Imperial Connection: Sleep Workshops for Students: Singapore and London

This Sleep Workshops project has been awarded the Jenny Higham Collaboration Grant 2019, given out to LKCMedicine-Imperial student research collaborations. The results will be presented in a poster at the upcoming Transform MedEd 2020 in London.

By Marcus Teo, Gayatiri Raveentheran (Class of 2021) and Daniele Cotton (Class of 2023)

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything", so goes an Irish proverb.

Have you ever wondered how important sleep is to your life? Do you know that sleep not only affects hormones such as cortisol, sex steroids and leptin, but also has macrovascular effects? Or that sleep deprivation can be as detrimental to cognitive function as alcohol intoxication?

We were curious about sleep too, which led to us to organise a Sleep Workshop for Imperial and LKCMedicine students. Maintaining a high-quality sleep routine can be extremely challenging as a medical student, so the principles of sleep medicine are just as relevant to us as they would be to our future patients!

We recently hosted an extremely well-received Sleep Workshop at Imperial College by Dr David O'Regan, a Consultant in Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine at the Insomnia Clinic at University College London Hospitals and the Sleep Disorder Centre at Guy's and St. Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. This talk was based on Dr O'Regan's 'Top Tips for Sleep', rooted in cutting-edge sleep science and evidence-based cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, commonly called CBT-I.  

The London workshop was followed by a lively Q&A, in which students were able to discuss how we could use sleep science to our advantage in our time at medical school and during our professional careers as doctors. Students discussed practical advice on preparing for night shifts, tackling jet lag and international travel, and how to stay awake and focused in classes!

We are delighted to invite students of LKCMedicine to attend our upcoming Sleep Workshop in Singapore. Dr O'Regan, connecting via live-link from Imperial College, will be covering similar topics at this workshop, hoping to enhance what students have learnt from their previous TBLs on sleep. You'll also gain a deeper understanding of how sleep science can be used to boost performance and well-being as medical students and future doctors. 

A Q&A session with Dr O'Regan will be facilitated as part of the workshop in Singapore, giving students the opportunity to ask anything they've ever wanted to know about sleep! There will also be the opportunity to take part in pre- and post-workshop questionnaires, designed to better understand students' awareness of sleep and its impact on well-being, in order to improve future sleep teaching at LKCMedicine and Imperial.

The upcoming Singapore talk will be held at LKCMedicine, HQ Seminar Room, Novena Campus on 7 January 2020. We hope to see our LKCMedicine student counterparts at the upcoming workshop!