This is a new MSc, run jointly between the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the Royal Veterinary College
It's about a One Health approach to infectious diseases and their control
We're aiming at this topic because these days infectious diseases are largely an issue that is emerging
The only infectious diseases that are still around are those that either there is a big problem controlling them
We haven't got adequate drugs or vaccines
and/or they are themselves emerging from the processes of development
so as environments, lifestyles and health systems change, human and animal diseases are changing
some are disappearing but some are promoted by and are emerging from these developmental processes
One Health is more than just medicine. It's really looking at the structural elements to health
So what is driving disease? That may have a social or environmental component
and so it is really a whole of society approach to health
I decided to study the MSc because it's such an open course and you can do anything you want with it
This year on the course there were eight students, each one from a different country
This was really good because it meant we had people from a range of backgrounds and cultures
Part of the course is dedicated to not just theory but about giving students some tools to work with
So we developed economic, epidemiological, ecological models and systems models
which are appropriate to being able to resolve problems in a One Health context so that's pretty core
The course is a joint MSc between the School and the Royal Veterinary College
It forms one of the portfolio of Master's that we do here and it shares teaching between each institution
It's very much an interdisciplinary course
The highlight of my course was definitely being at two different universities at the same time
We spend roughly half the time at the School and half the time at the Royal Veterinary College
This was really good because the two universities are so different in what they teach and how they teach it
They really complement each other and we get to see a broad range of teaching styles
What I really liked about the course were the different kinds of modules we could take
They ranged from health economics to public health anthropology to epidemiology
and covering animal diseases and human diseases
I found it great that we had such a wide breadth of subjects
We have students working on their research projects all over the world, which is our objective
We want them to go into environments where the whole One Health approach has a future
I feel like here at the School there is an open door policy and we can visit lecturers whenever we like
and they can help us with our problems and they feel very much at ease to sit and listen to us
I feel like they have a lot of time for us as well and that is one of the best things about the School
Our teachers look at us as colleagues rather than as students
That promotes a much nicer exchange than for example compared to when I was an undergraduate
One interesting quote that's relevant to One Health comes from the world of malariology
Bruce-Chwatt, who led the spraying campaigns in the 60's and 70's against malaria
complained later that whereas previously we had been training malariologists to be problem solvers
we had grown into training people to become solution implementers
It was about spraying and spraying alone and that was why things went wrong
I think there are other examples like that these days
and that's why we're training our One Health students to be problem solvers