Priorities for leprosy control

Leprosy Mailing List – December 16^th, 2010

Ref.:   Priorities for leprosy control

From: Ryan T., Oxford, UK

---

Dear Salvatore,

It is the loss of interest and of experts that is most worrying.  The doctor in training is now unlikely to see a patient with leprosy, hear a lecture on this topic or read a text. When fully qualified many other topics will have fired an interest.  As ever the student elective catches him or her at the most receptive and not yet firmly on route to other branches of Medicine.

I would like more centres that still have many patients to continue to welcome medical students, and funding is set aside for travel scholarships.  The relevance of what they see there will be reduced if all they see is leprosy.  What they need to experience is how leprosy fits into professions they may take up such as Dermatology, Plastic surgery, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics.  I therefore suggest that we build up a few places for study where these branches of medicine are also taught and there are enough affected persons as in India or Brazil and where the enthusiasm for leprosy by practitioners of these professions is infectious.

Terence Ryan

Emeritus Professor of Dermatology, Oxford University