Communicating

 

Broadcasting

I've contributed to BBC Radio 4's Excess Baggage (twice) and The Living World as well as the now extinct programmes Medicine Now and Breakaway. I've been interviewed live (by phone) on Dublin's Newstalk Radio, on Talk Radio Europe, and for assorted programmes broadcast in the US, Canada and South Africa. I have appeared on BBC Breakfast (national  television), Sky, and Tyne Tees TV, and also on numerous local and national radio shows. I often contribute to BBC Radio Cambridgeshire's afternoon show. I was on air in October when I spoke, from Greece, about my refugee work there and again this month. My News page gives links and details of upcoming broadcasts and events that are open to the public.

I talk about my books at http://www.meettheauthor.co.uk/bookbites/1812.html and these can also be found via Amazon. There are some new clips if you search for my name on YouTube.

'Music to Live By'
Hear Jane's voice

'A Glimpse of Eternal
Snows' BBC Interview

 

Reading and Speaking dates

I've read from my travel memoirs in various venues mostly in East Anglia and Surrey; details of forthcoming speaking dates that are open to the public are posted on the News page. As ever I'll bring along a supply of my books which I can sell at discount.

Thus far, I have also given talks and lectures in Antananarivo, Arhus, Ashford, Birmingham, Bristol, Bury St Edmunds, Cambridge, Cambourne, Chester, Cottenham, Cranfield University, Dhaka, Dehra Dun, Edinburgh, Ely, Hadleigh, Huntingdon, Hyderabad (Sindh), Innsbruck, Kathmandu, de Montfort University in Leicester, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London Zoo, Luton, Newcastle, Olympia, Oxford University, Plymouth, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Physicians, Royal Geographical Society, in Saffron Walden, at Sawston, Silsoe, Shelford, Shrivenham, Southampton, Stoneleigh, Sutton, Tewksbury, Tiruchchirappalli, University College London, Wisbech and York. 

 

Teaching

My health / medical teaching commitments are varied: from one-to-one medical student tutorials to presentations to back-packers to lecturing at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Recently I've taught at Oxford, Cambridge and Cranfield Universities and at University College, London. I am also involved with several voluntary organisations who train for development work including VSO.

 

Teaching Dates

The very worthy Engineers without Borders, a voluntary organisation who train for development work often ask me to speak, usually on the subject of Staying Healthy and Effective Overseas; see: www.ewb-uk.org/cambridge for future talks. I also give illustrated lecutures to Cambridge students and alumni on 'Health and Welfare in the Field' as well as Cranfield University post-graduates.

Each year I also run interactive teaching sessions on (i) prevention of diarrhoeal disease, (ii) maternal mortality and also (iii) personal health and preparing for overseas work. This is part of the student selected international health short course at the Institute of Public Health, Addenbrooke's Teaching Hospital, Cambridge. The participants are fourth year medical students. I also taught first year Cambridge medical students about general practice in the Preparing for Patients module.

Last October I addressed the British Global & Travel Health Association annual scientific meeting in Bristol. I was lead to believe I was talking on coping with the squits in the absence of first world lavatorial facilities, but I was been billed - most politely - as speaking on Practical Problems for the Traveller.

 

Writing

My medical knowledge and travel experience makes me much in demand to write about staying healthy overseas. You'll find me, for example, on the NHS Choices website at www.nhs.uk/Conditions/travellersdiarrhoea. I have written a double page feature on most aspects of travel health for almost every issue of the glossy travel magazine Wanderlust since it was first launched 1993; so far they have published 179 of my features plus innumerable Q&As, reviews and other snippets. The forthcoming Wanderlust health feature is on extended travel including round-the-world trips. The Independent newspapers print my travel pieces on occasion, and a selection of my articles has appeared in Condé Nast Traveller. I have also written a ‘How to…’ travel health column with a natural history slant for BBC Wildlife magazine, an illustrated three-page feature about David appeared in the Guardian and I composed a piece about travelling with children for the Geographical magazine.

Have a look at my short peice on Iceland in www.simonseeks.com; I've contributed health chapters to two Cadogan guides (Amazon and Tanzania & Zanzibar) and most of Bradt’s travel guides. You'll find my work, for example, in recent editions of Bradt guides to The Amazon, Argentina, Belgium, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde Islands, Cayman Islands, Chile, China: Yunnan Province, Congo (without ackowledgement), Costa Rica, Dominica, Ethiopia (without ackowledgement), Eritrea, The Gambia, Guyana, Kenya, North Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mongolia, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Northern Tanzania, Peru & Bolivia, Rwanda, Ukraine, Uganda, Zambia and Zanzibar.

As a member of the editorial sub-committee of the British Global & Travel Health Association, I help with the BGTHA Journal and also the quarterly Travelwise newsletter. I also offer criticism of academic papers that are submitted for publication in the international, peer-reviewed Transactions of the Royal Society of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and several other academic journals. From time to time I am also commissioned to write review papers or chapters for educational publications aimed at doctors, nurses, pharmacists and sometimes even engineers (see my scientific publications page).

 

My blogs appear on this site, for example here In Diavata Camp