by Ashleigh Sahota, Undergraduate Medical Student
We attended the RCGP (Royal College of General Practitioners) annual conference in Liverpool, during the 3 days we learnt about not only being a GP but about patient communication and social health more widely. We submitted our project from the Year 3 Community Action Project and were so pleased that it got accepted for display at the conference. Our Community Action Project aimed to encourage patients to take more ownership of their medications and allergies. As well as talking about our project and answering spectators’ questions, we also attended a variety of talks about patient-centred communication, social inequalities of health and working effectively in groups. These talks gave me lots to think about in terms of medical school but also in my career and being a trustworthy Doctor. Also, it enabled me to think about General Practice in a new way as I met so many GPs who were doing such a wide range of things as part of their job for example: working in the military, working with a sports team, have a special interest in a particular field and being a Partner. This variety of choices has made me consider General Practice as something I would want to do in the future as well as GPs being directly involved with the community. A particular highlight for Sarah and I was the talk given by Professor Michael Marmot about his research into the inequalities of health in our society, this was very eye opening and made us reflect on things we haven’t thought about during medical school so far.