Upon participating the MWF Spring Conference, I find that I have learnt a lot and gained a lot of insights from the event. I find the panel event quite inspiring with many successful female leaders sharing their life journeys and providing advice. I find Ms Samantha Tross’ journey very inspiring as she shared her experience of experiencing racism and how she overcame it and become the first black female orthopaedic consultant. The oral abstract presentation session was also very engaging and it is very inspiring seeing what other people have done to enable equality in medical education and to contribute to humanitarian aid. It has taught me that as long as we have the vision and work together, we will be able to achieve a lot. As a medical student, I always don’t know how I can contribute more and seeing how female leaders took their initiative have inspired me to be more proactive. I have also gained a lot from the poster presentation session. I have submitted a poster for a presentation for the conference and it was the first time for me to talk about my work in a professional conference. It is very interesting to look at other people’s work and talk to like-minded people interested in research. My research is quite Engineering focused, so it was a challenge for me to present my work such that the technicalities can be understood. I am a medical student very interested in applying Engineering in Medicine so I was very happy to see some medical students and doctors being interested in my work, telling me that they are interested in learning more about AI in Medicine. We discussed our views of the importance of Engineering in Medicine and how it is important for doctors to understand basics of Engineering for both parties to work together and for the field of medical technology to advance. There were also a lot of medical students participating in the conference so it is very nice to meet some other medical students from other universities and knowing more about their interests and keep connected. I am very interested in doing research and this experience has made me realise that conferences are not as scary as I once thought, being able to share my work and connect with like-minded people is very fun and also important for my career aspirations. There were a lot of posters on the importance of woman’s health and social aspects of Medicine. This is a topic that I don’t normally think about so it is very nice to learn more about this area. It is very inspiring to see other people’s work on this to make Medicine a more accessible career for everyone. Overall, I have enjoyed the conference and I am inspired by the posters and the speakers and I am very grateful that they are sharing both their successes and challenges.
- Sharon Ho, Medical Student and recipient of the Lady Estelle Wolfson Conference Bursary
