Abstract
BackgroundSafe, high-quality surgical care in many African countries is a critical need. Challenges include availability of surgical providers, improving quality of care, and building workforce capacity. Despite growing evidence that mentoring is effective in African healthcare settings, less is known about its role in surgery. We examined a multimodal approach to mentorship as part of a safe surgery intervention (Safe Surgery 2020) to improve surgical quality. Our goal was to distill lessons for policy makers, intervention designers, and practitioners on key elements of a successful surgical mentorship program.MethodsWe used a convergent, mixed-methods design to examine the experiences of mentees, mentors, and facility leaders with mentorship at 10 health facilities in Tanzania’s Lake Zone. A multidisciplinary team of mentors worked with surgical providers over 17 months using in-person mentorship, telementoring, and WhatsApp. We conducted surveys, in-depth interviews, and focus groups to capture data in four categories: (1) satisfaction with mentorship; (2) perceived impact; (3) elements of a successful mentoring program; and (4) challenges to implementing mentorship. We analyzed quantitative data using frequency analysis and qualitative data using the constant comparison method. Recurrent and unifying concepts were identified through merging the qualitative and quantitative data.ResultsOverall, 96% of mentees experienced the intervention as positive, 88% were satisfied, and 100% supported continuing the intervention in the future. Mentees, mentors, and facility leaders perceived improvements in surgical practice, the surgical ecosystem, and in reducing postsurgical infections. Several themes related to the intervention’s success emerged: (1) the intervention’s design, including its multimodality, side-by-side mentorship, and standardization of practices; (2) the mentee–mentor relationship, including a friendly, safe, non-hierarchical, team relationship, as well as mentors’ understanding of the local context; and (3) mentorship characteristics, including non-judgmental feedback, experience, and accessibility. Challenges included resistance to change, shortage of providers, mentorship dose, and logistics.ConclusionsOur study suggests a multimodal mentorship approach is promising in building the capacity of surgical providers. By distilling the experiences of the mentees, mentors, and facility leaders, our lessons provide a foundation for future efforts to establish effective surgical mentorship programs that build provider capacity and ultimately improve surgical quality.
Highlights
IntroductionChallenges include avail‐ ability of surgical providers, improving quality of care, and building workforce capacity
Safe, high-quality surgical care in many African countries is a critical need
Our study suggests a multimodal mentorship approach is promising in building the capacity of surgi‐ cal providers
Summary
Challenges include avail‐ ability of surgical providers, improving quality of care, and building workforce capacity. The number of specialists such as surgeons, anesthesiologists, and obstetricians are estimated to be 20–50 times lower in African countries [6] than the recommended minimum needed to provide safe surgical care. Research in African settings suggests that building the capacity of existing surgical care providers can improve surgical quality [8,9,10,11]. Evidence for mentorship’s effectiveness in African healthcare settings [19] includes improved infectious disease management [20,21,22], integrated management of childhood illnesses [23, 24], and improved quality of laboratory services [25, 26]
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