Home safely and THANK YOU!

After our 2 week trip we are all grateful to be home safely...

We would like to thank the people who conceptualized and funded the trip.  It really was an interesting and very rewarding experience!

To everyone at all the institutions and organizations we visited, THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your time and effort to make us feel at home and help us understand the situations and environments to help us to improve the health of South Africans in the future.  Hope we will meet again and work together in times ahead.

Thanks to the
NICD and Lucille Blumberg
NIOH and David Rees
Sasol and Dries Burger
Wits Shool of Public Health and Shan Naidoo
Wits Centre for Health Policy and Jane Goudge
Wits Rural Facility and Thembi and Julia Moorman
Bush Buck Ridge subdistrict and Phyllis Marule
Rural Health Advocacy Project (RHAP) and Richard Cooke
Agincourt and Ryan Wagner
Tintswalo Hospital and the various staff members we interacted with
Gottenburg and Hluvukani Clinics
Pretoria Veterinary School and Greg Simpson
RADAR and Realise
Community care workers
The people of the BBR community
All the other people who we interacted with and helped us along the way.

A very special thank you to Dr. Neil Cameorn who with his knowledge, leadership, contacts and relaxed fatherly behavior and questions made the trip the success that it has been.

Thank you to Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and Stellenbosch University Rural Medical Education Partnership Initiative (SURMEPI) for funding us to go on the fieldtrip.

http://www.mepinetwork.org/

http://surmepi.sun.ac.za/ (website under construction)

2012 Public Health Field Trip Background

Yesterday happened at a tremendous pace!  5 different flights, missed flights, airport transfers but eventually 6 Capetonians, a Mpumalangan a Congolese, a Cameroonian, a Brit, a Ghanaian made it to from their origins in Cape Town to Sunnyside Park Hotel in Johannesburg in a tired but excited state.

Senior lecturers, occupational health registrars and public health registrars are all looking forward to the long awaited public health field trip that was organized by Dr. Neil Cameron.  In the next two weeks we will visit and learn at the:
NIOH (http://www.nioh.ac.za/),
SASOL in Secunda where we will visit their facilities as well as a coal mine (http://www.sasol.com/sasol_internet/frontend/navigation.jsp?navid=1&rootid=1)
NICD (http://www.nicd.ac.za/)
WITS School of Public Health (http://www.wits.ac.za/publichealth/10374/publichealth.html)
WITS Rural Health Facility (http://www.wits.ac.za/wrf)

More information on the party:

Dr Neil Cameron:  Officially retired public health specialist but still very much involved in organizing field trips utilizing his experience, wealth of knowledge and a career of contacts.

Dr Fidele Mukinda:  Senior Lecturer in Health Systems and Services Research - Stellenbosch University

Dr Julius Ayuk:  Registrar in Occupational Medicine - Stellenbosch University
Dr Mutheiwana Dombo:  Registrar in Public Health - University of Cape Town
Dr Gina Bernhardt:  Registrar in Public Health - University of Cape Town
Dr Ziyaad Essop:  Registrar in Occupational Medicine - Stellenbosch University
Dr Rosamund Southgate: Registrar in Public Health - NHS, UK
Dr Sikhumbuzo Mabunda:  Registrar in Public Health - University of Cape Town
Dr Vivian Apiah-Baden:  Registrar in Public Health - University of Cape Town
Dr Robin Dyers:  Registrar in Public Health - Stellenbosch University
Dr Bart Willems: Registrar in Public Health - Stellenbosch University
Me Charlyn Goliath:  Occupational Therapist, Health Systems Research - Stellenbosch University
Me Alysha Aziz:  Public Health USA - Bay Area, San Francisco

Thank you to Medical Education Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and Stellenbosch University Rural Medical Education Partnership Initiative (SURMEPI) for funding us to go on the fieldtrip.

http://www.mepinetwork.org/

http://surmepi.sun.ac.za/ (website under construction)