In December 2024, InterSurgeon had the pleasure of speaking with Professor Kate Drummond, Director of Neurosurgery at Royal Melbourne Hospital and Head of Central Nervous System Tumours at the VCCC Parkville Precinct, Australia. She is the current chair of Pangea Global Health Education, an international project working towards improving health outcomes by promoting health education in low-resource settings.
Pangea Global Health Education
Pangea Global Health Education came out of a smaller organisation in 2009, when a general surgeon from Adelaide travelled to Rwanda to provide surgical education in a lecture series. Prof Drummond says; “3 main lessons were learned. Number one- don’t go to a country that largely speaks French and does not understand English well, or even Australian English. Number two- Don’t give your famous professor talk because its irrelevant unless they are looking at horizon technology. Finally number three- small group training is the core, don’t do direct care.” Pangea global health education was born so that they could contribute more through education and “use education to bridge the continental gap in healthcare provision.” It brings together surgeons, nurses, trainees and intensive care specialties such as; psychiatrists and oncologists to create interdisciplinary training scenarios; “we have a rule that if you’re not allowed to do it in Australia, then you’re not allowed to do it on a mission.” They tailor their educational packages to the sites. Recently they have been taking biomedical engineers with them on their missions to assist with equipment repair, maintenance and troubleshooting. They do not do direct care.
Pangea Global Heath Education recently joined the G4 alliance (partner to InterSurgeon).
Missions
Pangea Global Heath Education have been in Malawi providing education including two 4-day seminars across multiple disciplines. Prof Drummond says; “We [Pangea Global Health Education] do a lot of paeds, obstetrics, surgical and critical care. We also do a lot of communication. We try to make it fun – we use low tech models to do things like surgical airways and difficult delivery. I mean I’m a neurosurgeon but I can do shoulder dystocia now. I know all about how to get that baby out.” She goes on to say that in Malawi, there is no financial support for professional development so they fund stipends for travel and accommodation for staff from district hospitals who otherwise may not be able to attend. This is predominantly what they fundraise for. Pangea Global Health Education rely on a bank of volunteers, the majority of whom self-fund by paying for their own airfare and accommodation.
During missions, they have often found that the cohort who attend teaching is different to what was expected and they can adapt their teaching to suit all levels including surgeons and clinical officers, a type of health physician, who also do surgery; “I remember I was talking to someone and I said to her: so do you do any surgery, and she said: ah no not much. And I said: in the district hospital? And she said: well, I do all the caesarean sections does that count? She had a 3 year batchelor degree but she is the go-to in this district hospital for all the difficult deliveries so there is a blurred line between primary and secondary care.”
The organisation continues to look for second sites and expanding their teacher pool to provide more bespoke teaching opportunities; “We might not be taking a whole team but provide more targeted education where it’s necessary. So one opportunity that’s coming back is the Myanmar doctors that are stuck on the Thai border who are desperate for a little bit of professional development. Also, Fiji would love to run some professional development seminars.”
Now and next
Pangea Global Health Education continue to recruit and increase their volunteer base. They have also just started a curriculum development program; “the idea is that we have a comprehensive curriculum, but that we identify key areas that are frequently seen as high value by our participants. So for instance; head injury, paediatric burns, basic life support, advanced life support, x rays, reading x rays, orthopaedics and that sort of thing. Because there’s often a lot of non-experts doing this sort of work, off in district hospitals. We’ve just started this idea of creating modules, all of which look similar, are branded similarly, which have presentations that have been given before which we can edit and have very few words on the slide.” Alongside the presentations, they hope to deliver resources to support the modules. At the end of the seminar, the aim would be to give the participants a USB with the slides on or a folder with the printouts to take back to their workplaces, be it a district hospital or elsewhere. Prof Drummond says; “it woud be something that we would just take along and go here’s all your resources.”
InterSurgeon
Prof Drummond first heard about InterSurgeon at a conference. She says “I think we probably need to engage more.” She goes on the say what the global south wants is more orthopaedic surgeons, plastic surgeons and neurologists. They find most of the orthopaedics is done by clinical officers who would greatly benefit from an educational program.
If you would like to get in touch with Prof Drummond, please click on her profile here.
