Celebrating the First Open Access Textbook on African Neurology
When the neurologist William Howlett could not find medical textbooks his students in Tanzania could recognise themselves in, he decided to write his own. On 14 December the UiB hosts a seminar to mark the occasion.
Main content
In Africa neurological disorders are a common cause of disability and death. The textbook “Neurology in Africa” is specifically written for Sub-Saharan Africa by Dr. William Howlett, physician and neurologist in Tanzania, and published by the University of Bergen. The book is freely available on the internet.
A lack of relevant literature in Africa
– This may surprise you, but there is not even a textbook on AIDS in Africa, 27 years after the epidemic broke out. The same applies to tuberculosis and malaria, and many other diseases that are common in African countries, William Howlett tells us by email from Tanzania.
Howlett is Irish, but has spent much of his professional life as a physician and educator for patients and medical students at the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre in Tanzania. He soon discovered that the only available textbooks were written for medical students in rich Western countries.
– Standard textbooks of internal medicine and neurology are of course helpful, but they do not cover all the needs for medical knowledge in Africa. For instance clinical practice in an African everyday setting is not covered in Western medical literature. Nor are certain neurological diseases that are particularly widespread in Africa. I decided to create a compendium for my students here, and this has gradually developed into a textbook, Howlett says.
Free download
Howlett’s main objective was that the book be free to obtain and easily accessible to students and health professionals. This is where the University of Bergen provided indispensable aid. Under the label BRIC, the UiB does small-scale publishing of books.
By publishing through BRIC, the UiB also acquired the right to publish the text in the open research archive BORA, from which anyone can download the book for free. ”Neurology in Africa” was published in the autumn of 2012, and can be downloaded here.
Everyday African health
William Howlett has a PhD in tropical neurology from the University of Bergen, and has practiced medicine in Tanzania for nearly three decades. He is an internationally recognised authority on AIDS and tropical neurology.
Dr. Howlett has collaborated with the UiB ever since researchers from the Centre for International Health came to the hospital in Arusha to study the AIDS epidemic in Tanzania. Howlett had already collected systematic data on the disease for years in his clinical work. He made the first characterization of HIV virus in Tanzania, together with a colleague. He and his wife could also connect UiB researchers with local networks and resource people.
Celebrating the publication
Friday 14 December the Centre for International Health (UiB) and UiB Global organise a seminar to celebrate the publication of “Neurology in Africa”, which constitutes both a valuable resource for students and doctors in Sub-Saharan Africa, and a paradigm shift towards free medical textbooks online.
The seminar will take place at the Bergen Resource Centre for International Development, from 12 to 2pm. It will feature presentations by Dr. Howlett and colleagues at the University of Bergen, highlighting the issue of open access publishing and the importance of knowledge in promoting health and development.
Programme:
"Neurology in Africa" - A paradigm shift towards open access to comprehensive textbooks
Gro Th. Lie, UiB Global,
Professor, Department of Health Promotion and Development and Academic Coordinator of UiB Global:
Welcome
The importance of the book on Neurology in Africa and why we need to support such initiatives in meeting global health challenges
Nils Erik Gilhus, Head of Department, Dept. of Clinical Medicine
Neurology in Norway, Africa and the World: Education as a Response to Challenges
William Howlett; Physician/ Neurologist KCMC Moshi Tanzania, and author of "Neurology in Africa"
Teaching Neurology in Africa
Kuvvet Atakan, Vice-Rector for education, UiB and head of the steering committee, DigUiB
DigUiB: Digitizing Education at the University of Bergen
Ole G. Evensen, director, University of Bergen Library
Open Access: Institutional Repositories in Africa
Rune Nilsen, former Head of Department, Centre for International Health
The textbook "Neurology in Africa" in the context of Global Open Access to Knowledge literature
Summary and Closing remarks (Gro Th. Lie, UiB Global)
This article includes excerpts from an article published in July 2011, written by Kjerstin Gjengedal and translated from Norwegian by Sverre Ole Drønen.
