Bulletin

Issue: January/February 2007

News

Training for Asian orthotics and prosthetics industry

La Trobe University’s National Centre for Prosthetics and Orthotics is collaborating with a Cambodian-based educational institute to train highlyskilled, regionally-based specialists and educators in prosthetics and orthotics.

Nine graduates of the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics and the Pakistan Institute of Prosthetics and Orthotics are studying at La Trobe University’s main Melbourne campus at Bundoora until the end of February, as part of an 18-month course designed to upgrade their qualifications.

On return to Cambodia they will complete the rest of their course externally before taking up senior clinical, management or educator positions in Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Seven of the students are graduates of the Cambodian school - including five Cambodians, one Sri Lankan, and one Laotian - and two are Pakistani graduates of the Pakistani Institute, whose work is also supported by the Cambodian institute.

La Trobe lecturer in Human Biosciences, Wes Pryor, said the students - who had been working in the field of prosthetics and orthotics for at least three years - are undertaking an18-month fivesemester upgrading course equivalent to 50 per cent of the La Trobe degree course.

After completing the course, in combination with their advanced standing from previous studies and their work experience, this first cohort of external P&O students will be awarded the La Trobe degree, Bachelor of Prosthetics and Orthotics.

Mr Pryor said many of the Cambodian specialists will be called to fit or alter prostheses to help people injured by land mines, a legacy of the Pol Pot era.

They will also be in demand across the region to assist people injured by traffic accidents, polio, stroke, and other musculoskeletal conditions.

Mr Pryor said La Trobe University developed the course in response to a request from the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics, which is being developed as a Centre of Excellence in the region under the sponsorship of the UKbased charity, the Cambodia Trust.

The school trains prosthetists and orthotists from South East Asia and beyond. Students come from 14 countries, including Afghanistan, Cambodia, East Timor, Georgia, Indonesia, Iraq, Japan, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

A second cohort of students from the Cambodian School is expected to enrol at La Trobe in 2008.