Category: Conferences and meetings

Monthly update from the Institute of Global Health Innovation

News and events

The impact of conflict in healthcare

IGHI’s May Forum gathered to discussed how healthcare is impacted by conflict.

Call for applicants for an early careers med tech workshop in China

Apply for an all expenses paid trip to China for a workshop on mental health technologies organised by the Hamlyn Centre.

Register now – Health Technology Assessment Toolkit consultation

Registration is open to join the International Decision Support Initiative’s Health Technology Assessment Toolkit consultation process.

IGHI Podcast

Healthcare amongst conflict

In this month’s podcast from the Institute of Global Health Innovation, we speak to Dr Esmita Charani, Senior Lead Pharmacist, Faculty of Medicine and Dr Emily Mayhew, Visiting Researcher and Imperial’s lead on the Paediatric Blast Injury Partnership.

Upcoming events

Register now – International Robotics Showcase in Liverpool

Registration now open for International Robotics Showcase in Liverpool. One-day showcase and speaker programme to highlight latest robotics innovation, to be held during International Business Festival. (more…)

CATO Research Symposium: Call for Abstracts

Submit an abstract

For the CATO Research Symposium research symposium taking on 27 June we are delighted that we will be joined by Professor Eric Alton, Chair of Respiratory Medicine and Gene Therapy at Imperial. He will be talking about his pioneering research which has evolved from understanding the basic pathophysiology of cystic fibrosis, through mice models into human gene therapy: an exquisite clinical academic research career for you all to emulate!

The research symposium is a key part of your clinical academic training/research career development – exposing you to a wider range of research than in your day-to-day work, giving you an opportunity to think of novel collaborations, techniques, and research questions, and see how you can develop a clinical academic career. You should attend if you are an Academic Foundation Doctor, ACF, in a clinical research training fellowship/PhD, CL or other post-doctoral researcher, or a non-medical clinical academic. The afternoon will include research presentations, the keynote presentation, posters and networking opportunities with colleagues and the CATO team.

We encourage you all to submit a research abstract, and there will be PRIZES for the best oral presentations and for the best research poster. This year we encourage you to think about your use of plain English when presenting your research for a non-clinical, non-scientific audience, and of course lay explanations are now needed on all grant and fellowship applications, so the practice is invaluable.

Abstracts must be submitted on the following template.

All submitted abstracts must include a plain English summary (125 words max, see guidance sheet) and we will offer an ADDITIONAL PRIZE for the very best.

Send your abstracts using the attached template to cato@imperial.ac.uk. We will advise you if you have been selected to give an oral presentation or to display a poster by early June. We are open for abstract submissions until 10.00hrs on Tuesday 29 May 2018.

Attend the CATO Research Symposium

Wednesday 27 June 2018, 13.00-18.30, W12 Conference Centre, Hammersmith Hospital

Please book a place ASAP for the symposium using the online booking form.

News from the Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS)

Using Simulation to Understand your Business

In November 2017 the ICCESS team delivered a Sequential Simulation to a group of delegates from the UAE government undertaking a Public Sector Innovation Diploma with Imperial College Business School’s Executive Education Centre.

The simulation featured a re-enactment of a patient journey through the UK healthcare system. After watching the workshop, participants were encouraged to suggest improvements and draw parallels with their own work environments.

A fascinating video of the simulation has been released and can be viewed on YouTube:

Simulation for Learning: Faculti videos

Centre Director, Prof Roger Kneebone, was interviewed for a series of short videos for the Faculti.net website talking about ICCESS’ work in developing and using simulation for a variety of purposes, including surgical education. The videos can be viewed here: https://faculti.net/learning-simulated-environment/

Royal Academy Schools Guest Lecture

Professor Roger Kneebone recently gave a guest lecture at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House. Prof Kneebone’s talk, part of the Royal Academy Schools lecture programme, focused on his interest in exploring the parallels between surgery and creative disciplines such as craft and performance.

Prof Roger Kneebone with present (and past?) members of the Royal Academy Schools team

Medical Education Research Unit launches 2018 programme

The Faculty of Medicine Medical Education Research Unit (MERU) launches its 2018 programme of events today, and all are invited to the launch event this evening to find out more about MERU’s work and to network with current members.

Medical Education Research Unit event

Now entering its fourth year, MERU conducts and supports innovative educational research activity to evaluate and enhance Imperial’s teaching and curriculum.

It aims to build a community, including both staff and students, uniting them through an interest in medical education research. Made up of a multidisciplinary group of staff from Imperial, its NHS partners and sister unit at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine in Singapore, the Unit also recruits and encourages interested students to become involved in existing research projects and to consider conducting their own research.

The Unit also supports members by offering financial support to those attending medical education conferences, and advises on ways to develop research questions into feasible studies that yield publishable data, as well as guidance on ethics applications.

Over the past three years, MERU has funded more than a dozen original research projects, made 64 travel awards allowing members to attend conferences, and delivered monthly meetings and workshops to small groups of interested staff. The Unit also offers one-to-one support to any members requiring it, and brings together those with similar research interests to allow them to assist and advise one another in their various projects. (more…)

Mr Chris Lattimer receives Award of Excellence at the Congress of Phlebology 2017

We wish to congratulate Mr Christopher Lattimer, Honorary Consultant from the West London Vascular and Interventional Centre, for his lecture on discord outcomes on the anterior accessory saphenous vein 5-year results at the 15th Romanian Congress of Phlebology 2017 held in Timisoara. The photograph is of him receiving the certificate of excellence (right) from Professor Sorin Olariu (left), who is the head of the department at ”Victor Babeș” Timișoara, Romania. Mr Lattimer from the Josef Pflug Vascular Laboratory, Ealing Hospital & Imperial College, recommended in his presentation that the discord outcome analysis (DOA) should become part of the reporting standard of all randomised clinical trials on superficial venous intervention. Currently, only successful outcomes are reported in isolation which may give misleading information. Highlighting the discrepancies when one outcome is in disagreement with another outcome will provide transparency. This is an outcome currently lacking from all RCTs on superficial venous intervention.

Division of Infectious Diseases PhD Student Symposium

Scientific conferences are an essential mechanism for the communication of scientific findings, career networking and collaboration. However, there is no formal training for conferences and opportunities to attend such meetings are often strictly limited due to their high cost.

Therefore, to help students within the Division of Infectious Diseases (DID) acquire conference experience, a PhD Student Away Day was organised with funding support from the supplies company Qiagen. The event took place on 30 November 2017 at LT2 Wolfson Education Centre, Hammersmith Campus.

In total 85 students attended the day, including participants from each Section within DID based on four campuses. To create the atmosphere of a student-led conference, the only academics present were Professor Charles Bangham (Head, DID), Principle Investigators who voted for the best presentation and poster, and co-organisers Dr Sophie Helaine and Dr Nathalie MacDermott. This helped to ensure that students were able to ask questions and lead discussions, which can sometimes be dominated by senior academics at national or international conferences.   (more…)

Patient Safety Translational Research Centre Annual Symposium

On the 23 November, the NIHR Imperial Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (PSTRC) together with NHS Improvement co-hosted the Fifth Annual NIHR Imperial PSTRC Symposium at the Royal Academy of Engineering. The exciting programme included keynote speaker Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Health.

There was a clear theme throughout the day of patients, carers and the public being equal partners with researchers, healthcare professionals and policy-makers (who were all represented in the audience). Jono Broad, Patient Leader (Q Community), did a truly inspiring talk about how care should be patient-centred and good leadership, culture, quality improvement, human factors and technological advancements are all essential elements to improve patient safety. (more…)

Ylenia Perone awarded registration grant

Ylenia Perone, clinician and PhD student has been awarded a registration grant from the Society for Endocrinology to attend the conference SfE BES 2017.

Held in November in Harrogate, this annual conference brings together experts from both the clinical and scientific field working on endocrine diseases and hormone-dependent tumours.

Ylenia is working on oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer in Dr. Luca Magnani’s group in the Department of Surgery and Cancer. Dr Sheba Jarvis, working in Bevan’s group in the same Department is an active member of the Society for Endocrinology and she sponsored Ylenia for this registration grant. (more…)

Janet Powell Honorary Lecture at ESVS 2017

Janet Powell, Professor of Vascular Biology & Medicine in the Department of Surgery & Cancer, recently delivered the first Janet Powell Honorary Lecture at the European Society for Vascular Surgery Congress 2017 – the first of a series of annual lectures in honour of Janet’s contributions to the subject.

Held in Lyon in September, Janet’s lecture at the annual meeting focused on evidence-based vascular surgery. Janet will also be giving the British Journal of Surgery invited lecture at the annual meeting of the Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland on 24 November in Manchester. (more…)

ICCESS update: International Symposium on Performance Science

International Symposium on Performance Science

Professor Roger Kneebone has recently returned from the highly successful biennial International Symposium on Performance Science (ISPS), hosted in Reykjavik’s iconic Harpa opera house. The conference, jointly led by Professor Aaron Williamon (co-director with Roger of the Royal College of Music-Imperial Centre for Performance Science) and the classical guitarist Professor, Petur Jonasson, brought together academics and practitioners from dance, music, medicine and other disciplines. (more…)

MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS) update

Irene Miguel-Aliaga and Alessandro Mineo

EMBO Election

Professor Irene Miguel-Aliaga, group head at the MRC LMS, has been elected a member of the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO). “This is a highlight of my career and I’m really pleased,” she said. In further EMBO-related success, Alessandro Mineo a postdoc in Miguel-Aliaga’s lab, has been awarded an EMBO Long Term Fellowship – to find out more about changes in the gut during pregnancy.

Holly Newton
Holly Newton

A hat trick of success for cancer researcher

It has been one success after another for PhD student Holly Newton of the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (MRC LMS) recently. First, Newton won a travel grant to attend a conference in Japan. Once there she won the poster competition. On returning home she presented her poster at the LMS retreat, and again scooped the institute’s “Rosa Beddington” poster prize. (more…)

World Haptics 2017

A conference delegate is talked through a demonstration of the device by Luc Maréchal
A conference delegate is talked through a demonstration of the device by Luc Maréchal

World Haptics is a major conference on technology that recreates the sense of touch, and is attended by research groups from the US, Japan, Korea and the UK, some of the leading countries behind this emergent branch of science.

Dr Fernando Bello and Dr Luc Maréchal of the SiMMS group within the Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) attended the conference to showcase the latest developments of the Digital Rectal Examination Haptics Trainer (DiRECT) project.  The team have been working on technology to simulate assessment of sphincter tone; very important to a clinician carrying out an examination on a patient, but something that is not currently part of any existing training device. Dr Bello and Dr Maréchal presented a poster with two different approaches to simulate sphincter tone, one using cables and the other employing a soft pneumatic actuator.  They also demonstrated each prototype so that conference delegates could see – and feel – the technology for themselves. (more…)

WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training update

Advanced Leadership Course in Dubrovnik, Croatia

CroatiaIn partnership with Zagreb Institute for the Culture of Health, WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training will be delivering the Advanced Leadership course in Dubrovnik, Croatia from 5-12 August 2017.

The course will be held in InterUniversity Centre, in the centre of Dubrovnik.

It is aimed at: Policy makers, health managers, heads of clinical and administrative departments, health professionals with an interest in management, and other interested stakeholders. It is an interactive training whereby participants are inspired but also challenged and allowed space for self reflection and development.
(more…)

The Society for Academic Primary Care – Madingley Hall 2017

SAPC Madingley Hall 2017The GP teaching team were well represented at the SAPC Madingley conference, presenting on a range of educational innovations and research from within the department and beyond (see below for details). Following on from Dr David Hirsh’s keynote talk on longitudinal integrated clerkships, some of the Integrated Clinical Apprenticeship team from Imperial  (Dr Andy McKeown, Dr Arabella Simpkin and Dr Ravi Parekh) ran an interactive and engaging workshop to explore the evidence for this model of learning and to consider to practicalities of designing and delivering such a model. Ms Giskin Day (Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication), Dr Ros Herbert and Dr Emma Metters also ran a workshop onArts and Minds: using creative practice in the curriculum to enhance reflection, skills and knowledge’. (more…)

Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) update

Asia Haptics 2016

The SiMMS group within the Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) presented a paper at Asia Haptics 2016 relating to their haptic Digital Rectal Examination (DRE) Trainer.   Asia Haptics features a new format that consists of interactive demonstrations presented over the two day duration of the conference, with a brief explanation of the work projected live on to the main viewing screen.

The SiMMS team presented a paper entitled ‘Relax and Tighten – a Haptics-based Approach to Simulate Sphincter Tone Assessment’. The haptic DRE Trainer uses metal wires, controlled by motors, to tighten and relax a silicone sphincter around the user’s finger. (more…)

Department of Primary Care and Public Health update

Awards for Teaching Excellence for NHS Teachers

This event took place on Wednesday 16 November at the Drewe Lecture Theatre and was a chance for all our valued NHS teachers to be recognised for all the hard work they put into teaching our medical students. Primary Care was represented by Dr Beena Gohil, who won a Teaching Excellence Award.

Also featured was the inaugural lecture of Professor Mark Nelson, Lead of HIV services at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital – “Patient Zero to PrEP: HIV past, present and future”. (more…)

Monthly update from the Institute of Global Health Innovation


Recent activities

The first Global Health Forum of the year took place on 20 October on Big Data Decision Support. The event discussed big data in medicine and healthcare and the best ways we can use what is available. Watch the full event here.

On 17 November we had our second Global Health Forum focusing on ‘Water and health’. Speakers included Dr Alexander Webb, Simon De Stercke, Dr Pauline Scheelbeek and Dr Michael Templeton covering a range in issues related to water such as salinity in drinking water and sanitation.

Latest IGHI Blog articles

Practitioner and patient-targeted interventions to address excessive antibiotic use

By Dr Olga Kostopoulou, Reader in Medical Decision Making and Professor Brendan Delaney, Chair in Medical Informatics and Decision Making at Imperial College London

Introducing ‘Exosonic’, a new device to combat pancreatic cancer

By Student Challenges Competition 2015/16 Audience Choice Award winners, Antonios Chronopoulos and Tyler Lieberthal

What is the role of social media in health policy?

By Sabine Vuik, Policy Fellow and Head of Analytics, Centre for Health Policy, Institute of Global Health Innovation

The State of Diabetes in 2016

By Professor Desmond Johnston, Vice Dean (Education) for the Faculty of Medicine atImperial College London

BIOTOPE (BIOmarkers TO diagnose PnEumonia)

By Dr John O’Donoghue, Senior Lecturer in eHealth & Deputy Director of Imperial’s Global eHealth Unit

Putting TB to the test: My journey so far

By Harriet Gliddon, winner of the IGHI Student Challenges Competition 2015-16

THET Annual Conference – Rethinking International Health Partnerships

By Hamdi Issa, PhD Candidate, Institute of Global Health Innovation

Director for the BDAU interviews the founder of the Open Data Science Conference in London

By Joshua Symons, Policy Fellow, Big Data & Analyitcal Unit, Centre for Health Policy


Write for us

We are always on the lookout for new bloggers.  If you would like to write for our blog, please get in touch with the IGHI Communications Manager, Jo, at j.seed@imperial.ac.uk

Nikita Rathod
Communications and Events Assistant
IGHI

WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training

Imperial/WHO CC Alumni reunion in Riyadh

Professor Salman Rawaf hosted a gathering for Imperial MPH and PhD alumni as well as WHO CC Fellowship Alumni currently residing in Riyadh on the 13th October at the Hilton Double Tree in Riyadh. Attending the gathering was DR. Amal Hassanein, Ms Johara Al Saud, DR Turki Bin Moammer, Dr Thamer Al-Ohali, and Dr Ahmed Al Mujil.

Visit to King Abdul Aziz University College of Medicine, Jeddah

Professor Salman Rawaf and Dr Sondus Hassounah visited the King Abdul Aziz University College of Medicine in  Jeddah on 9 October and were hosted by Professor Waleed Melaat to discuss cross university research collaboration.

Focus Group Discussions in Riyadh, Jeddah, Tabuk, Dammam, and Abha

In collaboration with the Saudi Health Council (the coordinating body for the integration between the various health authorities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia), Professor Salman Rawaf and Dr Sondus Hassounah conducted five focus group discussions, over a period of two weeks (3 – 14 October), as part of the larger project to develop a national strategy for the development of Health Protection in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The team from Imperial College London’s WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training(Ms Christina Banks, Ms Alex Swaka, Mr Mohamed Al Saffar, Dr Sondus Hassounah, and Professor Salman Rawaf) have been involved in the project since its inception in early 2016 and have been working with their counter parts in Saudi Arabia on the multi-pronged project which includes a desk review of model country case studies, focus group discussions with relevant stakeholders, a nationally representative survey with 5,500 of the public, and in-depth interviews with policy makers.

The project is expected to continue till mid-2017 when the results will be shared and discussed with the Saudi Health Council and other partners in Saudi Arabia.

Mashael Al Sheikh: Systematic Review on Women and Cardiovascular Risks in KSA

Congratulations to Ms Mashael Al Sheikh, PhD student at the Imperial WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education & Training, for her Systematic Review on Women and Cardiovascular Risks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is available for viewing here.

The article has significant public health implications and more results will be available shortly on the impact on culture (beliefs, behaviour etc) on health.

Health policies and family physicians alike should aim to address some of these issues outside the disease model.

Leadership in Health- National Primary Care Services, Kuwait

The WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training hosted Dr Rihab Wotayan (Managing Director for the National Primary Care Services in Kuwait) to discuss future collaboration with the centre and the department of Primary care and Public Health at Imperial. Dr Rihab and her team are interested in working with WHO CC to develop the capacity of, and train, their local health workforce, particularly in ‘Leadership in Health’. Dr Rihab is also keen to expand on the success of their recent investment in Primary Care doctors in the Kingdom and potentially send some of Kuwait’s GP trainees to take part in WHO CC 1-2 year post graduate research fellowship.

For the picture–Left to right: Professor Salman Rawaf (Director WHO CC), Dr Rihab Wotayan (Managing Director for the National Primary Care Services in Kuwait), Dr Sondus Hassounah (Teaching Fellow, WHO CC), Dr Weiam Ahmed (Honorary lecturer WHO CC).

Welcome to WHO CC Post-Graduate fellow Dr Abdulaziz Alqahtani

WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training was joined on 1st October by Dr Abdulaziz Alqahtani from Saudi Arabia. Dr Abdulaziz is a senior Registrar in Family Medicine at the Prince Sultan Military Medical City and will be following his postgraduate fellowship till end of August next year.

Ela Augustyniak
WHO Collaborating Centre for Public Health Education and Training

Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) update

rlk-w-philip-dilley-copy
Sir Philip Dilley visit to ICCESS

The Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) recently hosted a visit from Sir Philip Dilley, Chair of Imperial’s governing Council. Sir Philip learned of ICCESS’ work in combining medical simulation with innovative approaches to engagement after meeting Centre Director Prof Roger Kneebone at a reception at South Kensington earlier this year.

Sir Philip graduated from Imperial with a First in Civil Engineering in 1976, and spent much of his engineering career with the Arup Group where he was Executive Chairman from 2009 to 2014. ‘A lot has changed at Imperial College since the late 70’s,’ says Sir Philip, ‘and one of the most impressive changes is the amount of cross-departmental collaboration and research.’ Much of the work of ICCESS brings together diverse teams, in one case even exploring lacemaking techniques to learn how to better manage threads during complex surgery.

As part of the visit, Sir Philip got to try his hand at open abdominal surgery – albeit in simulated form! The experience opened his eyes to how powerful simulation can be. ‘My total immersion and focus on the surgical task at hand meant that I hadn’t noticed any of the other activities going on around me, let alone the wellbeing of the patient. And I’d only been given the ‘surgery-lite’ experience without gowns or blood.’

ICCESS at the North West London Simulation Conference

ICCESS played a major role at the North West London Simulation Conference on 21 September 2016. The conference brought together delegates with an interest in simulation delivery and development from a wide range of professions, including doctors, nurses, scientists and technicians.

Dr Tanika Kelay, Dr Miranda Kronfli and Sharon-Marie Weldon demonstrated some of ICCESS’ simulation equipment and environments including their ‘simbulance’ and catheterisation lab. Sharon and Miranda also delivered two workshops in which they demonstrated ICCESS’ approach to multi-disciplinary simulation through the use of Actor Network Theory with an emphasis on the design process itself, using some of their recent research to highlight how this differs from current practice. Centre Director Prof Roger Kneebone was one of the keynote speakers and explained how ICCESS are reframing simulation as a means of engaging with different audiences to drive innovation in healthcare.

The conference was very well-attended and the team reported that delegates found ICCESS’ work interesting and inspiring. The experience has generated a great deal of interest in the Centre’s ongoing projects with several new contacts who are keen to be involved thus building on ICCESS’s growing network of collaborators.

Simulation Reframed

A recent publication by Prof Kneebone provides further support for simulation as a powerful means of engaging with publics, patients and experts outside medicine. Simulation Reframed has been published in the Advances in Simulation journal and can be read here.

Duncan Boak
Centre Manager
Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science

Institute of Global Health Innovation (IGHI) update

IGHI

Jo Seed
Communications Manager
Institute of Global Health Innovation

Eurohaptics 2016

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Imperial College London was the host of Eurohaptics 2016, the main international European conference for researchers in haptics and touch-enabled computer applications. The conference was held at South Kensington over 4-7 July 2016 and was organised by Imperial College London in partnership with University College London, University of Reading, University of Bristol and University of Birmingham.

Eurohaptics 2016 was a great opportunity for researchers – drawn from disciplines such as neuroscience, psychology and robotics – to meet and present their work with the goal of improving understanding of the sense of touch from a physiological and perceptual perspective, devising new haptic devices and investigating better ways of controlling and interacting with them.

Haptics is a growing field, with awareness amongst the wider public also on the rise thanks to the increasing use of haptic technology in mobile devices. Eurohaptics 2016 included public-focused evening events at the Royal Society and Royal Institution.

Imperial College’s Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS) played a leading role in the conference, with Centre Director Dr Fernando Bello as both Programme co-Chair and local co-Chair, and Dr Alejandro Granados-Martinez showcasing the haptic rectal examination trainer he has developed. His innovative device attracted a great deal of media coverage over the conference period, with articles in the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and Vice Magazine, to name a few.

Keynote speakers at Eurohaptics 2016 included Professor Stephen Brewster (University of Glasgow), Dr Henrik Jörntell (Lund University, Sweden) and Professor Blake Hannaford (University of Washington, USA), who acknowledged challenges in the design of haptic devices and how we could improve this by studying brain circuitry during tactile skin sensing and by enhancing the way we interact with them.

Eurohaptics 2016 was attended by nearly 400 delegates from 26 countries and was therefore the largest event in the history of the conference.

Read about the rectal examination trainer on the Daily Telegraph website.

Listen to Guardian Science Weekly podcast on haptics featuring Dr Fernando Bello.

Duncan Boak
Centre Manager
Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science

Eurohaptics 2016

Haptic technology is a term that you might not be familiar with, although you probably make use of it on a daily basis. Haptics is the science of using the sense of touch to interact with computer applications, whether this is swiping the screen on your smartphone or using a sophisticated haptic simulator to practice a complex medical procedure.

ICCESS prototype haptic simulator for rectal examinations
ICCESS prototype haptic simulator for rectal examinations

Imperial College London is hosting Eurohaptics 2016, a major international conference on haptic technologies, on 4– 7 July. The conference is a partnership between a number of academic institutions and the Eurohaptics Society.

The Simulation and Modelling in Medicine and Surgery (SiMMS) research group, part of the Imperial College Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS), are participating in Eurohaptics 2016 and helping with its local organisation. Dr Fernando Bello, who leads the SiMMS group and is a joint Director of ICCESS, is Programme Co-chair and Local Co-chair.

One strand of ICCESS’ work is the research and development of pioneering haptic devices for clinical simulations. See https://www.imperial.ac.uk/simms/ for further information.

ICCESS researchers work closely with Eurohaptics sponsor, Generic Robotics (www.genericrobotics.com). The Centre’s collaboration with Generic Robotics is taking research developed at ICCESS through to commercialisation. Projects include a haptically enabled simulator for training surgeons to perform advanced endoscopic surgical procedures and a system for training clinicians to perform unsighted internal examinations.

In addition to showcasing the latest advances in haptics and bringing together world-renowned experts, Eurohaptics includes opportunities for the general public to learn and engage with this emergent technology through events at the Royal Institution and Royal Society.

The Ri Lates event ‘Touch and Go’ takes place on Friday 8 July. Visit the link below for more information and to book tickets.

http://www.rigb.org/whats-on/events-2016/july/lates-touch-and-go

Duncan Boak
Centre Manager
Department of Surgery and Cancer

ICCESS simulation event for the More Smiles Appeal

PICUICCESS have once again been supporting the More Smiles Appeal, by delivering a simulation event at Wetherby Preparatory School on 2nd February 2016. Funds raised on the night will contribute towards the redevelopment and expansion of the paediatric intensive care unit at St Mary’s Hospital. The simulation featured a team of clinicians from the unit demonstrating the high level of care they provide despite the constraints they are placed under in terms of space.

ICCESS are pioneers of Sequential Simulation, which is the physical re-enactment of a patients care pathway through the healthcare system. It utilises real clinicians and clinical props to provide expertise and context to the issues being explored.   ICCESS’ Sharon-Marie Weldon, who has developed the concept and successfully designed and delivered numerous simulation events, has seen first-hand how Sequential Simulation serves as a valuable means of engaging people with the world of medicine: ‘Sequential Simulation is a way of utilising the benefits of simulation to recreate aspects of care, but with a much wider scope, creating a juxtaposition of the healthcare system that can be used for a variety of objectives; education and training, evaluation, care re-design, quality improvement, and patient and public engagement – as we saw with the More Smiles Appeal event’.

To hear more about the More Smiles Appeal contact Maurice O’Connor on 02033125696 or to donate to the appeal, please visit www.moresmiles.org.uk


 

  • In November 2016, Professor Roger Kneebone was invited to participate in a 2-day colloquium in Bern, convened by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) to formulate a national strategy for skills and simulation in health care in Switzerland. The colloquium brought together the University of Bern, the University of Applied Sciences Bern, the University of Health Sciences of the Canton of Vaud (HESAV), and the Bern Centre of Higher Education of Nursing.

    As one of two invited international experts, Roger presented his perspective on simulation and health policy within the UK and internationally. This included research on hybrid, distributed and sequential simulation within Imperial’s Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science – work which has now become embedded in the curriculum of the Bern Centre of Higher Education of Nursing.

  • Clinical Research Fellow Laura Coates was recently invited to be a visiting speaker at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. Laura gave an hour-long Grand Round presentation to the whole of the surgical department, followed by meetings with a number of members of staff and a session with the University’s postgraduate surgical students. Laura talked about some of ICCESS’ public engagement work, including events focusing on the effects of knife crime and the recent Time Travelling Operating Theatre that featured in last month’s FoM newsletter. Laura’s visit was very well-received, with staff and students commenting on the interesting and unusual nature of ICCESS’ work.

      PhD Viva Success

  • Two of ICCESS’ students, Alejandro Granados-Martinez and Przemyslaw Korzeniowski, have successfully defended their PhDs on consecutive days. Their respective work on ‘Modelling and Simulation of Flexible Instruments for Minimally Invasive Surgical Training in Virtual Reality’ and ‘Haptics-based Simulation Tools for Teaching and Learning Digital Rectal Examinations’ was highly praised by the examiners, with only very minor corrections to be made to their dissertations.

 

For more information about Imperial College’s Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science (ICCESS), please contact Duncan Boak: D.Boak@imperial.ac.uk

 

Department of Public Health and Primary Care researchers present at the European Conference for Public Health

Dr Raffaele Palladino, Miss Kiara Chang and Mr Thomas Hone at the European Public Health Conference in Milan October 2015.Three Researchers from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care presented their research at the European Conference for Public Health in Milan in October.

Kiara Chang presented her work on the Impact of the NHS Health Check on global cardiovascular risk, individual risk factors and prescribing. Dr Raffaele Palladino presented his work on the Association between Framingham Risk Score and work limitations in health surveillance. Lastly, Thomas Hone presented his work on The Introduction of Family Medicine in Turkey 2005-2013.

The conference was an excellent opportunity to showcase the work of the School of Public Health at an international level, as well as enjoying some Italian culture and food!

Thomas Hone
Research Postgraduate
Department of Public Health and Primary Care