Children’s Surgical Course for regional hospitals in Tanzania
Professor Kokila Lakhoo reports on her latest visit to Tanzania, the first country in Africa chosen by Oxford University Global Surgery Group to host its new Children's Surgical Course.
This novel, innovative and only one of its kind Children’s Surgical Course, aims at training regional hospital surgical teams, comprising general surgeons, orthopaedic surgeons, anaesthetists, and nurses (ward and theatre) to locally manage children’s needs where appropriate, with timely triage to specialist care when required.
The directors of the course are Professor Vrisha Madhuri (CMC, Vellore, India and GICS), Dr Richard Stewart (Global Initiative of Children’s surgery: GICS) and Professor Kokila Lakhoo (University of Oxford, UK and GICS). The directors produced a faculty manual and participants manual as a blueprint for the course which can be modified as per country needs.
The course was conducted from 23 to 26 October 2023 at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH), Tanzania. The faculty for the course was from MNH supported by a faculty from CMC Vellore, India. The regional hospitals were funded by the Tanzanian government. The overseas faculty and the running of this course was funded by a charity namely KidsOR (Kids Operating Room).
Tanzania is the first country in Africa chosen to host the course and in essence will be the superhub for Africa for this course.
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Strengthening ties between Oxford and Tanzania
16 March 2020
Professor Kokila Lakhoo, along with colleagues from the Oxford University Global Surgery Group, is developing paediatric surgery through a link in Tanzania. In this blog post, Professor Lakhoo reports on their latest trip, which was part of a continuous ongoing strengthening of ties between the Oxford team and Muhimbili National Hospital in Tanzania.