Presenting at a national conference.

Amardeep Sidki, Student, Leicester Medical School

Amardeep attended the Advance HE Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Conference in March 2022 and presented with fellow MedRACE student Divine Maduka.

I attended the Advance HE EDI conference in Manchester. This was my first time attending and presenting at a conference so I was definitely nervous about the entire experience. However, not surprisingly, the entire day was fantastic. We started by meeting with other people who had a key interest in EDI issues, over a huge selection of food. This provided the perfect learning opportunity to understand how they have overcome some problems within their own field, and how MedRACE can adapt these to help us. 

The way the floor was set out, allowed for us to do this whilst presenting our poster about MedRACE. Having an open conversation about MedRACE and some of the projects we have done, highlighted how our projects are much needed. People resonated with the issues we raised and this was fantastic to see. We attended talks throughout the day presented by staff and students. Seeing how EDI issues manifest amongst all specialties and departments consolidated the need for continuing to challenge current standards to meet EDI requirements. It was inspiring to see how much development many institutes around the country have made to adapt inclusive practice, by considering the needs of many groups.

We ended the day by presenting an overview of MedRACE and three of our key projects, and answering their questions. As our audience were from a non medical background, it was interesting to see their perspective on some of the issues which still exist within this field. Our question and answer session really opened up themes of discrimination, but sparked a lot of interest for future collaboration.

I was nervous to present, however through the support of my colleagues at MedRACE and the reassurance provided by the audience, I felt much more relieved than I initially did. Overall, the entire conference allowed me to learn from like minded individuals and really understand the depththat EDI issues matter to everybody.