Australia’s only university-led academic health sciences center, Macquarie University has conferred an honorary doctorate to Sangita Reddy, Joint Managing Director, Apollo Hospitals, at a function held here this evening. 

The conferral was to recognise her untiring efforts and resolute commitment to bring transformative changes in Indian healthcare, development of Health IT in India and championing manifold initiatives both in India and abroad.Along with the conferral, Macquarie University and Apollo Hospitals have today celebrated the launch of their strategic collaboration that will facilitate long-term, mutually beneficial academic exchanges between the two organisations. As part of the collaboration, students from Macquarie’s four-year graduate-entry Doctor of Medicine program, the Macquarie MD, will complete five months of clinical learning at Apollo Hospital in Hyderabad as part of their degree. 

Speaking on the new partnership with Australian university, Apollo Hospitals Chairman and Founder, Dr. Prathap C Reddy, said,"we have the infrastructure and people to help deliver and create global doctors and are pleased to be working with Macquarie on their innovative new MD programme." "The benefits for the students are numerous, for example the disease profiles of the two countries are completely different, providing students with an enriching learning experience, he said we also treat more than half a million patients a year here at Apollo, so the quantity and breadth of the clinical cases we have will be unlike those that the students will experience in Australia,” said Dr Reddy. Macquarie University Vice-Chancellor Prof S Bruce Dowton, commented, “We are incredibly proud to be working with Apollo Hospital. In looking at international collaborations we sought partners who share similar value sets, and who provide a quality and patient-centered model of care for our students to learn within. 

Apollo’s long-standing experience in the delivery of medical training, underpinned by its commitment to the achievement of excellence in clinical care made it the perfect partner for our MD programme." Recognizing the value of international learning, the program features extended quality-assured clinical experiences abroad for all students, including core clinical placements and selective opportunities at the Apollo Hospital in Hyderabad in addition to clinical placements in Sydney: at MQ Health, the Northern Sydney Local Health District (primarily within the Royal North Shore Hospital) and the MindSpo Clinic. The Macquarie MD program has received formal approval and accreditation from the Australian Medical Council (AMC) and Medical Board of Australia