Raphael Zwijnenberg started the VPHMgt in 2003 with the first cohort, 5 months after he arrived in Australia from his home in The Netherlands. Prior to immigration, Raphael had his own veterinary practice, working with small and zoo animals, but had always had the goal of doing something more scientific in the future. When he started the program, Raphael was working in a small animal practice in Sydney and saw the program as an opportunity to develop the skills he would need to pursue a more scientific career.

Raphael's spoken English was very good when he started the program, but he found that sometimes Australian animal health professionals spoke with a lot of jargon and acronyms that made the first residential very confusing. Raphael completed his MVPHMgt within 2 years. When he graduated he was already stressing about his next exam - the ACVSc Epidemiology exam, which he passed in the following July together with a number of other students from the VPHMgt program. Raphael says that, due to their study, they found they only needed 3-4 months of preparation and they were all successful.

Six months into his VPHMgt study, Raphael successfully applied for a position as a technical services manager at Fort Dodge Australia. One of the reasons he got the job was his study in the VPHMgt program.

Raphael has used the program extensively while at work - his dissertation was based on a project he did for Fort Dodge Australia, with their support. Some of the current trials he is doing are based on things he learned through the course. For the company as a whole, not just in Australia, Raphael has noticed that epidemiology has become increasingly important, particularly for pharmaco-vigilance.

In his current position as a technical services veterinarian covering Australia and New Zealand, Raphael has been doing a lot of presentations across Australia and in SE Asia and has had some quite new and challenging projects. As a result of his success in the company for the past 3.5 years, Raphael was invited to apply for a new position within the organisation. As a result, Raphael will shortly move to Princeton, New Jersey as a principal lead scientist in a pharmaceutical development plant. One of the prerequisites for the job was formal training in epidemiology.

Raphael has also drawn on skills developed through his study of project management, leadership, policy development and on diseases that were formerly unknown to him. It also helped him enormously in networking, in getting to know people in different levels of administration and understanding how the different levels of veterinary services work in Australia, which is quite different to The Netherlands. He describes it as an excellent course to help him find his position in Australia as a veterinarian and establish himself within public health. Raphael said that the student network was especially valuable when study became difficult, and he was grateful for support from fellow students Luzia Rast and Ian Langstaff.

He is looking forward to his new position, but leaves Australia with pain in his heart, as he loves living here. He is looking forward to making the job work and using the skills that he has partly obtained through the MVPHMgt and to further extend his knowledge.

Raphael Zwijnenberg,

Technical Services Manager, Fort Dodge Australia