News and Events

Surgery in Low Resource Settings
Date: 14-16 November 2014
Location: Lab111, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
 
According to the WHO two billion people in the world have limited access to the most basic surgical care. This symposium seeks to strengthen surgical care in countries with low resources. It focuses on the role of surgical specialists to improve healthcare in collaboration with local doctors and clinical officers (non-physician clinicians). 

Speakers from different nationalities will present opportunities such as: support of local training programmes, exchange initiatives, clinical work, healthcare support in humanitarian disasters and the need of super-specialists doing short-term missions for specific patient groups. We will also discuss research projects that underline or investigate the issue.

We invite specialists (surgeons, orthopaedics, plastic surgeons, gynecologists etc.) interested in working in low resource settings, global health specialists, residents in surgical specialties and residents following the Dutch training program to become 'Doctor inTropical Medicine and International Health’ (which partially consists of basic surgical care). Interns and medical students with special interest in surgery and global health are also most welcome.

This international symposium is organized by the Netherlands Society of International Surgery (NSIS) in collaboration with the German Society for Tropical Surgery (DTC).

More information and the preliminary program outline can be found on our website: www.surgicalneed.nl

Please notice our 'call for abstracts': we like to encourage authors to submit their abstracts through the website. Selected authors will also be invited to present their work. You’ll also find the link to ‘support a speaker’. Here we ask for support for travel expenses for speakers from LMIC to come and present their research and opinion.  

The registration procedure has started and there is an attractive fee for early birds.
You are kindly invited to distribute the attached flyer amongst interested parties or individuals.

Kind regards,

Matthijs Botman
Chair of the organization committee


 

 

A remarkable surgical training opportunity in Nigeria

In the latest edition of WHERE THERE IS NO DOCTOR 2010, it is stated in the introduction that “Medical knowledge should not be the guarded secret of a select few, but should be freely shared by everyone”.

In Nigeria, thanks to the internet and the high literacy rate in the south west, this situation has shifted to “Appropriate surgical skill should not be the guarded secret of a select few, but should be freely shared by all bonafide medical doctors for the sake of all.”
Doctors are missing a great opportunity for surgical skill acquisition in Nigeria as reported by EystonVaughan-Huxley in the latest issue of Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (Supplement) 2012; 94: 108 – 110.

Here are some excerpts from the article titled: A REMARKABLE SURGICAL TRAINING OPPORTUNITY IN NIGERIA

“Yombo's single-handed practice, providing much-needed healthcare for the local population, was an inspiration to Eyston when he visited two weeks prior to beginning core surgical training,”

“Awojobi Clinic (in) Eruwa (ACE) is an incredible pocket of success where the sick know they will be treated well and where, as a trainee, I learnt a huge amount about rural surgery, Nigeria and its people.”

“Perhaps what struck me most was the resourcefulness of the hospital. What a fantastic learning opportunity: one-on-one teaching with a consultant in pretty much all fields of medicine and surgery, with a huge range of pathology, some extreme, all from a man who essentially built and runs a hospital from scratch.”

“With over 60 publications to his name, he has recently been recognised for service to his country and elected as a senior lecturer of bioengineering (in a private university).”

“Yombo tells a story of a retired professor of surgery who, having been shot by armed robbers, attended A&E in this (teaching) hospital to find there were no intravenous fluids. Were it not for a medical student who recognised the patient and was able to resource some fluids from a different (private) hospital, he would have died. Yombo asks: 'l have been making fluids for over 20 years at my own hospital, why can a government hospital of this size not do the same?' “

“I believe there isn’t anyone, regardless of profession or stage of life, who would not learn something and benefit from spending time in Eruwa. ACE is a mentally, physically and medically demanding environment that will change you, challenge you and teach you many lessons in medicine, engineering and life.”

The full paper can be read by clicking below:

PDF - A Remarkable surgical training opportunity in Nigeria

The question is “Why is Nigeria incapable of solving her health problems?”



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