9th Scottish SAS Conference, 6th March 2026
The SAS Development Programme are pleased to offer the 9th Scottish SAS Conference, taking place virtually via MS Teams on Friday 6th March 2026. This free-to-attend event is to provide SAS-grade doctors and dentists in Scotland with learning tailored to their professional context, and to champion achievements and opportunities for SAS grades across the country.
Programme:
13:30-13:40 Welcome & Support for SAS in Scotland - Dr Lynne Meekison, Associate Postgraduate Dean for SAS Development
13:40-14:30 The Story of a Heart - One heart, two children and everything they’ve taught me about medicine - Dr Rachel Clarke, physician and author, chaired by Dr Lynne Meekison
14:30-14:45 Oral presentations of SAS posters - chaired by Dr Mun Woo, SAS Education Adviser for NHS GGC
- Dr Yagmur Akkurt - A Multi-Phase Quality Improvement Project for Timely Isotretinoin Access in Acne
- Dr Adrienne Jennings - Bridging the Gap: The Role of the Acute Physician in Orthopaedic Care
- Dr Sorcha Mackay - Developing a System to Record Consent and Biopsy Procedure
14:45-15:00 Break
15:00-15:05 SAS Poster Winner announcement - Dr Lynne Meekison
15:05-16:00 Progression to the Specialist Grade - Dr Sine Steele, Scottish SAS Committee Chair, BMA Scotland, chaired by Dr Mithun Barik, SAS Education Adviser, NHS Ayrshire & Arran and
16:00-16:55 Intelligent Kindness - Tommy Whitelaw, National Lead Person Centred Voices, Health & Social Care Alliance Scotland, chaired by Dr Gemma Falconer, SAS Education Adviser for NHS Fife
16:55-17:00 Thanks and Close - Mrs Komathy McBay, SAS Education Adviser for NHS Tayside
Certificates of attendance with NES-recommended CPD points will be issued after the event.
Posters:
Thank you to those who have submitted posters for this conference to highlight the vital improvement work that SAS grades are involved in across Scotland. As listed in the programme above, three of our contributors will be presenting their posters during the conference, followed by a vote for attending delegates to select a winning poster.
A Multi-Phase Quality Improvement Project for Timely Isotretinoin Access in Acne, Dr Yagmur Akkurt, Specialty Doctor in Dermatology, NHS Highland
Bridging the Gap: The Role of the Acute Physician in Orthopaedic Care, Dr Adrienne Jennings, Specialty Doctor in Acute Medicine within Trauma & Orthopaedics, NHS Tayside
Developing a System to Record Consent and Biopsy Procedure, Dr Sorcha Mackay (lead author), Specialty Doctor in Breast Surgery, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde
VTE Risk Assessment and Prophylactic LMW Heparin Administration Audit in Antenatal Patients, Dr Duaa Hag Mohamed (lead author), Specialty Doctor in Obstetrics & Gynaecology, NHS Highland
Coagulation Testing Reduction in Vale of Leven Hospital Medical Assessment Unit, Dr Fiona Ross (lead author), Specialty Doctor in General Internal Medicine, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde
Keynote speaker biographies:
Dr Rachel Clarke, Palliative Care physician and author
Dr Rachel Clarke is an NHS palliative care doctor and the author of multiple Sunday Times bestselling books about medicine. The most recent of these, The Story of a Heart (2024), tells the story of a heart transplant that changed UK legal history. It was chosen as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and has been shortlisted for the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize and longlisted for the 2025 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction. Breathtaking (2021) was adapted into a major television series, broadcast on ITV in 2024. It reveals how Rachel and her colleagues confronted the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Dear Life (2020), depicting her work in an NHS hospice, was shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Biography Award, long-listed for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize and chosen as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.
Before going to medical school, Rachel was a broadcast journalist. She produced and directed current affairs documentaries focusing on subjects such as the Iraq War and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She continues to write regularly for the Guardian, Sunday Times, New Statesman and Lancet among others, and appears regularly on television and radio.
Inspired by a visit to Ukraine during the conflict in late 2022, Rachel founded a UK-registered charity, Hospice Ukraine, which support the work of local palliative care teams in Ukraine.
Tommy Whitelaw BCAh, National Lead Person Centred Voices, Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE)
For five years Tommy Whitelaw was a full-time carer for his late mother Joan who had Vascular Dementia. In 2011 Tommy undertook a walk around Scotland’s towns and cities to collect hundreds of life stories and letters detailing the experiences of individuals who care for a loved one living with dementia. Tommy took this collection of stories to the Scottish Parliament to raise awareness of the value of carers, providing a platform for people to share their experiences and highlight what is needed to better support carers in Scotland.
Since then, he has engaged with thousands of carers through his ‘Tommy on Tour’ blog and as National Lead for the ALLIANCE’s Person Centred Voices Project. In this role he delivers frequent talks to health and social care professionals, students and carer organisations across the UK, Europe and North America promoting the values and principles of ‘What Matters to You?’, ‘Intelligent Kindness’ and ‘Civility Saves Lives’ – movements that identify active listening, kindness, and person centredness as key to providing inclusive support and care to all individuals, as well as healthy work environments.
This outreach programme has now reached over 290,000+ people across 2,500+ talks, gathering 30,000 ‘What Matters to You’ pledges, capturing people’s commitments to putting this work into practice for the benefit of individuals and families.
In 2014, 2019 and again in 2023 Tommy produced Concerts for Caring. Each concert, held at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall saw over 1,850 individuals join for an evening of music, celebration and respite.
Tommy has been the recipient of the below awards: along with Social Security Scotland naming a training room in his honour.
This page was last updated on: 02.03.2026 at 18.34