Brighton & Sussex MedChi

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Brighton & Sussex MedChi

A forum for doctors, nurses and students from all over Sussex, to meet, discuss and showcase interests in our local healthcare landscape.

linktr.ee/brightonsussexmedchi The Brighton and Sussex Medico-Chirurgical Society is one of the oldest medical societies in the United Kingdom. Established in 1847 by the society's first president Dr William King - founder of the Brighton Co-operative Society. Regular meetings were held for many years in the music room of the Brighton Royal Pavilion. In the 1970s, meetings were transferred to the

Sussex Postgraduate Medical Centre on the Brighton General Hospital site. The 100th anniversary meeting, held in the Pavilion was attended by many distinguished guests including the Presidents of the three Royal Colleges. The Society has an extensive library containing many valuable historical medical books. Our aim is to provide a forum where doctors, medical students and interested 6th formers from all over Sussex can meet and hear distinguished speakers deliver interesting and stimulating talks on a variety of medical and non-medical topics. These talks aim to tackle some of the major medical, ethical, philosophical, educational and medico-political issues that confront health professionals and the general public alike. Meetings are held in the main lecture theatre of the Audrey Emerton Education Centre on the Royal Sussex County Hospital site and take place at 6.30pm. Coffee/tea, biscuits and soft drinks are served from 5.45pm. Evening meetings are held on the first Thursday of the month excluding July, August & September. The speaker programme is arranged by the current President and the invited speakers often have an international or national reputation.

19/05/2026

'Ultra-Processed Food and Commercial Determinants of Health'
by Dr Chris van Tulleken

Thursday 4 June 2026 | 6:30 pm

Lecture Theatre, Audrey Emerton Building, Royal Sussex County Hospital, Eastern Road, Brighton, BN2 5BE

Livestream signup link in our bio.

Dr Chris van Tulleken is an infectious diseases doctor at University College London Hospital (UCLH) – and is also one of broadcast’s leading and liveliest science presenters. For more than ten years he and his twin brother, Xand (also a doctor) have presented Operation Ouch!, a BAFTA-winning children’s TV series that explains the workings of the human body. Chris’s 2023 book, Ultra-Processed People, became the number one Sunday Times bestseller with recommendations coming from the FT, Daily Mail, The Guardian and New York Times among many others.

17/04/2026

'Change in the NHS, progress and barriers. Reflections from a recent RCGP Chair'
by Professor Kamila Hawthorne

Thursday 7 May 2026 | 6:30 pm

Lecture Theatre, Audrey Emerton Building, Royal Sussex County Hospital, Eastern Road, Brighton, BN2 5BE
Livestream access signup: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/zV043FnxRM2W7ctdLh68vw

Kamila has been a GP in South Wales for 31 years, and a GP for 37 years, having qualified from Somerville College, Oxford in 1984, and completed her GP training in Nottingham in 1988. She grew up in Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania. Prior to arriving in South Wales, she was a GP partner in practices in Nottingham and Manchester. She is the immediate past Chair of the Royal College of GPs, having demitted office at the end of November 2025. She is on the Trustee Boards of the Kings Fund, and Moondance Cancer Initiative, the Chair of Trustee Board for two charities, the National Academy of Social Prescribing, and Pathway (health inclusion for homeless people). She is the patron of Health Literacy UK. She is also a Bevan Commissioner and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales.

Her research and clinical working interests have been in health inequalities and access to health services, (her MD was based on link-worker-led culturally appropriate health education for BAME patient groups with Type 2 diabetes in Nottingham, Manchester and Cardiff). With wide experience of general practice and running community projects in diabetes and heart disease, she has been named ‘GP of the Year’ twice, Woman of the Year 2024 at the GG2 Leadership and Diversity Awards and was awarded an MBE in 2017 for services to General Practice. She has been an MRCGP Examiner for 26 years. More recently, she has been Head of the Graduate Entry Medicine programme at Swansea University (2019-2022).

Kamila is now retired from clinical general practice, but is keeping very busy with her charitable activities, gardening and spending time with her grandson.

20/02/2026

'Aristotle to Algorithms: Philosophical Dimensions of Robotic Orthopaedic Surgery'
by Professor Benedict Rogers

Thursday 5 March 2026 | 6:30 pm

Livestream access signup: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/-bw7j8dhSFSpW7aXrkjE9w

Lecture Theatre, Audrey Emerton Building, Royal Sussex County Hospital, Eastern Road, Brighton, BN2 5BE

In this lecture, Professor Benedict Rogers will share his journey and experiences as an orthopaedic surgeon, pivotal moments and key learnings that have shaped his career. From his early education and training to the challenges and triumphs in the operating room, fracture clinic and lecture theatre. Professor Rogers will provide insights into this evolving field, particularly the transformative world of robotic-assisted orthopaedic surgery, exploring its impact on modern medical practices and patient outcomes. Robotic technology has revolutionized the field of orthopaedics, offering unprecedented precision, control, and efficiency in surgical procedures. Finally, he will discuss the challenges, limitations and implications of this technology, as well as the ongoing research and future directions in the field.

Professor Rogers is a Consultant in Orthopaedic & Trauma Surgery consulting in Surrey and Sussex, with clinical and academic interests on hip and knee surgery, including robotic-assisted sports injuries and trauma. He is a graduate of University of Oxford (Christ Church), St George’s Hospital Medical School (University of London), UCL, University of Portsmouth and University of Toronto, and has been awarded PhD (2017) with thesis entitled “Optimising the Outcomes of Hip and Knee Replacements”. Currently he is an NHS Consultant at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust and an Honorary Clinical Professor at Brighton & Sussex Medical School.

18/01/2026

'The Price of Life - What are We Worth & Who Decides?'
with Jenny Kleeman

Thursday 12 February 2026 | 6:30 pm

We say that life is priceless, but the cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice. In a world in love with data, it is possible to run a cost-benefit analysis on anything – including life itself. For philanthropists, judges, criminals, healthcare providers and government ministers, it’s just part of the job. Exploring the final frontier in monetization, Jenny Kleeman asks what we lose and what we gain by leaving the judgments that really matter up to cold, hard logic.

In 2025, Jenny won the Orwell Prize for journalism. She writes long form magazine pieces for the Guardian, the Financial Times Magazine and the Sunday Times Magazine. A regular voice on BBC Radio 4, Jenny writes and presents the documentary series The Gift, and has reported for BBC One's Panorama and Channel 4's Dispatches, as well as making 13 films from across the globe for Channel 4's Unreported World. Her first book, S*x Robots & Vegan Meat, was published in 2020 and has been translated into eleven languages. Her second book The Price of Life, was published in 2024.

Our 2026 programme is now available on our website. Please save the dates in your diary. We encourage you to attend the meeting in person to take full advantage of the direct interaction opportunities that are especially valuable in the digital era. However, if you are only able to join remotely via the livestream, where interaction is limited, please provide your contacts using the link in our bio.

13/12/2025

'Sense and Serendipity: Reflections on a Career in Medicine'

🎉 Join us for the upcoming Presidential Address delivered by Professor Malcolm Reed, our newly elected President of Med-Chi. Professor Reed will give us his reflections on a career in medicine through ‘Sense & Serendipity’.

Thursday 8th January 2026
6:30 pm start

Professor Malcolm Reed, Emeritus Professor of Surgical Oncology, Brighton & Sussex Medical School, Consultant Surgeon, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, Chair of the Medical Schools Council Assessment, Honorary Professor of Medicine, University of St Andrews

Registration for evening lectures in bio.

12/12/2025

Save the dates! The brand new 2026 programme is organised by President Andrew Reed

13/11/2025

Thursday 4th December 2025
6 pm for 6:30 pm start
Lecture Theatre, Audrey Emerton Building, Royal Sussex County Hospital

'The Med-Chi Society and the History of Medicine in Brighton & Sussex'
with Dr Max Cooper, Becca Cushing and Alastair Carter

See registration link in bio.

11/10/2025

Tuesday 4th November 2025
6 pm for 6:30 pm start
Lecture Theatre, Audrey Emerton Building, Royal Sussex County Hospital

'The robot will see you now: communicating the complexity of modern medicine- past, present and future'
with Professor Dame Lesley Fallowfield

Lesley Fallowfield DBE, BSc, DPhil, FMedSci. is Professor of Psycho-oncology and Director of Sussex Health Outcomes Research & Education in Cancer (SHORE-C) at Brighton & Sussex Medical School. Her research interests are wide and include design of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) many of which are used in major international clinical trials of cancer therapy.

In this talk she will look at some of the data emerging from the use of AI in healthcare such as machine learning algorithms, natural language processing, the ubiquitous chatbots, and clinical decision support systems and consider what impacts these might have on the doctor/patient relationship.

See registration link in bio.

20/09/2025

Tuesday 7th October 2025
6 pm for 6:30 pm start
Lecture Theatre, Audrey Emerton Building, Royal Sussex County Hospital

'Healthcare 3.0: A Clinician’s Guide to Longevity Medicine'
with Dr Matt Pywell, MBBS BSc MA(Med Ed) FRCS

Join Dr. Matt Pywell for this inspiring session on the evolution of medicine. From reactive care to a preventative, personalised approach rooted in longevity science. Discover how to use cutting-edge clinical tools to optimise patient health, prevent chronic disease, and enhance vitality. Gain practical insights you can apply straight away, and explore how longevity medicine can reshape your practice and your patients’ lives.

Please register here: https://forms.office.com/e/2c9a4MEx6r

17/09/2025

In celebration of the society becoming more multidisciplinary — no longer just for doctors — we're holding this year's event at a restaurant owned and run by some of our brilliant Filipino nursing colleagues. It's an authentic Filipino venue with traditional food, drinks and entertainment. A big social activity in the Philippines is karaoke, and the restaurant doubles as a karaoke bar. We’ve hired out the entire backroom of the venue, so please don’t worry about members of the public getting overly concerned about your singing ability.

There’ll be sharing platters, Filipino cocktails, some speeches — and then an evening of entertainment like Med Chi has never seen before.

The event is on Friday 17th October — arrive from 7pm for a 7.30pm start. Dress code is casual.

Booking is essential and places are limited due to venue size, so please book ASAP. To request tickets, please click the link here:
https://www.cognitoforms.com/MedChi1/MedChisGotTalents2025

Address

Audrey Emerton Building, Eastern Road
Brighton And Hove
BN25BE

Website

http://www.brightonmedchi.org.uk/

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