Apothercary 2016

Faculty of Conflict and Catastrophe Medicine
Air Vice-Marshal Aroop Mozumder
CB FRCGP FFPH MSc DTM&H DAvMed DMCC
Last year I opened by mentioning that the relevance of
what we teach and examine in this Faculty has perhaps
never been so starkly exposed, highlighting the brutal
civil war in Syria. The world now is, if anything, in an
even worse position than last year, with a larger number
of humanitarian emergencies, fragile and failing states,
and mass movements of refugees and internally
displaced people than in recent memory. Although
some progress has been made worldwide in the
Millennium Development Goals (now the Sustainable
Development Goals) and towards the control of diseases
such as malaria, TB and polio, it is still shocking to think
that 15 of the 20 poorest
countries in the world are
still affected by significant
conflict. We are being
daily exposed to pictures
of suffering on our TV
screens. This is perhaps
one of the reasons for the
popularity of our course
and why more medical
schools have also
expressed an interest in
this area of medicine.
Care of displaced
populations and the
wider health issues facing
societies dealing with
health emergencies, is a
core part of what we teach
to doctors and nurses on
the Conflict & Catastrophe Medicine course. Indeed, so
popular has the course become, that last year we had to
very reluctantly declare the course numbers at capacity
for the first time. We introduced a ceiling of 50 new
students for each course year starting in January. With
39
over 280 students enrolled, the Saturday lectures are
lively and busy, with often around 70 students
attending. We are now full at the time of writing for the
courses in 2017 and 2018 and the waiting list on the 2019
course is also significant and well over 30. Although
gratifying, in one sense this is also deeply worrying, in
that we are clearly not able to fulfill the demand among
young and enthusiastic healthcare professionals for
teaching in this area.
Due to the importance of evolving the syllabus to
keep up with the requirement to deliver a relevant and
up-to-date course, we increased the number of teaching
days to 13 Saturdays per
year. Course days are
lively and busy and it is
wonderful to see so many
motivated students in
our venerable Hall. This
success is once again due
to the very hard work of
our Course Director Dr
Tim Healing and our
Faculty administrator
Goldy Gullo.
Our evening public
lectures have been once
again excellent this year.
In May we had an
innovative three-part
briefing on the Ebola
Briefing in the Great Hall
crisis in West Africa last
year, given by three of
our distinguished Apothecaries, Dr Tim Healing
(Course Director), Professor Richard Williams (DMCC
Convenor) and Dr Gordon Gancz (DMCC Examiner).
They spoke eloquently and knowledgeably on the
epidemiology and control of the disease, the