One of the strengths of our Outreach and Widening Participation activities is the involvement of our undergraduate students. As I write this post members of our student society, Birmingham Widening Access to the Medical Sciences (BWAMS) are running an event for 40 local Year 11 school pupils called Junior Emergency Medicine (JEM 2018). The day of talks and activities, including patient simulations of some clinical scenarios, aims to raise students’ aspirations for future careers in healthcare and support students to undertake activities which will strengthen their applications to study at University. We hope that the pupils participating in JEM 2018 today will apply to join our Routes to the Professions: Medicine and Dentistry programmes in Year 12 which will continue to provide support to them as they undertake their A-levels.
BWAMS believe that the NHS is at its best when its’ workforce is representative of the patients it serves. JEM is just one of the activities run by BWAMS and their other activities also aim to raise the aspirations of pupils from groups currently underrepresented in healthcare professions. Each year they visit local schools and colleges to talk about their lives as students, to lead clinical skills activities and to provide advice about applying for healthcare degree courses at University. If you would like BWAMS to talk to your pupils please e-mail the MDS Outreach and Widening Participation Team (MDSOutreach@contacts.bham.ac.uk).
If you know of any Year 12 pupils who are thinking of apply for medicine in October 2019, next month BWAMS are running their first medical applications support day, the fantastically entitled, Dr.eam Conference. The conference is being held on Sunday 2nd December in the University of Birmingham Medical School. Pupils need to apply for the conference by Monday 26th November and they can find more details about the day and the application form here.
College of Medical and Dental Sciences Outreach and Widening Participation – find out more
