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Location operated by:
Point of contact
Leslie Toledo ltoledo@physiciansforpeace.org
Program Director
Telephone
+1 757 943 9625
Location
Location information
Hospital address
Blantyre, Malawi
Blantyre, Malawi
Physicians for Peace
Building upon seven years of partnership in educating and training surgeons and surgical Clinical Officers (COs) with the Department of Surgery at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, the College of Medicine of Malawi (COMM) and the College of Surgeons of the East, Central and southern Africa (COSECSA), Physicians for Peace has expanded its training reach to include district hospital outreach for surgical clinical officers, anesthesia and operating room support at QECH and PICU training at Mercy James Centre for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care (MJC), on the QECH campus. PFP seeks to improve access to quality, timely surgical care in Malawi through these areas of programming. 1. General Surgery Training at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi: • General Surgeon as Visiting Faculty: PFP utilizes volunteer surgeons, called International Medical Educators (IMEs) who serve as visiting members of the Surgical Department at QECH and assist with surgical training efforts for a minimum of a three month period. In this role, the IME provides hands-on surgical training, didactic teaching, and surgical mentorship according to an established General Surgery curriculum. PFP supports an operating room dedicated to these general surgery training activities, without which, the hospital would not be able to provide this essential training. • Operating Room Support for General Surgery: PFP supports an operating room dedicated to general surgery training activities, without which, the hospital would not be able to provide this essential training. PFP directly supports the staffing of a dedicated teaching OR, including nurses, anesthesia and surgical clinical officers. The OR is utilized by PFP IMEs during their 3-month rotation as visiting faculty, as well as by local surgical providers during PFP IME vacancies. On average, 78 general surgery cases are completed in the PFP supported OR each month. • Anesthesia Support in General Surgery: Another way we support general surgical capacity and training is in the provision of needed anesthesia care. Anesthesia is a neglected specialty in low-income countries. There is, in fact, an acute shortage of anesthesia providers at QECH, which has just one anesthesiologist for the entire hospital. This means that the majority of anesthesia care is provided by Anesthesia Clinical Officers (ACOs), non-physician providers who receive additional training in anesthesia. PFP will begin support this year for three anesthesia clinical officers, one of whom will focus on providing essential services in the burn unit operating room. This crucial support will help bridge a gap in anesthesia care, decrease the number of cancelled surgical cases due to the lack of qualified anesthesia care, and further strengthen the local healthcare system. 2. Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care Training in the first pediatric ICU in Malawi, the Mercy James Centre for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care (MJC), MJC opened in July, 2017 on the QECH campus. Several months prior to the opening, PFP began collaborating with other organizations including Raising Malawi, University of Oslo Hospital, Red Cross Hospital in Cape Town South Africa and the Malawi Malaria Project to train and support the new cadre of pediatric ICU nurses and other ICU personnel. Training activities include mentoring MJC nurse leaders, collaborating and guiding the creation of critical care nursing protocols, and one to two week in-person training workshops.
Linked Offers & Requests
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Request
Date posted 17 Mar 2021
A Request in or around Blantyre, Malawi from Physicians for Peace
This opportunity utilizes a hybrid approach of synchronous and asynchronous learning to complement the local surgery curriculum, in which the trainer and trainee can share ideas and questions in real-time, located anywhere in the world. An understanding of the diagnostic and therapeutic modalities available on the Queen Elizabeth campus is a fundamental prerequisite to a meaningful presentation to this audience. Insights into the local culture and customs will make for even more relevant training and discussion. The General Surgery Lecturer will record a Zoom presentation in PowerPoint on a locally-prioritized surgery topic. The presentation is then distributed to trainees at QECH to be viewed prior to a deadline, a pre-requisite for a subsequent live Zoom discussion course with the Lecturer. This format allocates a shorter (1 hour) timeslot for live training, focused entirely on discussion, and allows better quality control of sound/video of the core content.
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