8th Annual Scientific Meeting of Irish Network of Medical Educators (INMED)

Photo L-R: Professor Tara Fenwick, Dr Jonathan Silverman, Professor Deirdre McGrath, Professor Mike Larvin, Professor Peter Cantillon, Professor Don Barry at the recent INMED conference

The GEMS hosted the 8th Annual Scientific Meeting of Irish Network of Medical Educators (INMED), February 18-20th 2015, led by Professor Deirdre McGrath, GEMS Director of Education. Over 100 delegates attended, including students and staff from medical and health sciences schools and post-graduate training bodies across the island of Ireland.

The theme of the conference was ‘New horizons in health professional education: Complexity, Culture and Communication’. Keynote lectures were given by internationally renowned speakers Dr Jonathan Silverman (University of Cambridge and President of the European Association for Communication in Healthcare), Professor Tara Fenwick, (Professor of Professional Education, Stirling University,) and Dr Anne Marie Cunningham (Cardiff University) who spoke about the conditions needed for healthcare trainees to develop their communication skills, the complexity in the professional learning environment and the use of social media by medical students today, the need for educators to embrace these tools and the importance of digital professionalism.

GEMS students also provided an excellent workshop on complementary and alternative medicine, describing how this subject has been acknowledged and incorporated into medical curricula in other European countries.

The best poster prize winner was Dr Laoise Griffin, Intern Training Network Tutor and the GEMS team: “Do, Review, Learn, Apply: intern-led teaching, analysis of a case based approach”. The student poster prize was awarded to a team from UCD, and the best Oral presentation prize went to Simon O’Hare of the Medical Council of Ireland. This was the first time the INMED conference was held at UL, and it will return in a further 8 years.