Introduction
Our surgery workgroup aims at improving surgical knowledge and skills in Afghanistan. Surgery has always been one of the major medical specialties and continues to be an important field in medicine. Currently, war torn Afghanistan together with Syria belongs to the most violent countries in the world regarding war activities and its casualties. Besides battlefield surgery there is a lack in a systematic and step-by-step approach to treating patients with surgical complaints, from having an abscess to having bowel cancer, from little fractures to major vascular diseases. Surgery encompasses general surgery as well as gastro-intestinal (abdominal) surgery, oncologic (cancer) surgery, vascular (blood and heart system), and traumatology (fractures).
Since a different approach is needed to improve surgical health care, MCAN decided to start the E-Surgery pilot in 2017 and start the project definitively in 2018.
By providing our fellow Afghan health care professionals access to surgical knowledge and skills we aim to improve their daily practice and therefore have an impact in improving and strengthen the Afghan health sector. In this we work together with several partners including Kabul Medical University, Aliabad Teaching Hospital, Sardar Daud Khan Military Hospital and INCISION Academy.
Project description
Incision Academy is a web based surgical database that provides theoretical and practical knowledge by means of a state-of-the-art E-learning tool to its users. Incision gives people access to shared experiences, skills and expertise. It provides tools to get a quicker and more thorough preparation for the OR. It creates a common surgical language to streamline the communication in the operating theatre, and with colleagues around the world. It is accessible remotely, everywhere and on almost every device making it very user friendly for health care professional. As per 2018 Afghan health professionals, both residents and surgeons in the field of (general) surgery, orthopedics, urology, gynecology, otolarynghealogy working in above hospitals have access to the INCISION database.
Evaluation and future perspectives
We are getting positive feedback from participants and aim to improve the project and elaborate on how to expand the project and start new future surgical projects that encompass more Afghan health professionals. Please join us in our journey to share medical knowledge with Afghanistan and improve the health care droplet by droplet. So that we may create an endless ocean of wisdom and knowledge, and bridge the gap between the waters
