Akilesh Rathinam

Hello everyone, I’m Akilesh and I’m excited to be running for conference chair!

In first year, I attended the conference, this year I helped subcommittee and I would love to be able to contribute even more next year. My experience on committee improved my understanding of the society and submitting a theme to the London Paeds conference gave me experience planning themed talks and workshops. Being on subcommittee for TVS and Cardio’s conferences also broadened my perspective on other society’s conferences. Additionally, my roles of coordinating a MedEd Crash-Course and a SUPTA teaching series prepared me for effectively communicating and coordinating a subcommittee.

Previous conference chairs have coordinated incredible conferences; I would love to further develop it, and the following are the main changes I would implement:

• Earlier conference date – February is saturated with conferences; by starting as early as possible with subcommittee recruitment I’d aim for a January conference to allow more people to attend.

• Inclusion of Paediatric Surgery – Paediatric surgery inclusion is asbent across SurgSoc and PaedsSoc. This is a missed opportunity, they are an incredibly passionate specialty, Ms Pardy from Meet the Paediatricians really made me consider it as a career and included it in here could do the same for so many others!

• More hands-on workshops – Exposure to Paediatric examinations is low, especially in younger years and workshops focussing on this could broaden our understanding of paediatrics.

I would love to be able to continue to contribute towards such a wonderful society!