.
Andrea continued: “It’s so vital that we continue to grow and shape our home-grown doctors of the future and it’s an honour to be able to host them within the Trust to teach, train and guide them to be our doctors of the future.
“Student numbers and the number of education places we provide are to increase over the next few years as part of the NHS’s long term plan to increase the number of doctors.
“It’s really important that we continue to discuss and keep our education programme up to date with conferences such as this, to ensure we can attract talented students to work in areas of NHS need.”
Information can be found on the University of Sunderland’s School of Medicine website.