{"id":1025,"date":"2021-09-28T14:34:32","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T13:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/?p=1025"},"modified":"2022-06-07T14:13:05","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T13:13:05","slug":"inspiring-stories-with-nick-evans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/2021\/09\/28\/inspiring-stories-with-nick-evans\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Inspiring Stories’ with Nick Evans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

‘Inspiring Stories’ with Nick Evans<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Associate Professor in Bioengineering<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

n.d.evans@soton.ac.uk<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is part of the Engaged Medicine<\/strong> \u2018Inspiring Stories\u2019 blog series<\/strong><\/a>. The blogs explore the stories behind outreach and patient-public engagement activities of staff and students from the University of Southampton\u2019s Faculty of Medicine.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaffer tape, assorted bits of plastic and electronics, string, Velcro, a team of engineers from Siemens healthcare, and 30-odd 16-year old schoolkids \u2013 what could go wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I write this blog having just completed another year of running the Smallpeice Biomedical Engineering<\/a> course. This annual course aims to inspire school-age students into taking up careers in engineering and biomedical related subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Usually the students come into the uni for 4 days each summer and complete a residential workshop. They find out<\/a> what biomedical engineers do and how they think. Many students, postdocs and academics work with the students, giving up their valuable time to get involved!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a fun, slightly anarchic adventure with a range of hands on masterclasses and workshops, rounded off with a competition to \u2018design and build\u2019 the best device to solve a medical challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, over the past two years the whole thing has been delivered online (shortened to a day and a half). This has brought its own challenges \u2013 and opportunities! –  but the event is invariably fun, action-packed and enlightening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was drawn into this course back in 2013. I had done bits and pieces of public engagement before, but this was really my first proper commitment to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with 16 year olds is scary for an academic. Most of the time (not always!) the university students we work with are quite grown-up \u2013 maturity and discipline shouldn\u2019t be issues. I suppose that the first thing I thought of was that these younger kids might be out of control!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having done this now for 9 years I can say hand-on-heart that nothing could be further from the truth. Getting involved has taught me that almost invariably, students who want to engage with you as a scientist are enthusiastic, interested, thoughtful and considerate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve found that my skills in communication have improved, I\u2019ve felt more like I\u2019m involved in \u2018normal\u2019 society rather than, well, a bit institutionalised (yes many academics are weird!), and most of all I\u2019ve had fun. Working with young folk is energising and surprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes a real impact too. In surveys of attendees between 2014 and 2019 more than half of the attendees said that the course had persuaded them to follow a career in the subject area. And 85% of the students who\u2019d been on the course and who had subsequently did STEM subjects at uni said the course had \u2018increased their interest in the subject\u2019. You can\u2019t argue with the stats!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also impacted me. I\u2019ve since got involved with other outreach stuff, including helping exhibit at local and national festivals, contributing to the \u2018stem cell mountain<\/a>\u2019 and now running a podcast, TheScienceShed<\/a>, with a friend from Cambridge University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in summary, and despite the inevitable time it takes, it is thoroughly worth doing it. Dip your toe in the water and before long you\u2019ll be going for a swim! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***Special thanks to Dr Alex Dickinson, Ric Gillams, the Smallpeice team and all of the wonderful PhD students, postdocs and academics who\u2019ve contributed over the years*****<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay Connected! To find out more about the \u2018Inspiring Stories\u2019 series, Faculty of Medicine educational programmes and research, or to get involved use the links below or contact Dr Lucy Green<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
UoS Medicine website<\/a>, Facebook, <\/a>Twitter, <\/a>YouTube<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

University staff or students click here<\/em><\/a> for the Engaged Medicine SharePoint<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is part of the Engaged Medicine \u2018Inspiring Stories\u2019 blog series. In Nick’s blog he tells us about his experience of running the Smallpeice Biomedical Engineering course for school-age students. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4967,"featured_media":1026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-engaged-medicine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/97\/2021\/09\/Nick-Evans-photo.jpg?fit=400%2C267&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8r5I4-gx","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4967"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1025"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1355,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1025\/revisions\/1355"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/medicallyspeaking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}