Experts from 50 institutions across the globe came together in London to explore how Imperial and its partners are transforming medical education.

Imperial recently hosted the global Transform MedEd conference in collaboration with Singapore’s Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.

“Universities are always changing and evolving... It’s exactly the type of visionary and ambitious thinking that the world of medicine and health sciences needs.” Hugh Brady President of Imperial College London

The event brought together 350 attendees from over 50 medical schools, universities, clinical innovation and research units from around the world.

Eminent speakers, educators, innovators, and students participated in lively discussions exploring innovative solutions to the challenges facing global medical education. 

Held in the Royal Geographical society and in the 25th anniversary of Imperial Faculty of Medicine, the event encouraged attendees to critically reflect on the transformative role of medical education in shaping the next generation of doctors.

Opening the conference, Imperial President Professor Hugh Brady said, “Medicine and universities...sometimes are unfairly accused of not moving with the times – of course universities are always changing and evolving and usually in a very sensible and evidence-based fashion...It’s exactly the type of visionary and ambitious thinking that the world of medicine and health sciences needs.” 

The event programme spanned evidence-based and technology-enhanced education, as well as humanities and social sciences in medical education. 

Mr Martin Lupton, Vice Dean (Education) for the Faculty of Medicine said: “The conference was a fantastic opportunity to share share our new learning environments with guests from all over the world, and to think about medical education and its transformation”

Dr Emma Keeling, Academic Lead for Collaborative Partnerships in the Faculty of Medicine said: “Working with our colleagues from LKCMedicine to organise Transform MedEd has been a wonderful opportunity to bring together both our own ideas and best practise in medical education, but also to invite colleagues and new friends to share their experiences and innovations in the field.”

Adaptation, Innovation and Transformation

Designed to transform the world of medical education, the two-day meeting of educators, students, researchers, clinicians and innovators explored five main programme themes;

Evidence based education: This theme explored the ways in which evidence-based education has changed learning and teaching medicine and how it better equips doctors for the healthcare of tomorrow.

The first keynote speaker of the conference, Professor David Cook, Professor of Medicine and Medical Education at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, discussed the wealth of evidence being generated on best practice in medical education saying that “medical education research is booming.”  

"The latest statistics out of PubMed show there was about 80,000 articles published in the year of 2021 on medical education. We have high volume but I would ask are we making progress and getting traction on solving important problems facing medical education today?

“What I’d like to propose that we really need to focus on is advancing the science, and there are four ideas that I think will help us to do that: asking insightful questions; using powerful methods; using thoughtful, defensible interpretations; providing complete, transparent reporting.”

Humanities and social sciences in medical education: Enlightened approaches to modern curricula mean that humanities and social sciences are increasingly recognised as having a role in preparing medical students to be skilled, thoughtful and well-rounded practitioners. 

Professor Alan Bleakley, Emeritus Professor of Medical Education and Medical Humanities, Plymouth University Peninsula School of Medicine gave a key note on this theme discussing what the arts, humanities and qualitative social sciences can do for a medicine curriculum.

Technology-enhanced Education: this topic explored how digital healthcare and innovation is changing the health delivery system and therefore how we train new doctors. 

Professor Rachel Ellaway, Professor of Medical Education in Community Health Sciences and Director of the Office of Health and Medical Education Scholarship, University of Calgary gave a key note titled 'Technology changes nothing in medical education… except for everything.'

Professor Ellaway highlighted that some elements of teaching remain the same, such as students studying texts, asking questions and engaging with their peers and educators. However, technology has enabled and led to changes such as connectivity, trust, identity and accountability. 

Partnerships in medical education: Partnership are crucial component in Medical Education and Medical schools are increasingly involved with the communities they are surrounded by and have social accountability towards the areas they serve.

Professor Walter Eppich, Professor and Chair of RCSI SIM, the Centre for Simulation Education and Research RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dublin, Ireland gave a key note titled ' Team Communication in Healthcare: An Educational Perspective'.

Bright ideas in medical education: This theme brought an innovative approach to the conference and broke away from the traditional structure of the conference programme with flexible sessions designed to encourage interaction between participants.

Small groups and workshops of medical educators met to generate new ideas for research and practice, have feedback on their research and an opportunity to network with each peers and colleagues.