Kudos for Waikato DHB clinicians

A total of 67 Waikato scientists and science educators were nominated as individuals or as part of science teams for the 2008 Kudos awards.

The Kudos - the Hamilton Science Excellence Awards - were launched in June 2007 and are now an annual celebration of the work of our scientists and science educators which impacts the Waikato region, New Zealand and the world. The awards cover eight different categories.






Waikato Hospital's clinical director of cardiology Dr Gerry Devlin won the Medical Science award for his work in leading a joint research project between Waikato Clinical School and AgResearch which focuses on limiting the spread of cell death beyond the initial heart attack zone.  If the tissue around the heart attack zone is salvageable, patient longevity and quality of life after a heart attack could be increased.  Dr Devlin’s research has studied the effects of insulin-like growth factor, mechano-growth factor and myostatin on muscle tissue surrounding a heart attack zone.



Waikato DHB had two other finalists in the awards.





Shailesh Kumar was a finalist in the Medical Science award category for his three-year study into researching 'burnout' in New Zealand psychiatrists.  He found 67% of New Zealand psychiatrists are burned out.  He hopes his research can be used to reduce this incidence in the future.






Thodur Vasudevan was a finalist in the Science Entrepreneur award for a 'tabletop' training device that can train vascular surgeons on techniques such as stent surgery in heart patients. The training device is small and portable and can be manufactured for tens of thousands of dollars, rather than the hundreds of thousands of dollars other training devices can cost a medical facility.  He regularly takes this device to countries such as India and China to help train vascular surgeons who do not have access to state-of-the-art training tools.