St George's Medical Education Society reflect on triumphant Widening Participation conference

Published: 18 June 2024

The Students’ Union at St George’s has a broad variety of societies and clubs aimed at augmenting the university experience for students, either through sport, culture, religion, academia or specific interests.

One such society is devoted to Medical Education – Charlotte Allen, the Vice-President of MedED at St George’s, told us about a recent conference they held for aspiring medics from a widening participation background:

“On 10-11 February 2024, St George’s Medical Education Society held a free conference in conjunction with the charity, Medics & Me, on all things medical school applications! The conference was free to attend and aimed primarily at those from a widening participation background, with 78% of those who signed up fulfilling one or more of these criteria:

• first in their family to attend medical school
• attended a state school for GCSE where attainment is below national average
• has caring responsibilities.

We had over 200 sign-ups for the conference showing the demand for this type of accessible support for those considering applying to medical school. For those that were given a place at the conference, the talks covered topics like finances as a student, admissions assessments like UCAT and GAMSAT, top tips for interviews, Oxbridge-specific applications and more! We then also ran some fantastic workshops including A-E assessments and multidisciplinary team (MDT) sessions to showcase some of the key skills that you will need day-to-day as a doctor. We also ran clinical skills and anatomy sessions to give the students a taster of what a typical day in medical school is like.

The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive and many of the applicants particularly enjoyed the hands-on workshops as it gave them content to reflect on in their upcoming interviews or personal statements. One student remarked that the talk on ‘rejections and next steps’ was particularly inspiring, as she was a graduate student and it was the first time someone had acknowledged that the road to medicine isn't always easy!

A huge thanks to our amazing WP Co-ordinator Natasha Wollen and our Presidents Mahnoor Irfan and Salma Salem Fouda. We would like to thank everyone that gave the talks and workshops, the Medics & Me team and all of our wonderful volunteers who kept the conference running in the background. We were also lucky enough to be sponsored by T4 Tooting.

Improving access to medical education through widening participation is something that the society is incredibly passionate about. If you would like to get involved, please get in touch via @sgulmeded on Instagram or meded@su.sgul.ac.uk.”

Find out more about the Medical Education Society.