Twelve tips for a successful student-led conference in health professional education

Abstract

Student-led initiatives provide an authentic context for students to shape their own learning experiences and to develop skills in complex interpersonal behaviors, communication, teamwork, and leadership. A student-led conference is an example of a student-led initiative that integrates skill development across these professional domains that are necessary for contemporary health practice with conceptual understanding of basic and clinical sciences. Importantly, by participating in the student-led conference, students can form advanced views about knowledge, such as that scientific knowledge is complex and uncertain or even start to see themselves as capable contributors to the profession’s knowledge. Drawn from literature as well as our experiences in implementing student-led conferences in dentistry courses, these 12 tips provide practical guidance to academics and curriculum designers on how to introduce and implement a student-led conference in health professional education. These 12 tips will help educators to consider aspects associated with design, implementation, and evaluation of a student-led conference, as well as surfacing aspects pertaining to relationships and culture. In doing so, we also aim to prompt academics to think more deeply about issues that arise when students partner with their academic advisors and the opportunities that the academics involved have for their own professional development.