Dr Gorur Harinath – a good innings in medicine, multiculturalism & cricket

0 Comments read Diaspora, Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Growing up on the Osmania University campus in Hyderabad (India), Gorur Harinath would meet medical students, who would sometimes join him and his mates for a game of cricket on the campus grounds. One day, curious about what was taught in the medical college, he asked one of the boys to show him his classroom.

He was taken to the anatomy laboratory, where students were performing dissection on dead bodies. “It was my introduction to medical science, but in that epiphanous moment, I decided that one day I would become a doctor”, says Dr Harinath, who graduated in medicine in 1970.

After graduation, most of his batchmates began applying to universities in the United States or the United Kingdom to pursue post-graduation and eventually migrate. “To get admission in the US, students had to sit an exam which was conducted in Singapore and other countries, but not in India. My father, who was a horticulturalist, couldn’t afford to send me overseas to sit the exam as we were six siblings and he was the only breadwinner”, he adds.

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How GPs can help cut HIV transmission

0 Comments read Health & Science

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 18.10.2023 (Healthed): In the inner-city area of Sydney where HIV was once most prevalent, new HIV acquisition has dropped by 88% since 2010, through community outreach and prevention efforts, including widespread availability and use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).

It’s an example that highlights both progress and potential — while HIV remains a global health challenge, it is more treatable and more preventable than ever before, and GPs play a pivotal role in further reducing transmission and improving quality of life.

Associate Professor and sexual health physician, Jason Ong, from Monash University and the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, says diagnosing people living with HIV earlier and immediately linking them to ongoing care and treatment is crucial to this.

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Growing appetite for nutrient-rich native Indigenous Australian foods

0 Comments read Climate Change, Environment & Development, Health & Science, Indigenous, Travel
Lilly Pilly and Davidson Plum are some of the native Indigenous Australian produce being used in traditional and modern cuisine, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries. Photo Credit: ©Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 03.10.2023 (IPS): Growing up in Sydney, Kalkani Choolburra, a Girramay, Kuku Yalanji, Kalkadoon and Pitta Pitta woman from Far North Queensland, would frequently travel with her family up and down Australia’s eastern seaboard. Her grandfathers and uncles would bring fresh catch of dugong, her favourite bush food, and she would go hunting for the short neck turtle with her aunties and female cousins.

The traditional or subsistence hunting of dugongs and turtles has been an important part of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous Australians) people’s social and cultural lives. Its meat has been a vital source of protein for these communities, who have sustained themselves on the native flora and fauna for thousands of years.

Now, national and international chefs are incorporating some of these native Indigenous produce — notably Kakadu plum, Davidson plum, lemon myrtle, wattle seed, quandong, finger lime, bush tomato, muntries, mountain pepper, saltbush – into their dishes ranging from sushi and samosa, pizza and pies to cakes and muffins.

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