WORLDWISE 2010 TRAVEL MEDICINE CONFERENCE PROVES SUCCESSFUL!
WORLDWISE Travellers Health Centres, NZ, recently held a successful Travel Medicine Conference for Health Professionals in Christchurch.
These educational events have been presented annually by WORLDWISE, for the last 12 years and are the longest ongoing regular open travel health meetings in Australasia. More than 70 Health Professionals from around New Zealand attended this year’s conference to update and gain knowledge of safe practice in the delivery of health care to intending travellers.
Key Speakers included: Prof Peter Leggat, Dr Deborah Mills from Australia, Dr Michael Moreton from Thailand and Assoc Prof Marc Shaw from New Zealand.
Doctor Deborah Mills, Medical Director for The Travel Doctor – Brisbane, contributed a wealth of information on ‘Women and Children travellers’, Risk assessmentof travellers, advice on travel health and vaccinations travelling to Bhutan, an update on the Australian prep, and pep guidelines for Rabies, and finally on Mosquito borne diseases in the north of Australia.
Professor Peter Leggat, Head of School of Public Health, Tropical Medicine and Rehabilitation Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville, applied his considerable expertise and research knowledge to the current Travel Medicine, Mosquito prevention measures, gastro problems for travellers and Anti-malarial management.
Dr Michael Moreton from Bangkok Hospital in Thailand added an interesting expatriate perspective and experiences of working in Asia, dealing with expatriates, and essentials of travel for health tourism.
Assoc Prof Marc Shaw, WORLDWISE Travellers Health Centres NZ infused his personal experiences and research into his presentations on The terrors of Travel, the safety and security of travellers, a Cholera vaccine update, First Aid travel medical kits, Malaria, and Rabies epidemiology in New Zealand.
Other Speakers included: Hemi Morete – QSI Solutions, David Hammer – Microbiology, Edward Coughlin – Sexual Health Department,Iain Bell/Sue Chambers-Ross/Lincoln Nicholls – NZDF, Dr Mark Taylor / Dr Janine Rasmussen ‘ Lisa Scotland – WORLDWISE, Dr Debbie Walkden –The Travel Doctor NZ.
A variety of other topics were covered including the management of risk for groups and corporates / Safety and Security / Dengue Fever / Acute Mountain sickness / Kiwi Family holidays to in the pacific / Post Tsunami outbreaks / Life style issues of travellers / Travellers Diarrhoea / Insects and critters /New Zealand Defence Force perspectives on deployment travels to Samoa during the Tsunami experiences, and the Afghanistan.
WORLDWISE received fantastic feedback for the two days of education and would like to thank all the speakers who presented.
Planning is well ahead for the next conference in 2011 and those who wish to receive upcoming information are invited to write to online@worldwise.co.nz
WORLDWISE would also like to thank Glaxo Smith Kline for their unique contributions towards such a successful event.
Travel and Tropical Medicine is a growing specialization. With around 2 million kiwis travelling overseas per year, Travel Health Professionals need to be regularly updated in global travel health information.
The WORLDWISE ONLINE Seminars have been annually presented for the last 12 years, and are the longest ongoing regular ‘open’ travel health meetings in Australasia.
This year’s WORLDWISE ONLINE conference offers Health Professionals a solid platform on which to learn and up-skill knowledge in this exciting specialization. It is aimed at all Primary Health Care Practitioners (General Practitioners, Public Health Physicians, Infectious Disease Specialists, Military medical Staff, Pharmacists) with an interest in travel medicine. Primary Healthcare Nurses who have attended previous WORLDWISE ONLINE Level 1 courses are also invited to attend this annual meeting.
This year, the primary focus of the Conference will be on Corporate travellers and families travelling to the Asia – Pacific region. Special focus will be on
i) ‘rabies in our region’
ii) the safety of travel
iii) how to develop a risk analysis of a travel itinerary
iv) Women and children travellers
There are to be special sections on ‘country based requirements’ for travel to South East Asia and Oceania.
The conference will be hosted at Hotel So in Central Christchurch. A hotel which implements sustainable business practices that reduce its ecological footprint.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- To understand safe practice in the delivery of health care to intending travellers, particularly to those travelling to the Asian and Pacific region
- To update knowledge on current pertinent travel health issues and its relevance to current medical practice
- To understand and develop knowledge base in Travel and Geographical Medicine practice
- To identify when it is vital to refer patients/travellers to specialty services
- To understand the advice that corporate travellers need to keep them well on overseas deployment
- To understand what responses are needed in global emergency
PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE
- Travelling groups and corporates – Risk assessment
- Life style issues of Travellers – Sex and STI’s
- Medical Tourism – The Thailand Experience
- Update on Dengue Fever – Current thinking and into the future
- Food and Water borne issues – The family holiday, outbreaks
- Woman and children travellers – management, the pregnant traveller
- Mosquito borne diseases
- Wilderness weather extremes and travel – Creepy Crawlies , the essence of management
- Region specific destinations – Asia, Pacific
- Post natural disaster outbreaks – Thailand and Samoa experiences
- Update on Malaria – Future developments
- Rabies – devising a management plan, the Bali experience
WORLDWISE Post Graduate Conference Advanced Level – The New Zealand Advanced course in Travel, Tropical and Geographical Medicine for Travel and Primary Health Care Practitioners – has been endorsed by The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP) and has been approved for up to 13.25 Hours CME for General Practice Educational Programme Stage 2 (GPEP2) and Maintenance of Professional Standards (MOPS) purposes.
For more information, full programme details or registration, please contact Clare at online@worldwise.co.nz or 09 520 5830
We look forward to seeing you there!
Associate Professor and ‘new Doctorate’, Marc Shaw – Medical Director for WORLDWISE, graduated as a Doctor of Public Health over the weekend at James Cook University, in Townsville, Australia. Juggling his time with various publications, expedition travel, humanitarian work, and lets not forget all of his WORLDWISE work this year, Marc has managed to finish his research towards his Doctorate on Post Exposure Rabies in returning travellers to New Zealand.
Marc was honoured to be presented with such an esteemed award at a ceremony that acknowledged the work he has done as being a significant stepping stone in the future of Tropical Medicine in Australasia.
The only graduate to receive this doctorate, Marc made his ‘mark’ in the glorious red cap, with the red and blue gown of the doctoral robes upon which was his medal for service to Tsunami relief efforts in 2004!
WORLDWISE clinics in New Zealand are 1 of 39 globally dispersed GeoSentinel sites for surveillance and monitoring of all travel related illnesses.
GeoSentinel is a network of travel & tropical medicine clinics initiated in 1995 by the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) and the Centres for Disease Control (CDC). Surveillance of morbidity and mortality in travellers serves a number of purposes.
Firstly, it provides information to assist in the prevention of morbidity of local populations.
Secondly, travellers can serve as sentinels for changes that affect the morbidity and mortality of local populations.
Thirdly, travellers can be a factor in the spread of diseases in their countries of origin.
GeoSentinel is based on the concept that these clinics are ideally situated to effectively detect geographic and temporal trends in morbidity among travellers, immigrants and refugees.
With GeoSentinel and Clinical Research here in Auckland, WORLDWISE is contributing to an important global cause!!!
If you have been travelling and have become unwell in some form, it is important to inform your doctor you have been travelling (better yet, go to the experts – WORLDWISE) where they know what to look for and can record important data for GeoSentinel.
Visit http://www.worldwise.co.nz – the public site to see what post-travel signs and symptoms you should look out for upon return from your overseas journey. Or feel free to contact us directly at info@worldwise.co.nz.
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