Student initiative on imaging and interventional radiology

On Saturday 25 March, the Oxford Radiology Society in partnership with the Green Templeton College GCR and IR Juniors held a student-focused regional conference at college called the Oxford and South England Imaging and Interventional Radiology Symposium. They hosted over fifty participants (majority students) from around the country, heard twelve oral presentations and saw twenty poster presentations.

Michael Stephanou (Graduate Entry Medicine, 2020) who co-organised the conference as part of the Oxford Radiology Society said

‘As a radiology society, we feel that many barriers exist which prevent students from attending and presenting at medical conferences as they are often more geared toward senior clinicians. Therefore, we developed a novel conference format which put students at the forefront by eliminating these barriers.

‘We did so by allocating presentation topics to students who signed up and by giving attendees the opportunity to make educational poster presentations on radiology-aligned topics. The structure of the panel included several shorter student talks, followed by a keynote presentation from a guest speaker in the fields of paediatric radiology, emerging technologies and neurointervention.’

The symposium gave attendees the opportunity to learn hands-on interventional techniques through an ultrasound-guided biopsy workshop. Participants were educated on how to use biopsy needles and were able to practice taking biopsies on homemade phantom olive-in chicken models. Participants were also taught and able to practice ultrasound-guided cannulation on Blue Phantom training models.

Participants also gained insights on careers from a number of radiology trainees at different levels (ST1, ST2 and consultant) who spoke about the application process, their experiences and how to boost your CV.

Positive feedback from participants included:

‘Good mix of students/junior doctors and experts – felt really engaging and great to give opportunities to those who are preparing to apply.’

‘It was interesting to hear short talks on a few topics and then to have these reinforced and expanded upon with clinical experience and various perspectives from the consultants / keynote speakers. It also gave the day a nice variety.’

‘As a student, I found this format a lot more helpful than other conferences I have attended. I loved being given the opportunity to present and get the CV points early on, especially since I was given a topic I was interested in.’

Green Templeton is proud to have been able to make this student initiative possible in college thanks to the generosity of donors and supporters.