Our school Medical Society was established approximately two years ago and to date they have hosted a variety of speakers in school.  Members of the Society have attended conferences, such as the Society of Cardio Thoracic Surgeons which inspired Kiera McQuaid, the Academy’s Medical Society President, to organise a conference in school.  The aim of the Medical Society Conference was to offer students in Banbridge Academy the opportunity to meet and network with pupils from another school to gain new ideas for their respective Medical Societies, and get to know others who may, in due course, be in their year at university.

The conference was held at the end of November and was open to aspiring medics, dentists and vets in Sixth Form in Banbridge Academy and Our Lady’s Grammar School, Newry, a partner school in our Shared Education initiative.  It was themed around the use of data in healthcare from a One Health perspective.  The overlap between the three career streams in this area is significant, with topics like anti-microbial resistance having links between Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine.  Medic Mentor is a great organisation for promoting the One Health movement and providing resources for all three career streams.  The availability of resources is particularly useful to Medical Society Committees ensuring their meetings are relevant for all members.

The experience of Medic Mentor projects such as the Medical Leadership Programme, impressed upon the President, Kiera McQuaid, the importance of getting to know other applying students, and so networking became a key tenet of the conference.  To facilitate this, career stream groups composed of students from both schools, were organised in a carousel format, like a Problem Based Learning (PBL) case, to complete various appropriate activities such as practicing interview questions and a workshop with researchers from the Centre for Public Health at Queen’s University, Belfast (QUB).

The day began with presentations from a Professor of Dentistry at QUB and a Veterinary Officer from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA).  Both speakers covered the history of data collection, how it is used in their respective fields, and the benefits of this for human health.  Mr Martin, from DAERA, also spoke about zoonotic diseases and the links between disease incidence in animals and disease in humans, using the vCJD outbreak (colloquially known as Mad Cow Disease) as an example.  Professor McKenna from QUB talked about the importance of research and the ethics of collecting data.  At the end of the presentations there was a very beneficial Q&A session where students found out more about how research is carried out, and about Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine as careers.

The students then moved to smaller ‘break-out’ groups to tackle the PBL cases and interview questions, as well as rotating through the workshop on Genetics and Epigenetics organised by Professor Amy Jayne McKnight from QUB.  These smaller group activities helped to push students out of their comfort zones and replicate the real experience of interviews and problem solving.

The day finished with a debate – ‘This House believes that sharing health data should require the patient’s consent.’  Working in the small groups, students had the opportunity to practise their public speaking skills as well as hearing different viewpoints and ideas.  A plethora of different ideas came up – there were concerns around data becoming identifiable, and loss of confidentiality and autonomy, but the benefits of expedited data sharing between primary and secondary levels of care, as well as the advantages of a more holistic approach by clinicians who would have greater access to your healthcare data were also raised.

The Medical Society members would like to record their thanks to the Principal, Mr McLoughlin and Head of Careers, Mr Bond for helping to facilitate this event.  Feedback from all those attending the event was extremely positive.