The Surgical Education Learners Forum (SELF) develops and evaluates training modules for health care workers in low-resource settings. SELF training enables anyone to independently learn and self-assess specific skills. SELF training modules are free-to-use and publicly available.
SELF is an evolution of the Global Surgical Training Challenge, which funded the development of surgical training modules that allow practitioners to learn, practice, and self-assess specific surgical skills without supervision from a more experienced surgeon. The training modules are available for free on Appropedia.
The Intuitive Foundation supports three SELF training programs with the following aims.
Develop training modules for clinical health care workers.[edit | edit source]
The SELF: Clinical Skills Training Program funds the development of training modules that enable health care workers in low-resource settings to independently learn and self-assess specific clinical skills. This grant provides funding to adapt existing training materials to be freely available on an open-source platform called Appropedia, and be entirely self-administrable from anywhere in the world.
Funding is available for organizations to adapt, improve, and publish existing clinical skills training modules. This grant accepts proposals on a rolling basis. Learn more here.
Train biomedical technicians to repair and maintain medical devices.[edit | edit source]
The SELF: Biomedical Training Program improves the skills and knowledge of biomedical technicians and engineers in resource-limited settings. The pilot provides learners with no-cost access to Medical Aid International’s biomedical training program, which includes a 13-unit self-administered online training course, device documentation library, high-quality tools, and a laptop.
Funding is available for health care facilities to enroll biomedical technicians in the SELF: Biomedical Training Program at no-cost. This program seeks interest from hospitals by February 14, 2023. Email Jonathan Miller at jonathan@medaid.co.uk for more details.
Future funding will also be available for makerspaces to offer the SELF: Biomedical Training as part of their programming.
Evaluate the effectiveness of self-directed trainings with real learners.[edit | edit source]
The SELF: Training Evaluation Program tests the effectiveness of clinical skills training modules in real-world settings. The program funds health care facilities to identify potential learners and clinical cases, provide time and space for learners to do the training, and measure the effectiveness of the training’s learning aims.
Funding is available for health care facilities to run independent evaluations of SELF clinical skills training modules in low- and middle-income countries. Email info@intuitive-foundation.org for more information.
This program is run by the Foothill College EMS Programs. The materials in this course encompass the psychomotor skills necessary to meet EMT certification standards in the state of California and gaining eligibility to sit the NREMT cognitive exam. They are listed in the order in which they should be learned, with a focus on mastering the fundamentals first, as some later skills build upon techniques learned in earlier skills. Typically the course is taught in a 2 quarter sequence.
This module allows medical officers and surgeons who are not orthopedic specialists to become confident and competent in irrigation and debridement, powered and manual drilling, positioning and correctly inserting Schanz screws, and constructing the rod-to-rod modular frame as part of external fixation procedures for open tibial shaft fractures performed in regions without specialist coverage.
ALL-SAFE is an international collaboration of surgeons and scientists to teach surgeons in the low-resource setting to perform laparoscopic surgery without special training equipment and a physical teacher.
Z-plasty is a random-pattern local flap and an essential tool within the reconstructive surgery repertoire. It is primarily used to (1) lengthen contracted scars resulting from burns and trauma, (2) reorient conspicuous scars for better alignment with natural skin folds, and (3) deepen contracted web spaces.
This module allows medical officers and surgeons who are not orthopedic specialists to become confident and competent in irrigation and debridement, powered and manual drilling, positioning and correctly inserting Schanz screws, and constructing the rod-to-rod modular frame as part of external fixation procedures for open humeral shaft fractures performed in regions without specialist coverage. To maximize patient safety, this module teaches learners to use a powered drill to insert self-drilling Schanz screws through the near cortex and then manually advance Schanz screws into the far cortex to avoid plunging.
This module allows medical officers, junior orthopedic surgery residents, and surgeons who are not orthopedic specialists to become confident and competent in irrigation and debridement, powered and manual drilling, positioning and correctly inserting Schanz screws, and constructing the uniplanar external fixator frame as part of external fixation procedures for open tibial shaft fractures performed in regions without specialist coverage. To maximize patient safety, this module teaches learners to use a powered drill to insert self-drilling Schanz screws through the near cortex and then manually advance Schanz screws into the far cortex to avoid plunging.
CrashSavers Trauma is focused on teaching firefighter first responders in Guatemala how to stop bleeding in injured individuals and prevent mortality from hemorrhagic shock. Low- and middle-income countries lack an organized prehospital infrastructure. This, coupled with the absence of formal medical training for prehospital providers, creates suboptimal conditions for providers and patients. Improvement in provider competence and thus, patient safety, are at a standstill until formalized training in hemorrhage control techniques is provided.
This module allows traditional bone setters, pre-hospital providers, clinical officers, nurses, nurse practitioners, and medical officers to become confident and competent in performing point-of-care ultrasound diagnostic imaging to rule out the presence of a pediatric distal forearm fracture and distinguish between buckle (torus) fractures and cortical break fractures to make appropriate referrals as part of the management of closed pediatric (< 16 years of age) distal forearm fractures in regions without access to X-ray imaging and orthopedic specialist coverage.
The Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (STARS) - Cervical Cancer Screening and Treatment module allows nurses, midwives, clinical officers, and medical officers to become confident and competent in performing visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA), and thermal ablation of cervical pre-cancer lesions as part of cervical cancer screening and treatment procedures provided in primary health care facilities and mobile units in resource-constrained settings.
ETALO in the Ugandan language of Luganda means "bone infection". For us, ETALO is also an acronym that stands for Education To Advance Limb-Saving Options for Open Fractures and Osteomyelitis.
OpenSurgiSim is a surgical training system developed by AlgoSurg and Center for Limb Lengthening & Reconstruction for orthopaedic surgeons to learn all the steps of accurate correction of bone deformities. AlgoSurg Inc., USA has been developing many innovative technologies for variety of bone surgeries, specially for lower-limb. The CLLR, Mangal Anand Hospital, Mumbai, India is renowned for its advanced approach to limb lengthening and reconstructive/deformity surgery and research. Together both the organisations developed and clinically tested OpenSurgiSim to bring the best practices of deformity correction surgeries in a form of training module.
Our surgical training modules aim to enable novice surgeons to become confident and competent in dissecting the Calot's triangle, as part of the Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy surgery performed in a simulated environment using Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR/VR).
Goal statement: Our goal is to provide a cost efficient simulation-training module, which enables you (the surgical trainee) an opportunity to learn, assess your progress, and gain surgical psychomotor skills without the presence of an instructor.
This STARS (Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights) - Intrauterine Device (IUD) Insertion module allows nurses, midwives and clinical officers to become confident and competent in maintaining aseptic technique in sounding the uterus, loading the IUD in the sterile package, setting the gauge to the sounded depth, and gently inserting and deploying the IUD as part of copper and hormonal IUD insertion procedures for long-acting reversible contraception services performed in low to middle income countries.
This training module allows medical officers (non-specialist physicians) and general surgeons to become confident and competent in the gentle handling of delicate infant tissues as part of neonatal colostomy procedures performed in low to middle income countries (LMICs).
This module allows surgical practitioners to become more confident and competent in Orthoplastic reconstruction by removing contaminated debris and all devitalized tissue, stabilizing the skeleton and covering the soft tissue defect. This should reduce the bacterial burden and available substrate for microbial colonization, resulting in fewer deep surgical site infections. This will lead to improved patient outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The situation in Rwanda is of grave concern as only two trained plastic surgeons and three plastic surgeon residents treat 13.28 million people. Currently, Rwanda has a surgical workforce of fewer than 2 surgeons, anesthesiologists, and obstetricians (SAOs) per 100,000 population, and investing in the training and education of the surgical workforce is the best way to increase the number of surgical interventions in Rwanda.
This module allows surgical practitioners to become more confident and competent in V-Y Advancement Flap by utilizing basic geometry to either recruit tissue or redistribute it to achieve some form of reconstruction – primarily for releasing scars and closing defects in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The situation in Rwanda is of grave concern as only two trained plastic surgeons and three plastic surgeon residents treat 13.28 million people.
The GlobalSurgBox, the Universal Surgical Simulator that fits in a toolbox, is a surgical simulator that fits in a 12.5-inch toolbox, is capable of teaching trainees valuable surgical skills such as: knot tying, basic and advanced suturing, bowel and vascular anastomoses, aortic valve replacement, and numerous other new and emerging possibilities.
