Abstract
Purpose of Review
The purpose this manuscript is to describe the work of one program in Kenya, East Africa, to train general surgery residents in urology to make available the much needed service to the underserved rural population.
Recent Findings
People in developing countries continue to face the challenge of accessing surgical care with a ratio of 1 surgeon to 20,000 people. This is due, in part, to the inadequate number of trained surgeons. The availability of specialized surgical care such as urology is even more unlikely due to fewer numbers of specialists in urology. Such disciplines take many years of training before a person qualifies as a specialist. This requires highly motivated and suitable candidates who are willing to spend time in training and acquiring skills as well as proper infrastructure for training. There is an effort to train general surgical residents in enhanced skills to make available urology services to the wider population. This involves equipping them with skills in general urology, basic skills in handling endoscopic equipment, and basic endo-urology procedures such as diagnostic cystoscopy with or without biopsy and direct vision urethrotomy (DVU). The residents are also exposed to visiting faculty through international collaborations, surgical camps, and workshops to enhance their skills and knowledge.
Summary
Equipping general surgical residents with urology skills will greatly reduce the shortage of these services to the people of developing countries.
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References
Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance
•• CMDA (2018). PAACS general surgery overview. Retrieved 7/22/2018, 2018, from https://www.paacs.net/about_paacs/purpose/. This organization serves as the most successful example of a non-governmental organization with a systematic plan and strategy to meet the surgeon shortage in Africa, using African surgeons in partnership with foreigners.
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Jason K. Frankel, Gregory P. Murphy. International Volunteerism and Urethral stricture disease: a review. Translational Andrology and Urology. 2018;7(4). • This reference emphasizes the point that reliance on international relief aid to help in deal with the surgical needs in underdeveloped countries is not sustainable in the long run.
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Dr. Edward Mugalo and Dr. Charles Powell declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.
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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Neurogenic Bladder
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Mugalo, E.L., Powell, C.R. Challenges of Training General Surgery Residents to Do Urology in the Developing World. Curr Bladder Dysfunct Rep 13, 234–237 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11884-018-0494-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11884-018-0494-z