Accessibility statement

Dr. Ganesh Veerasekar
Epidemiologist, Kovai Medical Center and Hospital (KMCH), India

Masters in Public Health

Opening up opportunities

I graduated from the Masters in Public Health (MPH) programme in 2013. I chose this programme specifically because, as a medical graduate, I thought this programme would open up more opportunities for me, both to increase my knowledge in the field of research and to strengthen my skills in public health administration.

I decided to study at York because the University of York, even though not a very old university, has good reputation in terms of students’ satisfaction and ranking. York is also one of the oldest cities in UK, it is a traditional, beautiful and romantic city and is one of the best places in England.

Using the knowledge from my programme in my work

I am now working as a clinical epidemiologist and work alongside physicians in various specialities to encourage them to create formal publications on their previous work experiences. I also work as a principal investigator for the Hospital Based Cancer Registry (HBCR). Alongside this, I work as a coordinator for a pilot project named STEMI, which is about providing a proper channel for developing countries to transport patients who have suffered a heart attack efficiently and within a short time span to centres with advanced facilities like percutaneous interventions (PCI-Stenting) and thrombolysis. This project relies on a public/private partnership to build a system.

The knowledge of epidemiology, research methodology and biostatistics I learned on my programme has helped me in my work. The knowledge I gained on international health policy is very helpful in setting up developmental programmes in India.

I benefited a lot from this programme. The course is short, very straightforward and catered to everyone on the course. I gained knowledge in a systematic way, and I have gained enough insight into what I really need to know.

Well qualified and supportive academic team

The academic team teaching my programme are all well qualified. They were very friendly and easily approachable, even the senior people are always ready to share their ideas and views. The support I received from my dissertation supervisor was really wonderful as well.

Ambitions for the future

My career aspirations include a desire to establish a cancer research team in my current employment as well as be a co-head for the STEMI project. I would also like to become a member of WHO and make a big contribution to improving the health of patients on a wide scale.

Continuing links with York

I hope to work with Dr Amanda Mason-Jones from the Health Sciences department at the University of York to set up a project in India, although this is only in the discussion stage. In this project we are looking forward to improving the quality of care given to children to improve their physical parameters. As a beginning to this we are going to look at the burden of anaemia in school age children.

Ganesh Veerasekar