Surgical Society: Trauma & Orthopaedics Chair

Hi everyone, I'm Sandhya and I am so excited to be running for Trauma and Orthopaedics chair!

I hope to bring EDI to the forefront of our discussions with T&O, and particularly shine a light on the underrepresentation of women in T&O, in comparison with other surgical specialties; to improve this severe gender disparity, our work should start at medical school, and I hope to facilitate student exposure to the specialty and provide female role models a platform to encourage students. As a publicity officer with UCLPRAS, I have a strong understanding of how a highly successful international conference and skills course is run, as well as how to direct social media to capture a diverse audience.

I hope to further expand our collaboration with other medical schools to provide a wide range of networking opportunities as I have found this to be an invaluable way of seeking unique prospects within an seemingly inaccessible specialty in medical school, especially pre-clinically.

My aims as T&O chair would be to increase drive for in-person anatomy teaching with a surgical focus, regular skills workshops in order to improve pre-clinical understanding of surgical skills, and to provide networking opportunities and direct contacts for students to gain further exposure and hands-on experience within the field. Finally, I hope to bring a range of female T&O surgeons to the spotlight, to elucidate the gender disparity within the field and further encourage inclusion.