Hatel Salem Award winner, Ned Latham

Burnet Institute research assistant and Monash University medical student Ned Latham has been awarded the Hatem Salem Award for Medical Student Research Excellence for his work on the feasibility of testing for hepatitis C in community clinics.

The Hatem Salem Award is presented to the final-year Monash Medical student whose BMedSc (Hons) is determined to have made the most significant impact on their field of study.

Ned’s honours research project was undertaken at Burnet on the Rapid EC Project – Understanding the acceptability of community based rapid point of care hepatitis C testing in people who inject drugs.

As part of his project Ned interviewed 19 Rapid-EC study participants who had recently undergone point-of-care hepatitis C testing at needle syringe programs.

He was supervised by Burnet Deputy Director, Programs, Professor Margaret Hellard; Deputy Program Director, Disease Elimination, Dr Joseph Doyle; and EC Partnership Coordinator, Dr Alisa Pedrana.

Ned worked part-time at Burnet in 2018 while completing the final year of his medical degree.

Earlier in 2018, Ned won the John Snow Scholarship for the best public health presentation – focused on the Rapid EC Project – at the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) Annual Congress.