15th December 2023
At the College all of our students get the opportunity to attend an incredible variety of talks delivered by guest speakers who are experts in their industry. So far this academic year we’ve covered a wide range of topics including; artificial intelligence and its impact on our future, end of life ethics, the causes of depression, understanding the electricity generated by our bodies and how to think like an economist.
Our speakers programme is designed to support our students by enriching their studies and giving them access to university style lectures. The talks are open to all, but we ensure the students who are studying a related course are notified so they don’t miss out! Each talk is hosted by a specialist who energises our students with their knowledge and passion, elevating what they’ve learned in class and inspiring them to continue in their field after their time with us at St Brendan’s.
Recently we were visited by Dr Alana Matthews, a Medical Physics Virtual Reality (VR) Developer from Sheffield University. She spoke about her experience at University and highlighted the flexibility of STEM when deciding what to do next. Dr Matthews gave our students an overview of medical physics and how both VR and AI can be utilised to improve our healthcare system. For example, AI could support data processing tasks freeing up resources to be used elsewhere, and hosting patient reviews in VR would benefit doctor-patient communication by providing tangible examples of medical conditions.
Next up it was time to put the theory into practice. Dr Matthews presented our students with virtual patients who needed to be X-rayed. With her guidance they completed the task step-by-step, imaging the heart, skull and abdomen.
Here are a few screenshots of their view with the headsets on.
The control panel used to perform X-rays on the virtual patient, modelled after Sheffield Teaching Hospitals facilities.
A close-up of the patient and X-ray scanner.
A building exercise where students build an Xray tube from its components.
We’d like to extend a massive thank you to Dr Matthews and all of the guest speakers who have visited us this term, your sessions have been truly inspirational for our students.
