UCL Institute for Women's Health (IfWH)

Annual Meeting 2012

Our annual meetings are a great time to get together with colleagues, network and to hear what has been happening in our growing institute. Our 7th Annual Meeting held on 21st May was a huge success with the posters and oral presentations being equal to an international conference. The Institute aims to make a difference to women’s health in the UK and internationally and this was reflected in the work that was presented. It was amazing to see how our international work has changed lives in many developing countries.

Peter Brocklehurst opened the meeting with some of the highlights of the year. Usha Menon gave an excellent talk on how gynaecological cancers can be screened for on a low budget in developing countries. Evangelia-Ourania Fourkala presented her UKCTOCS study looking at the effects of testosterone and follicle stimulating hormone on breast cancer risk and Robert Woolas gave a talk on endometrial thickness and ovarian cancer. Judith Stephenson presented an update on UCLP and Women’s Health that showed the advances in the last few years and how the life course model has developed. UCLP is now the made provider of postgraduate medical training for obstetrics and gynaecology. Gwyneth Lewis, the new lead for International Women's Health at the Institute, gave a passionate talk about the work she has been leading on global maternal health and called for the next generation of medics to become involved in this work. David Carr presented his award winning work on prenatal gene therapy and Angela Barrett presented her work on the development of free fetal DNA for non invasive prenatal diagnosis of sickle cell disease using digital PCR. Gemma Goodyear presented her medical student prize paper on methods of measuring cardiac output in pregnant women followed by the nursing and midwife prize paper presented by Kerry McCall on the preferences of RhD negative women on routine testing of fetal D status. 

At lunch, all delegates took part in the annual Institute group photo in the quad, followed by an excellent lunch and poster session which was a hive of activity. It also gave time for the traditional network bingo where delegates have to find someone who fits various descriptions – such as who has tickets for the Olympics!!

Sir John Tooke opened the session after lunch with an update on the new faculty of Population Health Sciences, followed by Ertan Saridogan who presented a report of the UCLH endometriosis team. Sarah Creighton introduced Efua Dorkenoo who presented an emotional talk on the global issue of female genital mutilation and how this affects such a large number of women world wide, including in the UK. Gerry Conway presented his work on poly cystic ovarian syndrome in India, followed by Thalia Mamas who presented her work on aneuploidy in embryos from fertile patients who have undergone IVF as they are having preimplantation genetic diagnosis. After tea, Gill Gaskin gave an update on the UCLH specialist hospitals, followed by Nikki Robertson who reported on neonatal research in resource poor settings showing that treatments that have shown significant improvements in neonatal outcome in the developed world cannot necessarily be directly transferred to the developing world.  Andrei Morgan presented his work on antenatal steroids, tocolysis and delivery mode on extreme pre term delivery followed by Sean Mathieson who presented his work on a novel automated seizure detection algorithm for neonatal EEG. 

The final talk of the day was by Professor Anthony Costello, one of the Directors of the UCL Institute of Global Health. In a humorous and entertaining presentation, Anthony showed us the importance of talking and how educating women in the developing world can impact on maternal and neonatal health, but that the expected outcome is not always achieved. Peter Brocklehurst closed the meeting by presenting the prizes for oral and poster presentations.

We had excellent feedback but will make some changes for next year including grouping the posters by theme and having less invited speakers.

We would like to thank everyone who took part including those who submitted abstracts, all of our invited speakers, our administrative team, our scientific review panels, our sessional chairs, and everyone who attended the meeting. We hope that you all took something away.

PRIZES

OVERALL ORAL AWARDS
1st place oral presentation - Gerry Conway
2nd place oral presentation - Robert Woolas
3rd place oral presentation - Andrei Morgan

OVERALL POSTER AWARDS
1st place overall poster presentation - Nikki Robertson
2nd overall poster - Angela Barrett
3rd place overall poster - Penny James and Aisha Elaimi joint

SPECIAL AWARDS FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS
Highest scoring medical student abstract – Gemma Goodyear
Best poster by a medical student – Neda Taghinejadi

SPECIAL AWARDS FOR MIDWIVES/NURSES
Highest scoring nursing/midwifery abstract – Kerry McCall
Best poster by a nurse/midwife – Fiona McGregor

SPECIAL AWARDS FOR PHD STUDENTS
Best oral presentation by a PhD student – David Carr
Best poster presentation by a PhD student – Leoni Xanthopoulou
Network Bingo – Harita Ghevaria