by Sam Coster and Zoe Moula
In September, the MEdIC team (Medical Education Innovation & Research Centre) based within PCPH, attended the AMEE 2020 conference. Due to COVID restrictions, the conference was held entirely on a virtual 3D platform. On registration, attendees created their own avatar, who could wander through a hall of virtual posters, attend presentations in virtual conference rooms, and network with nearby avatar attendees. There were no difficult choices on which sessions to attend, as all presentations were streamed live and then available on demand. Although there were a few technical hiccups, and people occasionally lost control of their avatars, the whole experience was both unique and rather fun.
The quality of the work presented at the conference was high. Predictably there was a strong focus on the educational response to COVID, and the use of technology to support digital learning and remote teaching. However, there was an impressive range of other topics featured, including innovative presentations on the arts in medical teaching, diversity and inclusion, serious games and clinical reasoning. Dr Noreen Ryan (PCPH) presented work on what influences early years patient safety teaching and learning outside the formal curriculum, and MEdIC’s Dr Nina Dutta, shared her work on widening access to community careers in healthcare (WATCCH) within the Diversity and Inclusion stream.
Whilst not quite like being there, the change of format brought its own advantages. With continued access to recorded conference material over the coming year, AMEE 2020 will continue to stimulate discussion and inspire future teaching innovations within MEdIC.