Benefactor Egils Gulbis interested in further support possibilities

On March 14, benefactor Egils Gulbis met with RSU management and student representatives, had the chance to see the fruits of his previous endowment and impact on student academic performance and discussed the possible expansion of support, e.g. by organising a laboratory-based knowledge contest, lab tours to Egils Gulbis laboratories, patient behaviour studies related to their interest in laboratory tests and other activities.

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During the meeting, representatives of RSU Foundation presented a report on the positive effects of scholarships on students’ academic performance. As outlined by Chair of the RSU Student Union Linda Skulme, “the scholarships awarded to our students are a vital contribution and make it significantly easier to devote more time to studies.”

RSU rector Aigars Pētersons and Vice-Rector for Health Studies Guntis Bahs expressed his appreciation and gratitude for the generosity of Egils Gulbis in supporting RSU students. The RSU rector indicated that in comparison to his study years, over three decades ago when the students had to take up various jobs from the first study year and onwards in order to support themselves, nowadays benefactors offer valuable support opportunities. The university’s rector expressed his most profound thanks to E.Gulbis Laboratory for being one of the largest employers in the sector.

Benefactor Egils Gulbis noted that the best outcome from the awarded scholarships would be if the students become excellent professionals, thereby pursuing their dream.

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From left to right: ​RSU rector Aigars Pētersons and benefactor Egils Gulbis.

Medicine is becoming increasingly specialised and technologies are replacing certain processes, Egils Gulbis noted, adding that in the future human intellect with the capability of analytically understanding the correlation between different symptoms and their laboratory indicators will gain in importance. From this perspective, our local specialists are way ahead of the West European healthcare system, where lab tests are becoming more bureaucratic and distant from daily life in a hospital. Guntis Bahs informed that in recent years RSU has achieved considerable consolidation of theoretical study subjects and clinical work and has strengthened the knowledge of prospective medical practitioners on laboratory testing. To encourage and facilitate this trend and clinical thinking, Egils Gulbis proposed to organise a student contest where, e.g. one of the assignments would be to make a diagnosis by analysing laboratory tests and vice versa – to provide laboratory indicators of a particular diagnosis. The specialised student contest could be supplemented with tours to Egils Gulbis Laboratory for students to see the daily work of laboratory testing. This would enhance interest and understanding of this job.

Another subject worth studying is patient behaviour. According to Egils Gulbis’, around one third of patients come to the laboratory to undergo various tests without a referral and are truly interested in test results. Such special interest is practically not observed elsewhere in Western Europe. Patients nowadays want to have greater involvement in the treatment process and want to take control of their health - it is another trend that current and prospective medical professionals should be mindful of.

Caring for the professional development and favourable conditions for that, in September 2017 the foundation RSU Fund, in cooperation with entrepreneur Egīls Gulbis published a call for social scholarships. In the autumn semester of the 2017/2018 academic year the scholarship (100 EUR a month) was awarded to 59 students which is twice the number of scholarships granted last spring.