Dear Sir
Many medical students reduce themselves consciously to passive consumers of academic education. Every student, however, should assume an active role throughout undergraduate education, and there is a number of ways through which this can be achieved. Joining a student association, engaging in student representative councils or working as a near peer teacher represent fulfilling and also highly instructive options of active student engagement.
This year I decided to live out my keen interest in medical education by attending AMEE 2013, the annual meeting of the Association for Medical Education in Europe. It was my first time at an AMEE conference and I left Prague, this year's host city, deeply impressed. With thousands of participants from all around the world, I do not have any doubt that AMEE 2013 constituted the ‘epicentre’ of medical education over its five-day duration. From the first minute on I enjoyed the vivid, international and highly scientific, yet casual and collegial atmosphere among AMEE representatives, educators, students and everyone engaged in and dedicated to medical education.
As a medical student, the attendance of such a renowned conference offers numerous advantages. Plenary sessions and symposia featuring some of the most bright-minded and well-known educators not only offer precious insights about various aspects of educational practice, but furthermore set the stage for fascinating and at times also humorous debates. This year's conference topic “Colouring Outside the Lines” was catalyst for particularly creative and provocative presentations. Short communication sessions, PhD reports and poster presentations summarize state-of-the-art studies on a wide range of topics related to medical education and offer students the chance of presenting own research projects. To me the innovative ePoster format, which I have been given the chance of experiencing first-hand as a presenter, was an especially enticing component of AMEE 2013. Dozens of workshops constituted another way of actively improving educational knowledge and skills in multifaceted ways.
The collective amount of expertise and authentic enthusiasm regarding medical education by attendants of AMEE 2013 truly impressed me. To all my student colleagues, I can only suggest to engage more in medical education – AMEE offers numerous possibilities, so save the date for next year's conference in Milan!
Declaration of interest: The author reports no conflicts of interest.