East of England’s spring educator symposium focuses on advancing equality and diversity

The Health Education England, east of England spring symposium 2022 took place online in March attracting hundreds of attendees across the three-day event.  

The symposium is the biggest educator event run by HEE and takes place twice a year in the Spring and Autumn. The audience included both educators of all levels and trainees aspiring to become educators.

Each day featured two keynote speaker sessions and up to 15 workshops. The theme for Spring 2022 was ‘Advancing Equality and Diversity’ and sessions included:

• ‘Tackling racism in the NHS. Valuing international medical graduates’,
• ‘Why tackling discrimination is crucial for addressing inequities in mental health and mental health services’,
• ‘Neurodiversity: Supporting Neurodiverse Trainees to Thrive’.

Around 150 delegates attended on each day and gave some fantastic feedback:

‘Inspiring and informative; excellently delivered; very highly enjoyable session’

‘Excellent presentation thinking about the wider picture and where people are coming from - both for the point of view of education and beyond’

‘Great teaching style, interesting discussion and ideas for how to self-reflect and support learners better’

‘Very well organised and well presented. Nice to be run by someone with lived experience’

‘Absolutely fantastic session with a very personable and powerful presenter'

‘I learnt so much about language to use, what some of the language meant, and how to be more inclusive’

‘An engaging speaker offering a good understanding of the topic, thank you’

‘It's a subject I've been aware I had little knowledge about and now feel better equipped at discussing neurodiversity with trainees and understanding how to start supporting them in a training environment’

Further details about the symposium can be found online at the events webpage where recordings of sessions from the day will be posted.