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From clinical practice to research within poultry distribution networks in Bangladesh
Mathew Hennessey
During my veterinary training, had someone told me that 12 years into my career I would be talking to farmers about
poultry diseases and slaughterhouse hygiene, I would have thought them deluded. At that time, I found the subject of veterinary public health, as it was then taught, incredibly boring and far removed from the vocation I idealised. Why was I having to learn about modified air packaging, the correct method to create salami, and possible ways of medicating bees?
I wanted to treat animals.
However, after spending over a decade working in small animal practice, in a plethora of iterations (full-time, part- time, locum, private, charity, medicine, imaging – even a spate of surgery), I finally moved away from clinical practice and undertook the One Health MSc
at the RVC and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). The focus of the course was infectious diseases, viewed through the emerging paradigm of ‘One Health’; a holistic approach to the complex challenges posed by zoonotic diseases and
WA kind donation from alumnus Alun Jones (1948)
friends and family as Alun) of December 1948 and is a mark of
kindly donated back to the celebration of their 70th anniversary of RVC his final year group graduation gift graduation from the RVC. The bovine rib in memory and honour of his colleagues.
If you have something that you would like to share with the RVC, please get in touch at development@rvc.ac.uk
global food security. In addition to the classic subjects of epidemiology and microbiology, we would be introduced to the novel (to me at least) concepts of medical anthropology, economics, and health policy.
Since completing my master’s I have been employed as a research assistant at both the RVC and the LSHTM, and have worked on a variety of projects including antimicrobial resistance, the use of behavioural economics to improve food safety in the pork industry, and the sustainability of the poultry industry in emerging economies. These projects have provided me with an opportunity to travel the world, most recently spending time in Bangladesh with the Chick
Hub project, where my role was to interview key informants to gain insight into the structure of the various poultry distribution networks. I had little previous experience with this type of qualitative research, but armed with a voice recorder, note pad, and the support of the local research team, I set to it.
Over the course of two weeks, we interviewed a variety of people working
in the poultry industry, from retailers
and traders, to poultry academics and managing directors of large commercial firms. The weather and traffic were challenging; having arrived during the monsoon season, we faced a deluge of rain and localised flooding in Chittagong and searing heat and humidity in
Dhaka. Being highly crowded cities (Dhaka has the third highest population density in the world) traffic was at best oppressive and at worst an ongoing slow meandering jam, accompanied
by a continuous cacophony of horns.
A constant throughout though was the generous hospitality we received from all parties, I always felt welcomed and
it was a pleasure to hear people talk so enthusiastically about their work.
As I write this, on my way back to the UK, I am again grateful of the many opportunities afforded to me by my veterinary degree, and implore those of you feeling unsure or disillusioned with clinical practice to consider that public health work is more than just abattoirs and sausages.
illiam Alun Jones BVetMed The gift is a bovine rib bone signed by bone will be displayed at the MRCVS (known to his all 27 graduates from his year group Hawkshead Campus.
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