Scotland and Medicine Conference 2025
On Friday 2 May 2025 our Health Data Science MSc student Ece Saciroglu attended the Scotland and Medicine Conference 2025 at the Royal Surgeons Hall, Edinburgh.
Ece shared how inspiring this conference was noting "As a Health Data Science MSc student, attending the Scotland and Medicine Conference was a valuable opportunity to broaden my understanding of the ethical and cultural dimensions that underpin medical collections and historical datasets. While my academic training is rooted in data-driven approaches to healthcare, the conference reminded me that behind every medical specimen or record lies a human story—often one shaped by complex socio-political factors such as colonialism, disability, or marginalisation.
I was particularly inspired by sessions that demonstrated how storytelling, visual interpretation, and digital technologies—such as facial reconstruction and collaborative curation—can be used to humanise and contextualise historical collections. As a woman in medical sciences, it was especially meaningful to gain insight into how issues of gender representation are being addressed within Scottish medical collections and communities, particularly in efforts to recover and highlight the stories of women and other historically overlooked individuals. These reflections reinforced the importance of embedding inclusive and ethically-informed perspectives into both historical interpretation and modern health research."
(Photos credit Ece Sagiroglu, Health Data Science MSc student).