Honorary doctorate
| An honorary doctorate has recently been awarded to Professor Colin Roberts, a former Editor of MBEC, by the Medical University of Plovdiv in recognition of his work in the field of medical engineering and medical physics. Plovdiv is the old capital of Bulgaria and the Medical University is the second largest medical school in the country (second to Sophia). It is the first medical school to be recognised under the new Educational Institutional Accredita-tion system introduced recently into Bulgaria. A measure of the accolade may be gained from the fact that the doctorate was only the fifth to have been awarded in the last 50 years, only the second to a non-Bulgarian and the first to a non-clinician. The event even made the front page of the Plovdiv daily newspaper and there was an interview on the local radio station! |
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Colin and his colleagues at King's have been closely involved with recent educational developments in Bulgaria and their influence is now spreading throughout Europe. They have, over the past four years, had a major EU-funded programme jointly with colleagues from Dublin and Florence, to introduce higher education in Medical Physics and Medical Engineering into Bulgaria. As part of this project an Inter-University Centre for Medical Radiation Physics & Engineering has been established in Plovdiv which contains lecture rooms, laboratories and academic and administrative offices. This is a joint venture between the Medical University of Plovdiv, the Technical University of Plovdiv and the University of Plovdiv. The opening of the MSc course which was established under this programme was attended by the wife of the President of Bulgaria and the Ministers of Education and Health as well as the Cultural Attache to the British Embassy. The opening was reported on national TV. The course graduated its first students last Autumn and has recently been accredited by the UK's national society, the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.