Leicesters social media superstar welcomes robot to the medical school

The winner of a national competition to find education’s social media superstars has welcomed a robot named Sanbot Elf to our medical school.

Jisc, the UK’s education technology charity that ran the awards to celebrate innovative use of social media in education, selected Dr Vikas Shah, Academic champion in clinical radiology at our University and a consultant radiologist at Leicester’s Hospitals, as one of just ten winners from across the country.

As well as the kudos of winning, Vikas, and medical students and junior doctors in the MedRIFT society in Leicester Medical School (Medical Research into Future Technologies) received a visit from Jisc’s Digilab: a hands-on educational technology experience, with brain reading and virtual reality included. As well as demonstrating how the technology is currently being used in other areas of education, the Diglilab visit has inspired the group to develop novel applications to enhance medical education and healthcare.

 Following the Digilab visit, Vikas said of the project: “I won the award for demonstrating how social media can be used to deliver impactful medical education on a large scale. As an enthusiastic user of technology in medical education, I am very excited by the ideas being generated within the MedRIFT society, and how tools such as Virtual or Augmented Reality and 3D printing can be used to enhance the quality of teaching and learning, and improve outcomes in healthcare.”