NHEHS Welcomes 120+ Students to Healthcare Conference & Careers Fair

10 May 2024 | Share:

Over 120 students from nine schools attended our Healthcare Conference last week, followed by the Healthcare Careers Fair.

The event kicked off with an excellent talk from Jeremy Jones, Assistant Head of Greenford High School and Founder of Learnus, who spoke about Neuroscience and the Adolescent brain. We also enjoyed informative and engaging talks from five experts on a wide variety of subjects:

Amanda O’Connor – Owner of Pitshanger Osteopathic Practice – Osteopathy and what we can learn from it
Ciara Gibb and Francis Lali – former Cardinal Wiseman Students, current Imperial College London PhD Students of Biomedical Engineering – about their research
Dr Gayathri Perera – Parent – Dermatology
Prof Jeremy Levy – former-Parent, Nephrologist and Professor of Medicine at Imperial – the Ethics of Organ Transplantation

Student groups comprising NHEHS pupils together with pupils from either Harrow School, Cardinal Wiseman School or Twyford CofE School presented on a variety of topics including ‘3D printed islet cells and Type 1 diabetes’, ‘technology in modern dentistry’, ‘GAMT deficiency’, ‘risk taking tendencies in adolescence’ and ‘biochemical pathways and drug metabolism.’ One student who presented, said of the opportunity, “I was able to present on a topic that was really interesting and this allowed me to improve my public speaking skills and collaborate with others. I also learnt a lot about dermatology and the ethics of organ donor, as well as learning about the brain which was something new to me.”

After the conference, students were able to take part in the Healthcare Careers Fair where they were able to network with speakers and nine additional healthcare professionals spanning cardiology, dermatology, osteopathy, physiotherapy, biomedical engineering, general practice, orthopaedic surgery, nephrology, anaesthesiology, psychiatry and more.

Mrs Bowness, who co-ordinated the event said, “Firstly, I would like to thank Ariana and Avi, MedSoc reps, who helped pull the event together. I would also like to thank the staff from other schools who gathered enthusiastic students to join us. We had a teacher from Greenford go so far as to deliver one of our talks! I also tapped into the Cardinal Wiseman alumnae pool for two more PhD Biomedical engineering students who delivered a fascinating talk about their research. Other speakers and careers fair participants were a collection of fantastic healthcare professionals from our pool of parents. It came together so nicely because so many people were willing to give up their time! We had over 120 students from 9 schools in attendance and seeing the students mingling during breaks and discussing ethics or anatomy during interactive parts of the talks was a delight.”

We had great feedback from attendees, who said:

“The conference helped me understand the process of application and how the work life is when being a doctor. I was also able to see different career paths that are not just linear in order to see the different opportunities. I was also able to network with others and gain great connections.”

“The conference was very engaging and informative. I really enjoyed the speakers interacting with us and not being like a “lecture”. The variety was eye opening.”

“I was able to learn more about different parts of the brain and their function and development away from the curriculum.”

“It allowed me to explore different job options that I didn’t know as much about before, and was a fun way to hear people’s personal interests/career paths.”

A big thank you to all our speakers, healthcare professionals, staff and students from Cardinal Wiseman School, Twyford CofE School, Greenford High School, Harrow School, Elthorne Park High School, Northwood College for Girls GDST, Blackheath High School GDST and Northolt High school.