Prize Awarded for Research Presentation on Obesity and Coal Mining

Australasian Faculty of Occupational & Environmental Medicine trainee, Dr Leila Coelho has been awarded the Ramazzini Prize for presenting the best scientific paper related to Occupational and Environmental Medicine.  Dr Coelho’s project, presented at the 2015 RACP Congress, is a cross-sectional study looking into the association between unhealthy weight and shift work in underground coal mines in NSW. 

Dr Coelho said she chose this topic because of her role as a District Medical Officer with Coal Services Health. “I was seeing an increasing number of overweight and obese underground coal miners presenting for medical assessments. Many of these miners attributed their unhealthy weight to shift work. This piqued my interest and I was keen to see if this was a true phenomenon. 

“The prospect of undertaking a research project was initially a slightly overwhelming one. However, I discovered that being able to plan and conduct my own study, based on a clinical scenario that was relevant to my daily practice, was both interesting and highly rewarding.”

Dr Coelho said that while she found the research process challenging, it was an extremely useful exercise in which she gained worthwhile experience in critical thinking and problem solving.

“The experience of presenting my results at the RACP Congress enhanced my confidence in conducting research. It also ignited a new-found interest for me in this area. I now look forward to future research opportunities in the occupational medicine sphere.”

An abstract of the research project can be found in the May edition of the Internal Medicine Journal