Archive for May 14th, 2008

Medical students from the University of New England will soon have the opportunity to study and gain professional experience in rural Thailand, and vice versa, under an agreement reached between UNE and Naresuan University last week.

The universities have agreed to begin a student exchange program as early as next year, as well as to jointly fund several full scholarships for Thai students to study medicine at UNE. Under the agreement, two Thai students will enrol in UNE’s Bachelor of Medicine program in 2010 and a further two in 2012.

Also discussed was a dual-degree postgraduate program in health management to be offered at the Naresuan campus in Bangkok. On completion of the proposed 2-year Master of International Health Management course — to be taught jointly by UNE and Naresuan staff — graduates may receive two degrees, one from each university.

Professor Victor Minichiello, PVC Dean of the Faculty of the Professions at UNE, said the agreement offered numerous benefits both for the universities and the communities they serviced.

“This is a very exciting development, as it will probably result in our first cohort of international medical students coming on campus to study medicine and contribute to the academic and cultural diversity of our medical program,” Prof Minichiello said.

“Both the Thai and Australian governments have demonstrated their commitment to improving rural health by establishing medical schools at regionally-based institutions like UNE and Naresuan,” he said. “These programs are expected to address the rural medical labour force so critical for healthy and prosperous rural communities.

“What is so exciting about the discussions that took place here at UNE is that these are two rural universities with a passionate commitment to solving rural health issues.”

Associate Professor Dr. Mondhon Sanguansermsri, President of Naresuan University, said the results of the meeting would have a broad-reaching positive impact on rural health in Thailand and Australia.

“The Master of International Health Management will assist Thai health staff in managing all aspects of their work,” he said. “It will have benefits for those working in private and public health, government, family nursing, health science and dentistry, not only for the health workers, but also for their patients.”

The scholarships and student exchanges, he said, would “strengthen the collaboration between our two universities, and allow our students to get medical experience abroad, especially in a rural area”.

Professor Mingan Choct has become the first Australian to give one of the international poultry industry’s most important scientific lectures. He presented the 25^th Annual Robert Fraser Gordon Memorial Lecture to an international audience in Scarborough, UK, last month.

Professor Choct, who is based at the University of New England as the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Poultry Cooperative Research Centre, said the invitation to deliver the lecture, and the enthusiastic response it had received, were “a great honour”. The Gordon Lecture, organised by the R.F.Gordon Memorial Trust and the UK Branch of the World’s Poultry Science Association, is a highlight of the annual conference of the British Society of Animal Science. The lecturer is chosen on the basis of “distinguished contributions to a branch of poultry science”.

In his lecture, titled “Managing gut health through nutrition”, Professor Choct explained why “gut health” in poultry would be an increasingly important focus of scientific research and animal husbandry. “As well as containing more than 20 hormones and accounting for more than 20 per cent of the body’s energy expenditure,” he said, “the gut harbours more than 640 species of microbes. Sixty per cent of a chicken’s excreta originates from these microorganisms. In the future, we’ll need to feed the microbes in the gut properly in order to achieve maximum productivity for the whole animal. It’s a long way off, but that’s what we’ve got to do.”

“To understand gut health we need to understand gut physiology, endocrinology, microbiology, immunology and nutrition,” he continued, adding that the Australian Poultry CRC was among the world’s leaders in developing such an understanding.

Professor Choct, who migrated to Australia from Inner Mongolia in 1987, said Australia had given him opportunities as a postgraduate student, researcher, academic and scientific administrator that had been the “springboard” for his achievement of this and other accolades. Those others include the Australian Society of Animal Production Young Scientist Award (1990), the World’s Poultry Science Association’s Syd Wilkins Memorial Prize (1991), The Australian Poultry Award (2004), and the Alltech Biotechnology Global Medal of Excellence (2005).

As a presenter of the Gordon Memorial Lecture, Professor Choct received the 2008 Robert Fraser Gordon Memorial Medal. The lecture and the medal honour the memory of the distinguished British poultry veterinarian Dr R.F. Gordon, CBE, DSc, DVSc, FRCVS, who died in 1981.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows Professor Choct after being presented with the Gordon Memorial Medal.