This is part of an ongoing article series to raise the profile of education, teaching and learning in the Faculty of Medicine and to advance the Faculty鈥檚聽Education Strategic Plan听(2017-22).
Students from diverse disciplines are working together to launch the inaugural Rare Disease Interdepartmental Science Case Competition (RISC Competition) with a聽Meet and Greet聽on Thursday, September 19, to share details of the competition with interested students.
The competition is for undergraduate students in their second or third year from across the Life Sciences programs including Physiology, Pharmacology, Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, and Anatomy and Cell Biology.
Faculty are invited to encourage students to聽register聽for the聽Meet and Greet, follow the event on聽Facebook, or contact the competition organizers via email at: risc.competition [at] gmail.com
Students can sign up as 鈥渇ree agents鈥� and be placed in an interdisciplinary team or form teams of their own, but there is a catch! To foster an interdisciplinary approach, a team cannot consist of more than two members from the same department.
鈥淭he fact that this is interdisciplinary 鈥� it鈥檚 a chance for students to come together and tackle a complex issue,鈥� said Elya Quesnel, a recent graduate who helped initiate the project. 鈥淭hey only get a set of symptoms and they have to go and figure out what disease it is, why it鈥檚 happening, and what to do.鈥�
Workshops will be held throughout the course of the academic year to help teams prepare for the case competition. Nearing the end of the academic year, each team will present their findings on the rare disease they worked on, its socioeconomic aspects, symptoms, treatment and therapies. A faculty panel will judge the presentations and pick winners!
鈥淚t鈥檚 a more interactive process where people can really talk to each other and use their own strengths to come together to formulate concrete results,鈥� said Sara Nam, an undergraduate Life Sciences student managing communications for the competition. 鈥淚t feels a lot more conducive to what we all want to do in the future rather than strictly reading a textbook over and over.鈥�
As for faculty members, the competition organizers would love help promoting the competition to students and invite faculty to serve as case judges or provide cases and other ideas. Organizers are also hoping to connect with medical students and graduate students interested in acting as mentors, providing insight and guidance into applied research like this.
鈥淚t鈥檚 one thing to sit in a lecture hall and listen to a professor talk, but to actually apply this knowledge working with students from other departments is amazing, and it鈥檚 a great opportunity to network and interact with med students, grad students, librarians and profs,鈥� said Michelle Yang, a third year Life Sciences student managing competition logistics.