What is the Medical Academics Conference?

The conference is the BMA’s policy forum for medical academics, organised annually by the BMA’s MASC (medical academic staff committee).

All doctors engaged in medical academic activities – research, education and training and innovation – who may be based in higher education institutions, in the NHS, in industry and beyond – are welcome, irrespective of the stage of career. You do not need to be a BMA member to be able to attend.

Dental academics (at all stages of their career) are also welcome. 

Ensuring all can attend

We are keen to ensure that all medical academics are able to attend. Therefore support with care for children and adult dependents is available for those who request it by Thursday 18 April 2024.  Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee to provide this facility if notice is given after this date.

Please let us know if you require any other support to enable your attendance.

The theme and programme

The overall theme for the conference is Britain’s Disappearing Clinical Academics and What To Do About It.

The programme will include: 

• keynote presentation on the theme of the conference from Professor Sonia Kumar, professor of medical education and associate dean of community engagement, University of Leeds
• keynote presentation on the theme of the conference from Professor Amir Sam, head of Imperial College School of Medicine
• reports from the chair of the MASC, Professor David Strain and the co-chair of the joint academic trainees subcommittee, Dr Jonathan Gibb, on their work over the last year
• breakout groups to provide the opportunity for informal discussion of the issues of concern
• opportunities to create, submit and debate policy motions on issues affecting medical academics, giving you the chance to influence the BMA’s work over the coming year
• the election for the conference chair and members of the agenda committee for conference 2024.

Attendees will also hear about the work of the MASC and be able to set key priorities and play an active role in determining the direction of the committee for 2024-25. There will also be opportunities to network with other participants at BMA House.

Who can attend the conference?

All places are open for registration and will be allocated on a first come first served basis. There is room for both trained and trainee representatives from all universities with medical schools, and from all devolved nations in the UK and from all regions of England. You should indicate your academic institution or workplace on the registration form.  MASC would like all parts of the medical academic sector to be represented. You can find out more information about your eligibility from the MASC secretariat at [email protected]

Attendance is free for BMA members and costs £20 (including VAT) for non-members. Non-members are entitled to the BMA rate if they join the BMA when registering. For further information about this call BMA conferences on 020 7383 6037.

If for any reason after registering you should find yourself no longer able to attend, please let us know as soon as possible so your place can be allocated to someone else.

Motions

A key way that the conference influences MASC (and hence BMA) policy is through debate on motions and then voting whether to support, amend or reject them. The conference informs the BMA’s ARM (annual representative meeting) agenda committee about the motions that are agreed, and where appropriate these can be debated further at the ARM and adopted as BMA policy.

Once you have registered for the conference you can submit a motion to the agenda committee for consideration. Please send them to [email protected] The final deadline for motions is 9.00am on 2 April.

The agenda committee would particularly welcome motions on the theme of the conference. 

Useful advice on how to write a good motion (which should increase the chances of it being debated) can be found on the BMA website.

Registration

BMA/BDA members: free of charge.

For BMA members, to register for this event, you will need to sign in using your BMA account details on the registration page.

Non-members: £20 including VAT.

If you are not a member and you would like to attend, please email: [email protected] 

They will send you a link to register for the event.