The winning team from Qatar International School receiving the ticket to New York offered by Your Health First campaign.
Qatar’s first High School Medical Conference (HSMC) has been held, inspiring students to forge a career in medicine or the sciences.
The conference was organised by Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar (WCM-Q) at Qatar National Convention Center and comprised lectures and talks, workshops for teachers, a school exhibition, and student research presentations.
Noha Saleh, Director of student recruitment and outreach at WCM-Q, said the aim was to offer students an experience that they don’t usually have, to show them what a career in medicine has to offer, and to provide them with a platform to showcase their skills and knowledge.
A highlight of the conference were the research presentations. Schools across Qatar were given the chance to participate in a student research contest based on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Twenty-five teams from both independent and private schools entered and chose a topic under one of three following themes: Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages; ensuring access to water and sanitation for all; making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable; and ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns.
They then took part in a poster presentations competition last March. Fourteen teams made it through to the finals at the High School Medical Conference with the top three then selected by a panel of WCM-Q research experts. The winning team from Qatar International School received a fully-funded, one-week trip to WCM-Q’s parent campus in Ithaca in the US, while the runners-up - second placed Bright Future International School received iPads and invitations to attend a research symposium at Sidra Medicine, and third placed Musab Bin Omair Secondary School – received gift vouchers and were also invited to the Sidra Medicine event. The flights were provided for by Sahtak Awalan – Your Health First, WCM-Q’s health campaign.
In addition to the presentations, the student delegates also heard from Fawziya Al Khater, Assistant Undersecretary for Educational Affairs at the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, Dr Marco Ameduri, Associate Dean for Pre-Medical Education at WCM-Q, and three WCM-Q alumni, Dr Aisha Al Yousuf, Dr Khalid Al Khelaifi and Dr Karima Becetti.
Dr Al Yousuf is now the Medical Director of Reproductive Surgery at Sidra Medicine, Dr Al Khelaifi is a Sports Orthopedic surgeon at Aspetar, and Dr Becetti is a Rheumatologist at Hamad Medical Corporation.
Finally, the high school teachers and counselors were able to benefit from professional development workshops in a number of topics including ‘Mastery Learning in the Physical Sciences’, ‘Critical Reading and Writing’, and ‘Preparing Biology Students for the Transition to University’.
