Leprosy in the teaching curricula

Leprosy Mailing List – December 31st, 2010

Ref.:   Leprosy in the teaching curricula

From:  Ryan T., Oxford, UK

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Dear Salvatore,

Pran's dagger goes straight to the heart (LML Dec. 18^th, 2010).  Unfortunately Dermatology gets too little space in the Oxford curriculum.  All medical students attending for a short course see first of all a large (updated by myself) poster on Leprosy and that is all.  That is why I emphasise the elective period when visits to India, S America, and Nepal attract them to look for a subject to study and none better than leprosy.  I invite students to accompany me on my regular trips to India.

Getting Leprosy into the general curriculum, sadly, is unlikely to compete with all the very common problems they must be expert on when they become family practitioners in the UK.  They will not see leprosy in Oxford clinics.  If in India and Nepal for example those centres regularly accepting students were to upgrade the teaching so leprosy was seen as part of Dermatology and at the same time financial help with travel was facilitated then we might recruit future leaders of the field.

I am directing my energies in that direction but will copy Pran's mail to those who plan the Oxford curriculum.

Terence