Chapter 5 Guide for new spokes
Congrats on starting a new spoke!!! We are really happy that you are here and we will try our best to support you. Here are some useful tips that will be helpful to set up the spoke.
If you are reading this guide, you have probably reached out to us. If not, we would love to hear from you and guide you along the way.
- Check that if there is any existing MedTech socities at your city. If there is, try reaching out to them and explore the idea
- Have a conceptual understanding of the relationships between NHS, MIC and MTF
- It is difficult to build and maintain a society alone. Find a few members that share your vision about MTF to work on this together
- Have a plan of what you want to achieve in the first year. To start off you may want to organise zero or low-cost events like MEDx. As all MEDx are held online now (as of December 2020), it is very feasible to work with another spoke together on a MEDx, too.
- Build social media platforms for your spoke and reach out to the trainees and students in your region. Reach out to our publicity officer for a media pack (logo etc.) and post any event information on the slack channel as well. This will allow us to publicize the events further with followers for National and local spoke social media accounts.
- Keep a track of metrics that you are monitoring. These can be anything from attendance to the participant feedback. Contact National Strategy Director for a template of feedback form. Knowing the metrices before you organise these events will also help you to focus on what are the key activities you need to conduct.
- Plan a timeline for organizing flagship events like Innovation Programme. Have a list of clinical problems that participants can engage conceptually. Ideally these problems do not have obvious and narrow solutions that can be directly implemented. If you have any difficulty in reaching out to clinicians for your first IP, reach out to us. What other spokes are working on can always be a source of inspirations!
- Contact the local MIC at your region after you have built up a portfolio of past events and impact. Also, contact MedTech companies that want to publicize themselves or hire from students/trainees. It is a virtuous circle: companies are happy for free publicity, and people like to see opportunities available to them. Eventually you will build up a large enough audience that more than enough companies want to publicize through your channels. That is when you can neogotiate a sponsorhship pack with them.
- Last but not least, do not feel shy to reach out to us! We are a community and we will be with you every step along the way.
It is a living document so feel free to let us know if anything else we can help.