“Inclusive Learning Environments to Transform the Future”
In our third report from this year’s conference season, Dr Carys Gilbert reports on the International Association for Health Professions Education conference held recently in Glasgow, UK.
The AMEE 2023 conference took place this year at the Scottish Events campus in Glasgow. Medical educators from all over the world joined together, with the main theme centred around ‘Inclusive Learning Environments to Transform the Future’. From medical education musicals to motivational speaking symposiums and the effects of war on education in countries such as Ukraine and Myanmar, this was an exciting opportunity to gain a global perspective on medical education.
Dr Natalie Eraifej, former CTF reflected:
‘I really enjoyed attending AMEE this year. It was interesting to learn from about the delivery of medical education within differing cultural and political contexts. Especially inspiring was hearing about the current delivery of medical teaching in war torn countries.’
The University of Bristol was well represented with students, former CTFs and senior members of staff presenting and sharing their work.
Dr Joseph Hartland participated in a symposium discussing their work on what it means to have LGBTQ+ identities in health education. They were joined by people from all over the world, from Canada to Thailand providing an interesting perspective on approaches to LGBTQ+ inclusive healthcare across the world.
Former clinical teaching fellows also presented their work. Dr Natalie Eraifej and Dr Carys Gilbert presented on lessons learnt from a near-peer mentor scheme introduced at the Gloucester Academy between year 5 students and Foundation Year One doctors.
Former Clinical Teaching Fellow Dr Mary Claxton presented a poster on work done with Dr Jessica Reyer, Dr Billy Scott and Dr Ian Hunter on the use of virtual reality in simulation which was completed whilst working as teaching fellows in the Taunton Academy.
Year 4 medical student, Gloriana Suri presented her work completed with Dr Dowan Kwan and Dr Ed Luff and Dr Melina Kellerman which evaluated the use of ethnicity descriptors in an MCQ question bank. This prompted discussion within the room on learned biases and unhelpful stereotyping.
Gloriana Suri, year four medical student reflected on her conference experience:
‘AMEE 2023 was the first conference I presented at, in the EDI category, with our project being about ethnicity use in MCQ banks and how this can impact learning and stereotyping. It was well received in a welcoming and supportive environment followed-up by great questions and discussion. AMEE was a great place to learn about the current research in medical education and reducing healthcare inequalities which, as a medical student, has been hugely eye-opening and something I’d like to continue being involved with. I was inspired by talks, met people from around the world and feel much more confident with presenting skills too. Overall a great opportunity that I will massively value going forwards.’
To showcase the amazing contributions made by those within the medical school, we have created a Sway which contains information about all the work presented by those associated with Bristol Medical School.* Access the sway via this link: BRMS at AMEE 2023.
A copy of AMEE 2023 presentation and poster abstracts can be found here.
AMEE 2024 will take place in Basel, Switzerland. This was a fantastic opportunity to meet medical educators from all over the world and I would strongly encourage anyone with an interest in medical education to take the opportunity to submit their work and/or attend.
For more information about joining AMEE visit: www.amee.org/AMEE/Membership/
* We have done our best to ensure that all work presented at this event has been included here, but if you think we have missed yours and you would like it added, please get in touch.
Read Ed Luff’s Conference Report on the July 2023 ASME Conference here