On Wednesday 21st June 2023, Warwick Medical School hosted the annual Postgraduate Research Symposium. The symposium is a monitoring point for ALL PGR students and provides second and third year PGR students with an opportunity to present their research and gain feedback from an academic audience across the Medical School and beyond.

Poster presentations from 2nd year students were on display throughout the day, and students were invited to provide a 3 minute narrated presentation about their work. Each student was asked to answer the questions "what are they planning to do in their research?" and "why is it important?" in their narrated presentation. Narrated presentations can be found hereLink opens in a new window.

TRANSFORM has two second year students, Adeola Afolayan Link opens in a new windowand Tololupe Bella-AwusahLink opens in a new window who both travelled from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria to attend the symposium and present their posters. Adeola and Tolu were also joined by TRANSFORM first year student Nadia AlamLink opens in a new window from Bangladesh.

This was the first time that all three TRANSFORM PGR students had been together in person which was a landmark achievement for TRANSFORM and added greatly to the value of the symposium.

Adeolas research title is Experiences, Wellbeing and Needs of Children of Persons with Serious Mental Illness (CoPSMI) in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC).

See Adeolas abstractLink opens in a new window and posterLink opens in a new window for more details.

Adeola commented that "at the symposium, I was inspired by the creative posters displayed by some of the other PGR students. I also observed how the senior PGR students communicated their research in the oral presentations and responded to questions from."

Tolus research title is Mental health, resilience, and help-seeking among youth living in slums.

Tolus poster Link opens in a new windowand abstractLink opens in a new window provide further details about her study.

After the symposium, the TRANSFORM students met with supervisors and discussed their research. Reflecting on the day Tolu noted “It was interesting to see the diversity of research being done at WMS, to connect some familiar names with faces, and connect with peers who are interested in research in the global south”. When considering what Tolu would do differently following the symposium and supervisor discussions, Tolu was inspired “to work on getting my systematic review finished within the next few months and keep a close eye on my research timelines. Supervision also got me to reflect more deeply on the expected impact of my research”.

Joining her peers at the symposium was a valuable experience for Nadia who will present her own poster next year. Nadia is progressing her research, and stated that “after attending the PhD symposium, I understood what would make a great poster and the challenges that might arise from setting up the poster to explaining my study to the audience”.

The symposium highlights the great value of dissemination and shared learning and we look forward to the 2024 symposium when Adeola and Tolu will deliver oral presentations and Nadia will attend with a poster presentation.