The MERU Conference will include talks and discussions from presenters across the MERU community on a wide range of home grown medical education research. The programme includes short communications and posters submitted from the MERU community.
A guest lecture will also be presented by Dr Esther Murray (Queen Mary University of London):
‘Wellbeing at work: how are we preparing our undergraduate medical students?’
We know from our research that when medical students say they didn’t feel prepared for practice, one of the domains that underpins this is feeling unprepared emotionally. Esther Murray is an expert on what we can do as educators to support and prepare our students for working in the NHS.
Dr Esther Murray CPsychol AFBPsS SFHEA
Esther has been a health psychologist for 15 years, initially working in cardiac care both in service improvement and psychological interventions for patients, later going on to a career in academia. She now works in the Faculty of Medicine at Queen Mary University of London where she is course lead of the intercalated degree in Medical Education and the chair of the Internal Peer Review and Ethics Committee for the Institute of Health Sciences Education. She teaches across the MBBS degree, delivering teaching on psychology and behaviour change as well as facilitating PBL, and communication skills training. She is co-lead for PBL in the institute. She has extensive experience in supervision, from undergraduate to PhD level.
Her early research was in chronic pain and its effect on doctor-patient communication. Esther has previous experience in psychological intervention in cardiac care and training NHS staff in communication skills.
Esther is the first researcher in the UK to explore the concept of moral injury in medicine and has presented her work nationally and internationally. Esther also delivers training on the topic to London Ambulance Service’s Advanced Paramedic Practitioners, the Counter Terrorism Specialist Firearms Officers of the Metropolitan Police and is a regular contributor to London HEMS Clinical Governance Days.
Esther has recorded podcasts for WEM, St Emlyns, The College of Paramedics and for the London Advanced Paramedics and East of England Ambulance Service, she also delivers wellbeing workshops at the Royal London Hospital for staff in theatres and at the Royal College of Emergency Medicine and the Intensive Care Society. She co-edited a book ‘The Mental Health and Wellbeing of Healthcare Practitioners’ with Prof Jo Brown, which was published in 2021, it includes chapters written by healthcare professionals and allied healthcare professionals.