Design and Implementation of a Pilot Pediatric Emergency Surgical Care Course for Rural Providers in Uganda

Background: Low-and-middle-income countries(LMICs) like Uganda, where four pediatric surgeons serve a population of 20 million children, face a severe shortage of pediatric surgeons. Most children with a surgical emergency are treated by non-specialist rural providers and will never meet a pediatric surgeon. Here we describe the design and implementation of a locally driven, pilot pediatric emergency surgical care course for rural providers to address this disparity. Program Report: The course was conducted in February and December of 2018 at two sites in Uganda. Modules included perioperative management, neonatal emergencies, intestinal emergencies, urologic emergencies and trauma which were taught mostly by local Ugandan …