Autobiographical website of Nathaniel W. Wilson

Cultural Background

Education & Career

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Biomedical ScientistMedical Writer*Researcher

Health EconomistFor a summary of Nathaniel’s most significant work, click “Next”.

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List of Academic

Publications

A critical review of interventions to redress the inequitable distribution of healthcare professionals to rural and remote areas - PDF

Perceived educational value and enjoyment of a rural clinical rotation for medical students - PDF

Illuminating the interrelated immune and endocrine adaptations after multiple exposures to short immobilization stress by in vivo blocking of IL-6 - PDF

SU: Stellenbosch University Ѫ Student & Researcher

Ukwanda: Ukwanda Center for Rural Health (SU) Ѫ Medical Research OfficerMBChB Committee (SU Faculty of Health Sciences) Ѫ Rural Medical Platform Research Advisor

RuDASA: Rural Doctors Association of Southern Africa Ѫ Conference Event Organizer

PSSA: Physiology Society of Southern Africa Ѫ postgrad student

SASBMB: South African Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Ѫ postgrad student

SONA: Society for Neuroscience in Africa Ѫ postgrad student

Cultural Background

Nathaniel was born in 1976 and raised in South Africa, during the worst of his country's politically troubled times. His family has roots in German, Indian, British and Malaysian ethnicities; he is a native speaker in both English and Afrikaans (a West Germanic language developed entirely in South Africa) and enjoys learning about other languages and cultures.

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Nathaniel plays various instruments due to childhood influences of his musical father. During his youth he enjoyed playing cello ("cello-boy"), clarinet and church organ, but more recently the piano became a his most beloved musical friend. As a hobby he also conducts choirs and orchestras. In his spare time he composes and plays his own music, as well as music of jazz artists of the golden era, e.g. Coltrane, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone and Nat King Cole.

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While completing high school (Steenberg High School, Cape Town), Nathaniel realized his deeply set attraction to poetry and the creative use of language as a means of expression. Not knowing his own strengths in terms of writing, he had to wait until meeting Prof Kathy Myburgh toward the end of 2001; she became his first proper (academic) mentor by acknowledging the potential in his writing. It was during completion of his master's project that Nathaniel became thoroughly acquainted with the demanding art of scientific writing, which pushed him to discover a love for writing, in general.

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Nathaniel completed his master's degree research work during 2004 (biochemistry and physiology) and immediately accepted a position as Neuroscience Research Assistant at the Stress and Anxiety Group during 2005, a well-known research group at the Department of Medical Physiology (SU). Due to a national restructuring commission, the research activities were halted toward the end of 2005; Nathaniel, not being able to further pursue doctoral research, accepted a teaching job at a private school.

However, on 1 April 2007 he accepted a position as Medical Research Officer for SU's Ukwanda Center for Rural Health (Faculty of Health Sciences), in which he was placed in charge of conducting medical research in sites throughout the academic hospital's rural training platform. In such capacity Nathaniel was expected to conduct research in three fields, namely medical education, health services delivery and burden of disease (epidemiology).

Bachelors Degree in Science (2000)

Honours Degree in Biochemistry (2001)

Masters Degree in Biochemistry (2005)

MBChB(1995-1997)

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During the eighteen months at Ukwanda - under dedicated, exemplary leadership of Proff Ben Marais (mentor and Director of Research), Peter Bouhuijs (from Maastricht University, and special academic consultant to the faculty) - Nathaniel excelled and achieved a list of goals and accomplishments that exceeded the demands of the initial job description. Among these, the most noteworthy are

(i) writing a draft for the establishment of a rural medical school (named Worcester Training Complex / location: Worcester, Breede Valley, South Africa)

(ii) publishing two articles in the journal Rural and Remote Health (RRH), one focusing on the experiences of medical students in rural medical settings and the other on healthcare economics (distribution of healthcare professionals, notably away from rural and underserved areas) - the latter article is currently the second most-cited article of RRH since its inception as a journal

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(iii) successfully applying for various research grants and appropriating funds for purposes of upgrading dilapidated shipping containers used as medical consultation rooms in the Avian Park community of Worcester - the process took two years and many one-on-one meetings with the municipal authorities in the region

(strongly supported and motivated by Ms Lindsay-Michelle Meyer, Ukwanda Project Manager)

(iv) one-year membership to RuDASA which involved taking initiative by organizing a medical conference in Beaufort West, inviting Dr Immanuel Rajamani (from Tamilnadu, India) to speak at this conference, and taking full responsibility of hosting the delegate’s first ever visit to South Africa.

Nathaniel subsequently went abroad for purposes of an extended sabbatical from medical research, and left Ukwanda at the end of October 2008.

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Nathaniel is the oldest child of five; the names of siblings (in order of birth) are EC (singer and administrative clerk), RW (actuary and chess player), ARF (singer and social worker), and WW (drummer and hospitality manager). Mother RW is a retired nurse, and father PW a retired church minister.

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Professor Kathy Myburgh

• Prof Kathy Myburgh invited Nathaniel to do his masters degree work in the Department of Physiological Sciences while she was the Head of Department during 2001. The invitation came after hearing Nathaniel’s honours degree presentation at the neigbouring Department of Biochemistry.

• Nathaniel spent three years under her tutelage; she was the first academic mentor to take such deepened interest in his progress, in both social and academic aspects of life. Through her skillful guidance and patience, Nathaniel was exposed to many interesting facets of exercise sciences, sport psychology and the wider implications of work done in the integrative mind and workspace of a true physiologist (which Kathy indeed embodies).

• As the first fully-appointed female professor at the university, Kathy remains a great inspiration to Nathaniel. Most recently, she was featured as an expert in international sports drink science:http://blogs.sun.ac.za/news/2012/03/22/su-physiologist-part-of-american-expert-panel-on-sport-science

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Professor Ben Marais

• A paediatrician by title, Prof Ben Marais joined Ukwanda as Research Director. Having been unable to pursue work on a previous Cochrane collaboration, he invited Nathaniel to take over the review process. Prof Marais’s timely recognition of Nathaniel’s ability is the main factor responsible for the latter’s successful immersion into healthcare economics. These two researchers share authorship of two papers – one original research paper and one review.

• Prof Marais is currently based in New South Wales (Australia), at the Sydney Medical School

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Professor Peter Bouhuijs

• The name of Prof Peter Bouhuijs (Maastricht University, The Netherlands) is a world-wide phenomenon in medical education circles – his 1978-thesis is the seed for the current mode of medical schools in orthodox medicine.

• Prof Bouhuijs accepted Stellenbosch University’s invitation to inform the process of directing the future for medical education in South Africa; it is during one of these visits (during 2007) that he was introduced to Nathaniel. Many one-on-one discussions between the two researchers gave rise to new ideas and identification of strategies with regards to community-based medicine and interaction with local communities, as seen from a purely academic point of view; Nathaniel was tasked with the initiative to implement these ideas in to the existing (and expanding) rural medical training platform, some of which had major successes, as summarised in the original research paper co-authored by these two researchers.

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