Third year student Merlin Hetherington has been awarded the SES Gough Explorer prize for 2018.\u00a0 Merlin and fellow student Alex McMaster will cycle from Cairo to Cape Town on a tandem bike distributing Arclight opthalmoscopes to medical students and healthcare workers on their route.<\/p>\n
Merlin said:<\/p>\n
During my third year, we covered Diseases of the Eye and one lecture in particular covered the epidemiology of eye disease, describing a huge burden of preventable blindness worldwide, especially in Africa. I was really inspired by the work that had gone into developing the Arclight \u2013 innovated specifically for low-resource settings. The potential the device has to change the provision of eye-care in Africa is something that is worth pursuing and I wanted to get involved. No one should suffer with preventable blindness and the device can bring diagnostic and screening capabilities into the hands of a workforce that previously hasn\u2019t had access to such resources. Our project aims to distribute Arclights and to train healthcare workers and students as we cycle from Cairo to Cape Town.<\/em><\/p>\n Part of my drive to study Medicine was to be able to play a role in alleviating suffering and reducing global health inequalities. Sharing skills and education is an important piece in the puzzle, and for my dissertation I enjoyed investigating low-cost training tools to help people use the Arclight \/ophthalmoscopes. I hope that through the Arclight tandem Africa project Alex and I are able to contribute a small step towards the Vision2020 goal of ending preventable blindness. At the very least our ambitious cycle ride, by tandem, will draw attention to eye-care and neglected diseases, and will hopefully inspire people with more substantial capabilities to drive forward change.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The experience of 10,000km by bike through Africa will be phenomenal, and the exposure to global health will be be absolutely eye-opening, inspiring and influential on the rest of my life and career.<\/em><\/p>\n One of the many things I learned from my dissertation is that progress in Science and Medicine is made by many people, each making small contributions to a larger body of knowledge or work. In a similar way, I hope this project is a step towards bringing all people the right to sight.<\/em><\/p>\n Further details on Merlin’s award can be found here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Follow the journey on FB and Twitter. Feel free to get in touch by email.<\/p>\n FB:\u00a0https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/arclight.tandemafrica\/<\/a> @arclight.tandemafrica<\/p>\n