Manchester instrumental in Widening Participation Conference for medical students

Manchester students and junior doctors played a key role in a recent Widening Participation Conference for medical students.

The event saw 96 students and staff from 36 medical schools in the UK sharing insights and working together to develop innovative approaches to Widening Participation.

The conference builds on the success of the National Medical Schools’ Widening Participation Forum. The University has played a leading role in the forum since it was created in 2015, by Dr Enam Haque, Clinical Senior Lecturer and Widening Participation Lead, and Helen Franklin, Widening Participation and Student Experience Manager in the Division of Medical Education.

The forum aims to develop collaborative work between widening participation teams in different medical schools in the UK and 21 medical schools, the GMC and UKCAT are current members. The Widening Participation Conference was planned by students and junior doctors on the forum’s student working group including Charlotte Auty, a 4th year medical student and President of Manchester Outreach Medics (MOMS), and Dr Ben Ryan, the founder of MOMS and now an FY1 doctor. 

Dr Enam Haque said: “This was an opportunity to utilise the most important resource we have in widening participation work, the students. I was impressed by their level of enthusiasm, engagement and commitment in making and then delivering a conference from scratch.”

The success of the conference has further established Manchester as a leading institution for widening participation in medicine and the MSC have invited the National Medical Schools’ Widening Participation Forum to design and deliver the conference again in 2019.