Akilesh Rathinam

Hi everyone, I’m Akilesh and I’d love to be your Head of Events!

I’ve loved being on conference subcommittee and am eager to get more involved CardioSoc! Running events throughout the year is a large burden, inadvertently I prepared for this by committing to so much this year! This has really developed my time management and as a student research lead for SCTS I have organised a session at their Annual Conference focussed on getting medical students into research.

Experience is important but the events themselves should be the focus. The main ideas for events I would want to run this year are the following:

• Research Networking Session – Students are eager to find opportunities to get involved in research. By leveraging connections through a cardiology CRI project at Hammersmith and being a part of the SCTS Research Committee, I would want to organise a session to connect students and enthusiastic researchers.

• Introduction to Clinical Research – Research is such a broad area, and most people have no idea where to start, a session outlining different avenues of research such as clinical, basic science, educational etc could help give people much needed guidance.

• Basic surgical skills – Many members have had little exposure to suturing, having a BSS session early on would make all surgical events more accessible

• Innovations in Cardiovascular technology – With many innovations becoming central such as minimal access cardiac surgery, talks from experts in their field would be perfect as an early event to garner interest!