The Department of Medicine sponsors three rounds of travel awards every year for PhD students, allowing them to attend conferences to travel and present their work.
We heard from two recent winners, Anjali Amin and Amandip Bisel, about their experiences attending international conferences with the help of DoM Travel Awards funding.
Anjali Amin
I attended ENDO 2018 in Chicago. It was a fantastic opportunity, and the first international conference I was able to attend as part of my PhD. I was presenting a poster entitled “Identifying the Metabolites Responsible for Mediating the Effects of Macronutrients On Gastrointestinal Hormone Release and Glucose Homeostasis”. I was able to network with other people in the same field of research as myself, and established some new contacts, with whom hopefully I may be able to collaborate with in the future. I was able to attend many of the plenary lectures, and also a number of “Meet The Professor” sessions, which were highly stimulating and educational at the same time. This travel grant was essential in allowing me to attend the largest endocrine conference in the world, with many international attendees.
Amandip Bisel
The Department of Medicine kindly provided funds to support my attendance at the International Selection in the Health Professions Conference in Melbourne, Australia. I presented my early research findings on the challenges of widening access to medical education in a plenary session on the final day of the conference. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, including a number of follow ups from delegates and some positive recommendations for taking my work forward.
Highlights from the conference included a keynote session from Professor Sandra Nicholson entitled “diversifying the medical workforce requires a step change in WP.” I came away from the conference with lots of ideas on how to shape my research in the context of the current climate. In particular I benefitted greatly from having the opportunity to meet and discuss issues, findings and research directions with people that have notable experience in the medical education field.
I am hugely grateful to the Department for providing funds to support my attendance at this conference which has been very helpful to my research.