We made it - our first PubhD in Sheffield happened this week, and we were thrilled with the reception it got =D We even managed to get a cheeky appearance in the local news which was very exciting!
We enjoyed it so much, that we want to share the event with those who may have missed it or want to relive it again! Heres how it went down...
We hosted our evening at Harrisons 1854 Bar, in a cosy function room that had been beautifully littered with fairy lights ahead of our arrival =D
It soon became very cosy, as we had an incredible turn out with buckets of enthusiasm and open ears from our crowd =)
Our first speaker was Isobel Williams, a third year Neuroscience and Psychology student. She introduced us to the term 'Functional Neurological Symptoms' and the word Alexithymia - which we now know translates directly from Greek to mean 'no words for feelings'. She described how some people can have unexplained medical symptoms, and how this is considered to be a mysterious problem that originates in the brain and nervous system, but might also link to regulation of emotions. She likened this phenomenon to the idea of feeling queasy + having an increased heart rate when you get nervous - these obviously originate from your thoughts and feelings too, but are more commonly accepted as telltale signs! Isobel described how she was assessing patients and healthy controls with stress tests and how this could influence diagnoses or treatments in the future.
Our second speaker of the night was Billy Bryan, a third year Medical Education student, who is working with clinical teachers to improve the way we teach our medical students at the University of Sheffield. Billy explained that his sporting background made him realise that coaching techniques could be used for more things than just sport; by introducing methods that visualise goals (or in this case a medical procedure) supported with self-regulated feedback. He hopes to create an improved teaching method for clinical lectures and tutorials, enabling our future doctors to get the most out of their training, feeling confident with these procedures and their learning in the future.
Our final talk was from our very own co-organiser Emily Fisk! She spoke about the burden of Antimicrobial Resistance and how the Florey Institute, at the University of Sheffield, is working to try and find alternative treatments for antimicrobial resistant bacteria. By working with 'basic scientists' at the lab bench, through tissue cultures and animal models, and finally into patients, they hope to take their research from bed-to-bedside! She also spoke about her own work on the bacterium S. pneumoniae and its interaction with the body, finishing off with how she thinks our cellular metabolism could provide a way to boost our own natural immune responses!
We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who attended - we hope you had a wicked time! Also, a massive well done to all our speaker =D
If you would like to leave us some feedback or get involved in our future events, you can do so via the 'Contact Us' section of our webpage.
We look forward to seeing lots of you back (maybe with friends, colleagues or family members!) for our next event on Wednesday 7th December =D Hopefully see you all then!
Devon and Emily :)
