Welcome to the Second Mediccom Event! Having listened to some of your feedback, we have organised a debate session to change the way research is done. We did this for Covid-19 because some things are still unknown, and hence doing research isn't feasible. Furthermore we believe that most people already know a lot about coronavirus considering the amount of information freely available. Hence, what would be more interesting is seeing people's opinions and researching what the people say, as this is very important to understand.

Each debate topic should be broad enough that you can see the different ways you can approach a question. We hope that this alleviates the amount of work compared to the first session, but nevertheless, you will still be tested on your critical thinking, fluency, and general skills necessary for an interview.

We do NOT want people to script their debates, but interact with the other group's points and try to make rebuttals

Medicine is very factual in its content, but it is very important to understand that doctors must keep up to date with current healthcare news to provide the best treatment to patients who may be worried or anxious, hence they must do in depth research as to the source of these issues.

DEBATE INFO

Debates are running British Parliamentary Style and hence we will have to have roles for everyone on the day depending on the order of speaking. Within your own group of 3 or 4 you will have to decide who is delegated Opening Speaker, Second Speaker, (Third Speaker) and Reply Speakers. You will be told whether you are Proposition (For the Statement) or Opposition (Against the Statement) shortly.

Each topic will receive 1 hr of speaking time, which means that 2 groups will have to share 1 hour (meaning around 8 minutes speaking time per person). Any time that is not filled up will become a short break to keep on time with the schedule attached.

REBUTTAL INFO

Each speaker will receive 1 minute protected time where there cannot be any rebuttals made against them. Following that, they will receive 6 minutes of unprotected time where anyone on the rival team is allowed to unmute and say "point of information" where they can ask a question or pose a situation for the speaker's statement to be deemed weaker. The speaker at that moment is able to choose whether to accept or deny a POI, however taking POIs (having expressed key points) is the best approach to debating. At 7 minutes, POIs are closed and the speaker is urged to conclude their arguments. We will play a video showing when POIs are open/closed during the speakers' debates.

EXTRA INFO

Generally, the speaker following a rival speaker brings up points that weaken the rival's arguments. i.e. an Opening Opposition can structure their debate to bring up main points, and then weaken the points made by Opening Proposition preceding their debate.

We will try give feedback on your debates in a separate email.

Our aim for this session is to test/improve your logical deduction, speech, research, construction and deconstruction of arguments and mutual respect in debates. If there are any questions please let us know and we can address them to everyone on the discord?

Many thanks to NHS Charities Together