Great session on Tuesday with the Student Opportunities Managers Network (SOMN), where we explored the challenges of supporting medical students' involvement in student opportunities.

The discussion highlighted a range of approaches across students' unions, from those with a central medical society overseeing various groups to those supporting individual medical clubs and societies independently. Despite the structural differences, shared challenges emerged across institutions.

Many of the challenges raised today relate to the degree of belonging medical students feel with students’ union. The general consensus was that medical societies don’t feel a strong connection to their unions and choose to operate more independently than other societies.

Medical students have unique support needs that require students' unions to truly understand their experience and act accordingly. Their demanding schedules, placements, and academic pressures often leave them with limited time to engage with the students' union, making communication and adherence to processes a challenge. We discussed the importance of offering a degree of flexibility in our approach, while still maintaining appropriate boundaries. Understanding the rhythm of the year and how this differs to the typical SU cycle could present new opportunities to engage and meet medical students where they’re at.

Many medsocs have a heritage and legacy that current members are keen to preserve. Where medsocs have not historically engaged with students’ unions, students are getting support from other places, often having close connections and affinity to their school. Some students’ unions are finding it difficult to build meaningful relationships with the student leaders or to communicate their offer in a way that drives behaviour change. This can result in both sides of the relationship feeling like the other is “making life difficult.” In the meeting today we agreed that working with the medical school is crucial for creating a consistent, supportive framework for medical students to do their activities.

So, the Student Opportunities Managers Network top tips for engaging medial societies are:

Make time to understand the timetable of medical students and demands placed on them, and (where possible)...
Adapt your support offer to flex around their needs, for example offering meetings after typical working hours or relaxing the notice periods for bookings.
Create a positive working relationship with the medical school and be clear over where responsibility lies for the different elements of support for Med So
Get to know the heritage and culture of your Med Soc, their typical annual activities and their needs

This is just the beginning of the conversation, and we'd love to hear about your successes and top tips! We know there's much more to be said about this topic.

Sticky notes from the Student Opportunities Managers Network discussion - follow the link to view the detail

This session came out of a casual chat in the Student Opportunities Managers Network group. Organised Fun are happy to facilitate conversations like the one we had today on other areas of student opportunities work.

If you’re not already a member of SOMN, find out more.

Top tips for engaging medical societies