The following is a selection of the comments made by students who attended the annual scientific meeting in Cork, 2007. The student's received financial support from the Society to attend the conference.
“The SSM conference was the first chance I’ve had to present my work to colleagues outside of my institution. I can’t think of a nicer environment in which to have done this; both very relaxed and also a good proportion of other presenters were PhD or Post Doc students, which made it all much less intimidating.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed the SSM/IEA conference. I was surprised by the wide variety of topics covered. The presentations gave me lots of ideas about the kind of research area I would like to pursue in the future as well as a better understanding of the wide range of methodology used in epidemiological research.”
“I found the SSM/IEA conference to be a great experience. The diversity of topics covered gave a real feeling of how broad the field is, the wide range of work being conducted, and possible future directions for which the skills I am developing as a PhD student could take me.”
“A bug has bitten and I can’t wait to scratch it! I got swept up in a flurry of exciting projects and findings, which has broadened my thinking, opening up my mind to the possibilities within research. I’m now eager to begin or become involved in a project with the view to presenting my work at a Society for Social Medicine Conference within the next two years.”
“The range of parallel sessions available was extremely extensive. Those sessions which appeared of no direct relevance to my studies were often the most creative in terms of my own work. It enabled me to be free of all the usual conventions and current thinking in my specialist area and approach my topic with a completely different view.”
”I found ALL the presentations I attended interesting. Moreover, I found the themes identified very stimulating; if anything there was too much choice!”
“This conference has compounded my interest in epidemiology and social medicine. I hope to incorporate this interest into my future medical practice and have made many contacts at this conference whom have offered their wise and kind advice in helping me achieve this goal.”
“I very much enjoyed the opportunity to present to an international audience, and received some helpful feedback, that has informed our approaches to the final analyses of these data in preparation for publication.”
“As an undergraduate medical student, the Society for Social Medicine & International Epidemiological Association Joint Meeting was the first international conference I attended and I must admit it managed to exceed my highest expectations.”
”The quality of all the other works presented at the meeting was remarkable and I learned a lot from them about many interesting and important subjects on Public Health.”
”The Society for Social Medicine & International Epidemiological Association Joint Meeting 2007 was a success. I would highly recommend it to every Medical student like me, and will be looking forward to attending future conferences in the years to come.”
“My attendance at the conference was both an enjoyable and beneficial experience for me and I returned to my research project with renewed enthusiasm and excitement.”
“It is no exaggeration to say that the experience at the last SSM/IEA conference has influenced my life and was a great learning curve in my career. I cherish the experience I had at the conference and hope to bring the acquired research skills, potentially explorable fields and learnt lessons from the conference into practice later as a researcher.”
“My overall impression was that the conference was very well organised. The parallel sessions meant that there was almost always a lecture of personal interest running. It was an impressive achievement to cater for such a large volume of talks and breadth of topics in a three day conference.”
“Having attended some presentations of my peers I have resolved to submit an abstract for next year’s conference. I am confident that the society’s nurturing environment will serve as an excellent base for this purpose.”
“Overall, I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to attend this year’s conference. I have come away with a considerable volume of knowledge that will aid me during my undergraduate years and in my future careers.”
“As a whole, my experiences at the SSM conference have helped provide a good springboard into this first year of my PhD.”