Our Events

Hello everyone!

We're halfway through the year, and with formatives and assessments on the horizon, it's easy to get caught up in a toxic spiral of comparison and competition. Competition has its perks, yet all too often, it can develop into harmful behaviours and thoughts. Coming into an environment like the medical school where so many high achievers are packed together can easily result in this toxic mentality.

Join us as we discuss what unhealthy (and healthy) competition looks like and what we can do to combat it. We'll have a few students speak about their thoughts and experiences on the topic, as well as a member of the UCLMS Support team to share a little wisdom.

Looking forward to seeing you all then!

With love,
Your Medics4Medics Committee

This Christmas, Medics4Medics are excited to bring you some holiday cheer. We are proud to present Kindness by Post.

As a society, we want to do all we can to unite UCLMS, join us by signing up and being randomly allocated to a fellow member of UCLMS and send them an (anonymous) message of kindness!

You will have a 4 week window from 21st December til 21st Jan to send your message so please do sign up !!

Enrolment opens next Monday (14th December!), so keep your eyes peeled and your hearts kind

Sign up here: https://forms.gle/SLGo4BefJoeGYijU7

Hi everyone,

Hope you are well! This Movember, M4M wants to focus on Men’s Mental Health and why it matters. Come join us on zoom to listen to Kenny Aruwa- a Student Support and Wellbeing Advisor. As one of the few men on the Mental Health side of his team, men’s mental health is an issue close to his heart. With three times as many men than women dying from suicide, we all have a responsibility to continue the conversation and learn more about what we can do. We would love for you to join us on the 30th November from 6-7:30 to learn more and ask your questions!

With love,
M4M

Hello friends,

Come along for our online peer navigator training day on the 21st of November! ✨

Our peer navigators are people who our fellow students can turn to when going through a tough time. We'll equip you with the confidence to have sensitive conversations and the knowledge of the support systems available to students, both in and out of university.

We have resources from Rethink Mental Illness and speakers from UCL Student Support and Wellbeing and UCL Student Psychological and Counselling Support. We will also run through a few scenarios so you guys can get a little experience with the sort of interactions that you might have.

These insights help to support not just our peers, but our friends too! Uni does get tough and we could all use a bit of support at times - this is your chance to be a wonderful friend. 🤓

We will also be providing certificates to those who train as a peer navigator and engage with M4M, because you guys deserve it for being utter champs.

You can sign up for the event (and further involvement with M4M if you wish) using this form:
https://forms.gle/zQ9qfYS3TwxVMx5i6

Looking forward to seeing you then!


Lotsa love,
Your Medics4Medics Committee

Our next event is focussing on Student experiences of loneliness in medical school. We will be creating a safe and inclusive space, having students share their experiences of loneliness and we will also host our special guest, Dr Farhana Mann who is a Psychiatrist at UCL. She will be discussing the impact of loneliness on our mental health and will also be answering your questions.

If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch! We hope to see you there :)

Hi everyone!

Medics4Medics are proud to present our fascinating second digital event, which will be looking at the relationship between mindfulness and meditation, and mental health. In the first half of the session Research Assistant Marco Schlosser will be giving a talk on the variable experiences that individuals have with meditation, and what factors influence these. Following this there will be a guided mindfulness meditation session led by Niraj Mulji. Niraj has approached meditation from a more spiritual perspective and has been practising for 3-4 years alongside a career in Investment Management.

Please come along from 6-7:30pm on Thursday 10th September for what promises to be both a fascinating and really useful event. In light of everything going on in the world, taking a bit of time to practise mindfulness and refocus may be just what we all need! And as with all of our Medics4Medics events, it is completely free. Hope to see you there!

*Please feel free to drop in at any time & leave earlier if needed!*

Please check out our FB group (Medics4Medics) to find out more!

Link to the event:

https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_YWViM2VkMGEtMzEzMy00MWZiLTlmZjMtMzFkZmFhNzI4MmQ5%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%221faf88fe-a998-4c5b-93c9-210a11d9a5c2%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%226b596911-cc73-43ca-9151-ac7ffd45f62c%22%7d

Hi All! Hope you are well! At 2pm on the 28th of July Medics4Medics is hosting a virtual panel (think Schwartz Round) where students from ethnic minority backgrounds will be sharing their experiences of Mental Health/ Mental Illness, while at Medical School and beyond. Our aim is to have a non-judgemental, confidential and safe space where our speakers, who are from a range of backgrounds, can talk openly. We hope this will be interesting and educational for people, helping to open up conversations on how people of different backgrounds will have different experiences of university (The slightly strange environment of Medical School too). This event is aimed mainly at Medical students in UCLMS but is open to all, so if you are interested please click going. Please keep an eye on the event for updates and the link to the session!
Much Love
Your Medics4Medics Committee

Please note: Because of the sensitive nature of the event if you attend please try and make sure that you can find a private place to watch from.

UPDATE:
These are the ground rules for the event. Please have a read in advance and we look forward to seeing you all there :)

The link to the session will be posted tomorrow morning

GROUND RULES
We are incredibly grateful to our speakers who have agreed to share their experiences with us all today. Please:

Ensure that you are somewhere private in order maintain strict rules of confidentiality

No recording and do not share anything that is said in the event, outside of the event.

Make sure your microphone is muted while another speaker is speaking.

Turn on your video icon (if you are comfortable with that)! It would be great to see everyone’s faces and mimic the style of our usual events!

Be courteous to speakers and other attendees

All experiences are individual, and valuable. We can ask about their nature, but please respect that they are personal.

This Tuesday Medics4Medics will be hosting an event on eating disorders. Gil Myers, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, will be providing an overview of eating disorders, discussing common myths and providing advice on how to support those around you who may have eating disorders.

This Thursday, Medics4Medics will be meeting with UCL Student Support & Wellbeing for an interactive feedback session. Join the session to discuss your thoughts and ideas as well as an insight into what UCL has to offer with regards to student support. We hope to discuss the issues facing access to support and how these can be further improved to provide students with a service they are satisfied with.

Below is a Google form to provide online feedback which we can then discuss during the meeting should you wish to remain anonymous or are unable to attend.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1SQSM5-Ss9-KYy_84OzZPQSmnGgekAv_uK-4C36vnAqk/edit?usp=sharing

As part of RUMS Welfare Week, Medics4Medics will be putting on an event on why talking about your mental health will make you a better doctor. Our speakers, medical students of various year groups, will be discussing the mental health and wellbeing issues they faced at medical school, including burnout, anxiety and imposter syndrome. They will be discussing what they found helpful, their experience with support services and the pros and cons of talking about mental health problems.

Our speakers are extremely brave for sharing their experiences and we hope you will support them and RUMS in challenging the stigma surrounding mental health.

The talks will be followed by refreshments (Welfare Week is a remarkably good week for free food!) and an informal discussion about the pros and cons of talking about personal mental health and wellbeing problems. This is a very relaxed and open event and all are welcome, regardless of what you are going through.

We hope to see you there!

The term is drawing to a close, so it's time for a debrief session! Come along to feedback on your experiences this term and have a say in deciding what we do next term! Food will be provided!

Can all Peer Navigators come to the debrief, thanks :D

Everyone goes through difficult times and sometimes what we need most is someone to be there for us. Even if they can’t solve our problems for us, a listening ear goes a long way. Join Medics4Medics as we discuss how we can support those around us in times of difficulty. Our speakers are child and adolescent psychiatry trainees Megan Fisher, Gabriella Landy and Raka Maitra, from the Tavistock training scheme. We will discuss both practical ways to support our friends, and how to remind ourselves to look after our own wellbeing. We can be left feeling helpless when it comes to supporting those we care about so we hope this will be a useful and informative discussion for all.

Medics4Medics are excited to announce next week’s talk on Preventing Burnout. Our speaker for the evening will be Dr Asta Medisauskaite. Dr Asta Medisauskaite is a Research Fellow at the Research Department of Medical Education, UCL Medical School. Asta is an organisational psychologist who obtained her PhD at Birkbeck, University of London. Her PhD was on understanding and improving the occupational health of UK medical doctors. As one of her studies, Asta tested an intervention for doctors which is now transformed into practical tools (app/board game; workingstress.co.uk). Currently Asta is working on a number of studies investigating doctors professionalism, attrition rates and leading a study on mental health of medical students

Previously this has been one of our most well received events so hope to see many of you there. Also free food and drink provided!

Join Medics4Medics’ for our FIRST EVENT OF THE YEAR!!!

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Medics4Medics are excited to announce our very first fortnightly event on Perfectionism in Medical Students. There is often a belief that medical students must be flawless individuals incapable of failure. What results is unreasonably high expectations and standards that leaves individuals with the feeling that they are falling short and letting themselves and those around them down. These feelings may lead to frustration and eventually even burnout.
We will be discussing why medical students experience perfectionism and steps we can take to overcome the pursuit of producing a perfect image.

Speaker pending with more details to be released closer to the date. Free food and drink provided! Hope to see you all there.

Join Medics4Medics’ for our FIRST EVENT OF THE YEAR!!!

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Medics4Medics are excited to announce our very first fortnightly event on preventing burnout. Medical School is an extremely competitive environment which requires both hard work and dedication, as students are continuously pushed to their limits. However, when pushed too far what results is burnout. Medical careers have some of the highest rates of burnout out there, with some studies suggesting that up to 50-60% of doctors will experience it at some point.
We will be discussing why medical students experience burnout and steps you can take to prevent it from happening to you or those around you.

Speaker pending with more details to be released closer to the date. Previously this has been one of our most well received events so hope to see many of you there. Also free food and drink provided!

Welcome to the Medics4Medics Peer Navigator training day!

Peer Navigators help us run our events, signpost students to support services and are involved in a range of events to help tackle mental health stigma in the medical school.

We want people who are non-judgmental, caring, and willing to sacrifice their time to help and support their peers. If this is you we would love you to get involved!

Training day will involve talks on what we do, the role of the Peer Navigator, presentations from UCL Student Support and Wellbeing Services, a thorough run through of the internal and external support services available to UCL medical students and of course, plenty of time for you to ask any questions you have and for us to all get to know each other!

We’d love to see you there! There will be snacks, some social activities and we will have a lunch break, so fear not, you won't be sat in seats for what feels like eternity!

Please fill in the application form if you haven't already - https://forms.gle/H68Y1cZHQtYX9TKF9

We look forward to seeing you there!

Sum-Ping, Davina, Anojah and Arif

Join us as M4M Director Ahmed Al-Shihabi guides us through a mindfulness session. Free food and drink will be provided!
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Currently in his fourth year, Ahmed has many fun facts he could tell you about himself. He's had his hair searched at Gatwick Airport. He had a glass door fall on him at the age of two. He somehow finds heavy metal music relaxing (this may be linked to the glass door). But this isn't about fun facts, this is about mindfulness, and having received a dozen or so therapy sessions focusing on the technique, Ahmed's a proponent of everyone trying it at least once, since you never know if it might revolutionise your life. Care to give it a spin? Join him as he guides you through your mind in a soothing journey to find some temporary peace within yourself!

Join us as Esther Murray, a health psychologist for med students/doctors at Barts, talks about self care and offers us practical self-help techniques for med students. Free food and drink provided!

Do come join us for a talk by Beth Marsh about anxiety related to medical students, and what we can all do to combat it. Food and drink provided!

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Medical school is a highly competitive academic environment, and it is easy for all of us to develop anxiety with regards to our studies and extracurriculars. Beth Marsh is a psychologist working at UCL. She has previously delivered CBT-style therapy and has a research interest in anxiety. She is the British Psychological Society DCP Faculty Rep for Addictions and is currently working at the UCL Psychopharmacology Research Unit as a Research Assistant coordinating a clinical trial of ketamine as a treatment for preventing alcoholic relapse.She has an amazing amount of experience in working with people with various mental health illnesses through this job and her previous clinical work, and is very interested in anxiety in particular. Not only will she discuss anxiety related to medical students in her talk, but she will also offer practical advice and techniques for alleviating it. This promises to be a highly insightful event, and we hope to see you all there!

Come and play with some bunnies and doggos, and enjoy some Krispy Kremes whilst you chill in our relaxation time.

A mix of medical students and foundation doctors will be talking about their mental health and wellbeing issues they faced at medical school and how it made them better doctors.

Come and enjoy a night of games with your favourite RUMS sports.

Talk by Professor Clare Gerada on Mental Health in doctors and medical students.

Meet the welfare reps and staff of UCLMS Student Support and UCL Student Psychological Services Ft. Planet Organic.

**SPEAKER PENDING***

Join us as we discuss the issue of resilience in medical school and how we can all cope better with difficult situations that might arise during our time here. Food and drink will be provided!

Join us as Dr Oliver Starr discuss his own experiences of burnout in medicine! Free food and drink will be provided!

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Medical careers have some of the highest rates of burnout out there, with some studies suggesting that up to 50-60% of doctors will experience it at some point. Factors that contribute to burnout include high expectations and emotionally challenging situations.

Dr Oliver Starr is a GP, CPP, and a captivating speaker. Dr Starr has valuable insight into what causes burnout in medical school, and is passionate about reducing the incidence of burnout both in medical school and beyond.

We are extremely excited for what promises to be an engaging and insightful event! Hope to see lots of you there!

Join us as we discuss the topic of supporting friends through difficult times with UCLMS graduate Dr Leela Arshi. Free food and drink will be provided!!

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We can all agree that it's only natural to want to support our friends going through difficult times, both physically and mentally. Sometimes we might be unsure about the best way to support someone who's having a tough time, and may even have sacrificed our own mental or physical health along the way.

Our speaker, Dr Leela Arshi, graduated from UCLMS in 2016 and is currently an F3 and locuming at Northwick Park in A&E. Whilst at UCL she was a keen member of RUMS Hockey. Dr Arshi is also interested in global health, women’s health and medic wellbeing. After her talk we will be having an informal discussion (with FREE SNACKS) about the points that Dr Arshi has raised and any other strategies that we might be able to use in these situations.

This promises to be an interesting and relaxed event--all welcome! Hope to see lots of you there!

Join the Medics4Medics Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/UCLmedics4medics/

Medics4Medics' FIRST EVENT OF THE YEAR!!

Medics4Medics are excited to announce our first event! Our speaker, Judith Meek, will be talking about her personal experiences coping in a competitive environment and how students can support themselves to cope with this pressure, before opening up the floor for an informal discussion in the second half. As always, snacks will be provided. Hope to see lots of you there!

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Medical school is a competitive and highly pressurised environment. As medical students, we often feel like we have to perform to the highest standards in all areas of our lives, be it academia, sport, or even our social lives. These pressures can be overwhelming and can lead to feelings of not being good enough, low self-confidence, and a general feeling of "not being good enough"

Judith Meek is a student support tutor and consultant neonatologist at UCLH. She has had personal experiences of coping in a competitive environment, and so has some helpful insight into how to manage and even flourish in such an environment.

Our fortnightly events offer a safe, non-judgemental space for support, conversation, and any questions you might have, so please to join us for what promises to be an exciting first event of the year!

Big love,
Ahmed, Tillie, Lucy and Sum-Ping

Welcome to the Medics4Medics Peer Navigator training day!

Peer Navigators help us run our events, signpost students to support services and are involved in a range of events to help tackle mental health stigma in the medical school. You will also have the opportunity this year to become a Peer Supporter and be trained offer one-to-one support to other students.

We want people who are non-judgmental, caring, and willing to sacrifice their time to help and support their peers. If this is you we would love you to get involved!

Training day will involve talks on what we do, the role of the Peer Navigator, training from the charity Rethink Mental Illness, presentations from UCL Student Support and Wellbeing Services, a thorough run through of the internal and external support services available to UCL medical students and of course, plenty of time for you to ask any questions you have and for us to all get to know each other!

We’d love to see you there! There will be snacks, some social activities and we will have a lunch break, so fear not, you won't be sat in seats for what feels like eternity!

Please fill in the application form if you haven't already - https://goo.gl/forms/LjCCGxmFP8tB3kLg1

We look forward to seeing you there!

Ahmed, Tillie, Lucy and Sum-Ping

Medics4Medics would like to invite you to attend our Annual General Meeting!!

Everyone is welcome to attend; if you want to get involved with Medics4Medics next year, if you’ve been coming to our events and want to provide feedback or if you’d like to have a stay in how Medics4Medics is run next year, please do come along. If you’re interested in mental health and wellbeing in RUMS, we’d love you to get involved.

We will be electing four Group Coordinators to take over in September. No previous experience is necessary to stand for election, all that is required is commitment, dedication, and passion to support RUMS to become more open about wellbeing and mental health. These positions will be open to anyone within RUMS, whether they have been involved with Medics4Medics this year or not. Group Coordinator Roles;
• Director
• Assistant Director
• Fortnightly Event Lead
• Promotion Lead

In order to run for a Group Coordinator role all applicants are required to either produce a manifesto which they can read themselves or ask the Director to read on their behalf, outlining their motivations for applying, any ideas they have to bring to the table and why they consider themselves to be the best person for the role.

We are looking to attract as diverse and motivated a committee as possible, who believe in what Medics4Medics is trying to achieve and are ready to continue its development and progress!
Should you wish to know more about the responsibilities involved for each role, feel free to contact the current Group Coordinator:
• Director – Kerry Wales, kerry.wales.14@ucl.ac.uk
• Assistant Director – Hannah Forsyth, hannah.forsyth.14@ucl.ac.uk
• Fortnightly Event Lead – Rose Shendi, rose.shendi.16@ucl.ac.uk
• Promotion Lead – Sophie Bracke, sophie.bracke.14@ucl.ac.uk

Further details of the application process will be released on our Facebook page alongside role descriptions from current committee members.

How to support friends going through difficult times.

Join medics4medics as the beguiling Dr Oliver Starr discusses his experiences of burnout in medicine.

Coping with being in a competitive environment.

RUMS students and junior doctors: Why talking about your mental health will make you a better doctor.

Professor John Wyatt: Why talking about your mental health will make you a better doctor.