Science without Borders students graduate

The Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery is delighted and extremely proud to announce that the University of Dundee has become the first university in the UK to produce medical graduates through the Science without Borders (SwB) initiative. ‘Delighted’ because we can now consolidate to recruit high-quality overseas students and give them the opportunity to Graduate with an honours intercalated BMSc degree in a variety of disciplines from a world-famous Institute in the leading Medical School in Scotland, and ‘extremely proud’ because we were the first Department, in the first Medical School in the UK to accept medical students in the UK via the SwB scheme. Professor Rami Abboud and Mr Carlos Wigderowitz were the lead instigators in obtaining full graduate status.

This is the second batch of SwB students we have had and the graduation ceremony at Dundee on Friday June 26th, saw four Brazilian students graduating from the TORT Centre with an honours intercalated BMSc degree in Applied Orthopaedic Technology (AOT). Gabriel Maia Costa, Rogerio Magno Do Nascimento Filho, Nicole Georges Lambrakos and Carlos Augusto Nunes Martini have all completed the AOT Intercalated course for the Honours Degree of Bachelor of Medical Science. Their respective research projects were: 

• Gabriel - "Analysis of gait in patients with cerebral palsy between pre- and post- surgical lengthening of plantar flexor muscles"

• Rogerio - "Comparability assessment of two techniques for kinematics calculations in 3d motion data analysis"

• Nicole - "Scaphoid non-union: a comparison of two treatments"

• Carlos - "Pre- and post-operative radiographic assessment of reverse total shoulder arthroplasty"

Left to Right: Gabriel; Nicole; Professor Abboud; Carlos at the Graduation Ceremony

“The original intention of the project was just to give the students the experience different to that which they may have received in their home country but they showed such outstanding achievement that we progressed them on to our degree programme by mapping their Brazilian curriculum,” said Professor Rami Abboud, Head of the Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, and Chairman of the Intercalated BMSc Degree Programme.“It is a fantastic achievement by the students to obtain their degrees today and a great initiative by the University to add real value to the SwB programme. It is a proud moment to see a big smile on the four students’ faces. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff in the TORT Centre that embraced this initiative and supported our students. In addition, a particular and heartfelt thanks to Dr David Russell, Dr Lesley McLellan, Dr Neale Laker and Mrs Gillian Sharp whom all worked tirelessly over the last month to make this happen and for that I am really thankful. We are now getting ready for the new intake of 14 students that is due to arrive in September 2015”.

Science without Borders (Ciência sem Fronteiras) is a Brazilian Government scholarship programme which aims to send 101,000 Brazilian students on undergraduate sandwich courses, PhD sandwich courses and full PhDs to study in science, technology, engineering mathematics and creative industries at top universities around the world.