It's been a year already since the last one - The Foundation for Science and Technology, Debate - "slapdown" from Sir Walport

Held on the 20th May at the Royal Society in London this year's debate was "A framework for making policy choices: bridging the gap between scientific and value judgements" hosted by the Earl of Selborne.

The speakers were Sir Mark Walport FRS FRCP FRCPath FMedSci, Government Chief Scientific Adviser at the Government Office for Science, Professor Angela R McLean FRS, Co-Director of the Institute for Emerging Infections at the University of Oxford, and John Pullinger CB, UK National Statistician, Head of the Government Statistical Service and Chief Executive or the UK Statistics Authority.

The overriding theme was about understanding the difference between risk and hazard, wonderfully demonstrated by Sir Walport's presentation

This is a hazardous activity but the risk of being eaten is small because the bird is helping the crocodile clean his teeth :)

Prof McLean described anecdotally her experience of providing evidence for the international community and how it can get used out of context - personally I found her account rather chilling and a bit intimidating - as she described how her team's report got splashed about the press by NGOs

Mr Pullinger talked more about the need to make decisions based on both evidence and societal values and reminded us that as we continue searching and providing evidence then the conclusions may change and we need to be able to accept that.

I attended on behalf of IPEM and these events are always well attended by the great and the good and it's great place to get to know new people as we all sit down together to dinner and the gregarious mood means that you never feel left out. It's an opportunity for IPEM to raise their profile and I do try and do that by "networking" or making friends as I call it :) as well as being brave enough to ask a question within the debate!!

"Does the panel think that we will ever be able to have evidence based policy making for delivering healthcare and by that I mean a healthcare as a system rather than it being a political football"  I got a "slap-down" from Sir Walport :) for thinking that this was a simple question/answer and that there are many different healthcare systems etc. The gentleman next to me said with a smile on his face "that'll be a no then!"  Of course I was making a point rather than asking a question so may be I got what I deserved.

You can read the summary notes at the link below but here are a few nuggets from the debate: apparently I'm not allowed to quote people so you will just have to guess who said what :)

• innovation is often held back by badly formed discussion of risk and hazard
• Hazard = exposure vulnerability and risk=uncertainty and threat. 
• It is the job of MPs to reconcile the science with the societal values. 
• Asymmetric incentives = easier for something not to happen than happen
• We need to view difficult issues through many lenses
• Rooting the approach to policy and decision making in robust scientific evidence. Apparently we are good at this in the UK. 
• Academics are good at arguing without being rude. 
• Scientific reports e.g cloning or GM crop science are used as manuals for new civil servants. 
• Be prepared to change. It's not a fait accompli
• How do we know who to trust when they present evidence?
• Horizon scanning is very important in government 
• Not too much and not too little regulation. 

The report by Sir Hugh Taylor KCB together with the audio files of what the opening speakers said at the Foundation debate on 'A framework for making policy choices: bridging the gap between scientific and value judgements' are now on the Foundation website at www.foundation.org.uk . #fstpolicyframework

Science Museum Lates - Lets here it for the IPEM trainee network :)

And network they did. In no time at all I had a list of almost 15 willing and eager volunteers to help demonstrate science to adults at the Science Museum Lates (http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/visitmuseum/plan_your_visit/lates.aspx)

The Science Museum run a special "adults only" evening - nooo nothing like that - on the last wednesday of every month. This month was a special UNESCO International Year of Light event (http://www.light2015.org/Home.html) and IPEM (http://www.ipem.ac.uk/) were asked if they wanted to provide the entertainment for Medical Applications of Light. On show were: Infra red camera and a bucket of ice, smartphone apps for measuring heart rate, a spectrometer and UV torches to show how sunscreen works.

Apart from a little hiccup at the beginning when we realised that we had nothing to project our carefully made 10 minute tour through various applications of EMR to medicine the evening went well.  We were just one event of about 30 in the museum that night and although the whole event in general was not as well attended as previous nights we had our fair share of visitors.

The UV and sunscreen example although simple proved popular and although the application of sunscreen isn't exactly a medical application it was an "in" to the idea of how our bodies can be effected by light.  The smartphone app was also quite popular - people love finding things out about themselves :) but nothing gave as much fun as the Infra-Red camera kindly donated for the evening by Dr Keith Ison's group at Guy's and St Thomas' in London and wonderfully demo'ed by Emma Walker.

What struck me about last night's event was the demographic of the audience; they were mostly under 25, an even mix of boys and girls - may be not that ethnically diverse but certainly not all British - and it filled me with a glowing sense of hope for the future of STEM.

I'm not sure how one marks the success of the events but all I can say is that we all had a lot of fun, lets see if we inspired anyone to either become a Healthcare Scientist or join IPEM :)

Name Check: Colin Swift, Sofia Michopoulou, Jessica Johnson, Emma Walker, Harpreet Dhiraj, Anna Stephenson, Glafkos Havariyoun, Eleanor Holden, Sasha Rai, Matthew Tedder, Natalie Sizer.

If you want to get involved in this kind of thing please drop your name to me anna.barnes@uclh.nhs.uk or the IPEM office at office@ipem.ac.uk.

setting up the IR camera with plasma screen

Harpreet and Anna posing in front of the IR camera

oooo pretty pictures

The spectrometer and a red laser pointer

Demonstrating the smartphone HR app

Ellie having a giggle with sunscreen

Glafkos explaining..... well you'll have to ask him :)