My Adventures in Tropical Medicine

Infectious diseases and tropical medicine offer us insights into diseases and cultures that we still have much to learn about. Prof Bailey was inspired to work overseas by meeting Christian missionaries as a child, but has done most of his work in this area with the British Army. Doing so has provided him with many opportunities for clinical, innovation and research work in countries such as China, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Cyprus, Afghanistan, Iraq and South Sudan.

He has found that there is much to be learned and gained from doing epidemiology field work, managing outbreaks, improving diagnostics and introducing novel treatments for diseases such as leishmaniasis, hydatid disease, helminth infections, malaria, viral gastroenteritis, undifferentiated febrile illnesses, Q fever, tropical skin diseases, leprosy and Ebola virus disease. Not surprisingly, working in war and disaster zones has also led to a variety of psychological, ethical and moral challenges along the way.

Although he has mostly worked on exotic diseases in distant countries, in this lecture Prof Bailey hopes to show how we can all learn and contribute in the field of global health and also how we could all benefit from working overseas.

Biography

Prof (Lt Col) Mark Bailey is Professor of Infection at Warwick Medical School, where he is responsible for immunology and infection teaching on the MB ChB course, runs a Student Selected Component (SSC) module in infectious disease and tropical medicine, and supervises SSC and PhD research programmes. He is also the British Army's consultant physician in infectious diseases and tropical medicine, working at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital and The Royal Centre for Defence Medicine.

He has undertaken clinical and research work in many countries and his main interests include undifferentiated febrile illnesses, tropical skin diseases and the clinical use of information technology in resource-poor settings. He was awarded the Order of St John for his leading role during the Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone from 2014-15.

Date: 5 December 2018

Location: MTC Lecture Theatre

Timings: A welcome reception will take place in the common room of the MTC at 11.30am. The lecture will start at 12.00pm.