Anyone in Bristol interested in tropical medicine?

[Yixian]

Hey peeps,

Now, over the summer I have been working on setting up a Society of Tropical Medicine over in Peninsula Medical School. It turns out this is a particularly under-represented area of medicine but at the same time there is a huge amount of interest in it amongst medical students and a lot of support from experts in the field from around the country - huge numbers of students are interested in working for organisations like MSF and we're looking to provide the academic preparation for that kind of work.

Our society is now established and ready for it's first year, we will be providing a monthly lecture on tropical disease from clinicians and researchers, mostly from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and other universities in the Midlands and South East.

In the interest in bringing tropical medicine over to the South West and fostering some partnerships between our universities, I'm looking to see if there's any Bristol students interested in working with us to set up a branch over at Bristol Medical School.

We're now working on a discounted summer placement project tailored to tropical medicine from an elective company for 1st to 4th years, and looking at the possibility of a student journal on tropical medicine.

The branch would be independently run but we'd be able to provide you with our now big book of contacts, share contacts in future, if you wanted we could set up a Bristol version of the website we're using and possibly work together on the summer placement projects and journal projects in the future, plus common logos etc.

The idea would be to set up a couple Societies of Tropical Medicine around the country that can share speakers, work together on larger events and hopefully eventually hold some kind of small national conference with a few workshops etc.

If you're interested take a look at the site: Peninsula Society of Tropical Medicine

And give me a message! Literally everyone is welcome, be you soon-to-be-first-years or soon-to-leave-5th years, and everything in between. No previous experience running societies is explicitly required! Love your city, love your school and it'd be great to work together with you guys!

[Yixian]

Just thought I'd bump this up again now we're further into the year. We are opening our next chapter in Hull York Medical School shortly, and if there's anyone in Bristol interested in setting up a chapter there we have all the websites and contacts etc. to get you going.

The idea is to form a small network of tropical medicine societies that can draw on the field experts at the London and Liverpool schools.

[Omer]

Hi Yixian, i am a second year medical student at bristol univeristy. I am very much interested in the idea of setting up a tropical medicine society. Could you email a little bit more information? Thanks


Omer Ben-Gal

my email is ob7477@bristol.ac.uk

[Yixian]

Hey there Omer, sorry just saw your reply! Emailing you now!

[_avfc00013]

What is tropical medicine? is it learning about tropical diseases? does this mean you would be expected to work in foreign countries?

[Yixian]

Tropical diseases are diseases found only or more commonly in the tropics of sub-tropics. Malaria, ebola etc. are all obviously tropical diseases but HIV and TB etc. also overlap into tropical medicine to some extent.

Most of what we call "tropical disease" is infectious, and so TM is generally considered a branch of infectious disease. Public health and epidemiology are also important aspects of TM.

People specialising in tropical medicine can work in the UK (there's a hospital for tropical diseases in London), in other western countries with tropical clinics/hospitals, and can obviously work in the tropics/sub-tropics.

People wishing to work with organisations such as MSF, MDM etc. during their career are more likely to be recruited if they have some training in tropical medicine.

Having a basic understanding of tropical disease would also help you get a lot more out of an elective in the tropics while at medical school.

[_avfc00013]

Do you also learn about alternative methods of treating these diseases because I assume in LEDCs, of which many are located in the tropics, have not got the technology we do in the UK.