Abstract
Introduction:Global surgical care is increasingly recognized in the global health agenda and requires multidisciplinary engagement. Despite high interest among medical students, residents and other learners, many surgical faculty and health experts remain uniformed about global surgical care.Methods:We have operated an interdisciplinary graduate-level course in Global Surgical Care based on didactics and interactive group learning. Students completed a pre- and post-course survey regarding their learning experiences and results were analyzed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.Results:Fourteen students completed the pre-course survey, and 11 completed the post-course survey. Eleven students (79%) were enrolled in a Master’s degree program in global health, with eight students (57%) planning to attend medical school. The median ranking of surgery on the global health agenda was fifth at the beginning of the course and third at the conclusion (p = 0.11). Non-infectious disease priorities tended to stay the same or increase in rank from pre- to post-course. Infectious disease priorities tended to decrease in rank (HIV/AIDS, p = 0.07; malaria, p = 0.02; neglected infectious disease, p = 0.3). Students reported that their understanding of global health (p = 0.03), global surgery (p = 0.001) and challenges faced by the underserved (p = 0.03) improved during the course. When asked if surgery was an indispensable part of healthcare, before the course 64% of students strongly agreed, while after the course 91% of students strongly agreed (p = 0.3). Students reported that the interactive nature of the course strengthened their skills in collaborative problem-solving.Conclusions:We describe an interdisciplinary global surgery course that integrates didactics with team-based projects. Students appeared to learn core topics and held a different view of global surgery after the course. Similar courses in global surgery can educate clinicians and other stakeholders about strategies for building healthy surgical systems worldwide.
Highlights
Global surgical care is increasingly recognized in the global health agenda and requires multidisciplinary engagement
The curriculum is designed as a semester-long seminar with didactic sessions, class discussions and reading of peer-reviewed publications to focus on the topics set forth in the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery [1]
At the conclusion of the course, one student moved from wanting to pursue a research analyst position at an non-governmental organization (NGO) to academic global health research, one student moved from pursuing medical school to another professional school, and one student moved from pursuing program management at an NGO to another professional school
Summary
Global surgical care is increasingly recognized in the global health agenda and requires multidisciplinary engagement. Despite high interest among medical students, residents and other learners, many surgical faculty and health experts remain uniformed about global surgical care. Medical students and residents have demonstrated an increasing desire for global surgery experiences and education. Previous reports of academic classes specific to global surgery are limited, with most experiences describing short-term (days to weeks) courses taught in high-income countries (HICs) designed for clinical learners in those settings. Several clinical training programs in North America have described formalized clinical surgical rotations with partner institutions in LMICs [6], while others have integrated a short-term didactic curriculum to prepare medical students for a surgical rotation in a LMIC [7, 8]. Learners and faculty should be comprised of diverse country origins, institutions and socioeconomic backgrounds
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