News from COOL Programme
March 2019
A team from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre led an orthopaedic oncology course 6-8 May 2019, held at UTH Lusaka Zambia, in partnership with Zambia Orthopaedic and Trauma Association.
Max Gibbons and David Pigott went on a clinical & teaching visit to CURE Ethiopia Children's Hospital
Julie Stebbins from the Oxford Gait Lab visited CURE Ethiopia Children's Hospital to support staff training and the set up of the new gait lab there.
february 2019
Chris Lavy visited the site of the new Bulawayo Children's Hospital which is under construction.
October 2018
Mr Duncan Whitwell, Mr Max Gibbons and Dr David Pigott returned to Addis Ababa to run another orthopaedic oncology course for orthopaedic residents at the Black Lion Hospital
April 2018
Mr Tim Theologis and Mr Jim Turner from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre returned to CURE Ethiopia Children's Hospital 23-26 April 2018 for a paediatric surgery course for local orthopaedic residents , building on training partnerships established through the COOL project.
Mr Rick Brown from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre led a visiting UK team to University Teaching Hospital, Zambia, 18-20 April 2018, to deliver a foot and ankle surgery course to residents in the COSECSA region (supported by the British Foot and Ankle Society).
November 2017
Dr Rele Ologunde will be presenting our COOL poster on Do trauma courses change practice? A qualitative review of 20 courses in East, Central and Southern Africa at the Fourth Global Forum on Human Resources for Health Building the health workforce of the future, 13-17 November 2017 Royal Dublin Society, Dublin, Ireland.
Register for the COSECSA AGM & Annual Scientific Conference, Maputo, Mozambique 6-8 December 2017 here!
Our COOL paper on Childhood disability in Malawi: a population based assessment using the key informant method has been published in BMC Pediatrics.
October 2017
Our paper on NHS Volunteers' experiences of overseas teaching trips through the COOL project, Is overseas volunteering beneficial to the NHS? The analysis of volunteers’ responses to a feedback questionnaire following experiences in low-income and middle-income countries, has been published online in BMJ Open.
September 2017
Thanks to funding from NDORMS, we are delighted to sponsor another COSECSA Oxford Orthopaedic Link travel grant for a female surgical trainee from the COSECSA region to attend the Women in Surgery Africa (WiSA) meeting and COSECSA Scientific Conference in Maputo in December 2017 - more information on the WiSA site here.
An abstract on our paper Do trauma courses change practice? A qualitative review of 20 courses in East, Central and Southern Africa was presented at the British Orthopaedic Association Congress World Orthopaedic Concern session.
June 2017
Our paper on some of the results from the Primary Trauma Care training across COSECSA, Do trauma courses change practice? A qualitative review of 20 courses in East, Central and Southern Africa, has been published online in Injury.
March 2017
The COOL programme supported the first COSECSA Curriculum Conference which was held in Arusha, Tanzania, with representatives from across the member countries and surgical specialties, to develop a new framework for surgical training in the region.
FEBRUARY 2017
A 1-week course to train Primary Trauma Care providers and instructors was held in Port Sudan, led by local instructors trained during the first week of PTC training in Khartoum last November. (This was part of the Africa Grants Programme (THET / J&J Corporate Citizenship Trust).
February 2017
Surgeons from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, University of Western Australia, CURE Ethiopia Children's Hospital, Black Lion Hospital and ALERT Hospital led a 3-day training course for local surgical residents in tumour and soft tissue reconstruction at, Addis Ababa, with support from Stryker. This followed a 1-day meeting on developing a musculoskeletal tumour service in Ethiopia, with discussion on aspects of access to care, surgery, pathology, oncology, radiology, staging, research and partnerships.
december 2016
At the annual COSECSA conference, Women in Surgery Africa (WiSA) launched the first Pocket Mentor, 'A Manual for Surgeons in Training and Medical Students in East, Central and Southern Africa'. Prof Lavy awarded the COOL travel grant to Womba Kadochi (Zambia) at the WiSA dinner.
November 2016
The first Primary Trauma Care course in Khartoum, Sudan, was held in November 2016 to train a new team of local instructors in managing serious injuries. The visiting trainers ran a provider course, and mentored the new local trainers as they ran the second provider course. This was part of the Africa Grants Programme (THET / J&J Corporate Citizenship Trust)
October 2016
Adrian Taylor, Max Gibbons, David Stubbs and David Pigott from the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre visited University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia to run a one-week COOL Hip and Knee Arthroplasty Training course for orthopaedic trainees from across the region. They were joined by Stephen McDonnell (Cambridge) and Alban Bowers (Harare).
AUGUST 2016
A team from Oxford visited Dr Ahmed ElSayed and colleagues at Alzaiem Alazhari University in Khartoum, Sudan, to discuss collaboration on trauma training in the coming year - further details to be announced.
JULY 2016
Colleagues at RCSI and COSECSA have recently published a very useful paper 'The Specialist Surgeon Workforce in East, Central and Southern Africa: A Situation Analysis' in World Journal of Surgery that gives a detailed overview of the number, specialty and distribution of specialist-trained surgeons in the COSECSA region.
June 2016
We are delighted to announce the launch of the Global Musculoskeletal website on the Global Health Network, thanks to generous support from NDORMS.
This site is your online community for exchanging knowledge, resources and experience in musculoskeletal research and training in resource-limited settings. Please do register as a member, join the discussions, and find and contribute to research and training resources.
April 2016
A regional COOL paediatric orthopaedics course was held at Beit CURE International Hospital Malawi 18-21 April 2016, with trainees from across COSECSA in attendance. Many thanks to the local team, especially Dr Kyle James and Dr Nicholas Lubega, for their assistance.
Course report to follow.
APRIL 2016
The COOL team shared an update about the work of the project at the Royal College of Surgeons of England annual 'Global Surgical Frontiers' conference on 15 April 2016, and enjoyed meeting COSECSA's new CEO Rosemary Mugwe and many friends and members of COSECSA once again.
February 2016
A COOL paediatric orthopaedics course was held at CURE Ethiopia Children's Hospital and Black Lion Hospital, Addis Ababa 29 February - 3 March 2016, with 34 local orthopaedic residents and surgeons in attendance. Read more here:
https://www.ndorms.ox.ac.uk/news/children2019s-orthopaedics-training-course-in-ethiopia
January 2016
Women in Surgery Africa Launch Event, Malawi
The COSECSA Oxford Orthopaedic Link team were delighted to join the launch of Women in Surgery Africa (WiSA) in Malawi in December 2015 and announce our sponsorship of a travel grant. The COOL programme has contributed funds towards helping establish WISA as an organisation to provide support to female surgeons, surgeons in training and medical students in the 10 member countries of the College of Surgeons of East Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA). (COOL Project is funded by the Tropical Health Education Trust through the UK Department for International Development Health Partnership Scheme.)
Women in Surgery Africa launch event, Malawi, December 2015
April 2015
There has been a call for universal access to safe, affordable surgical and anaesthesia care when needed.
The international report by the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery was published April 2015. Co-authors Chris Lavy and Nyengo Mkandawire represented COSECSA on the Commission. The launch event at the Royal Society of Medicine was also attended by COSECSA Secretary General Pankaj Jani, and COSECSA Council Zimbabwe country representative Godfrey Muguti. COOL project contributed primary research to an abstracts booklet to accompany the report. The Royal College of Surgeons and Royal Society of Medicine co-hosted the fourth annual Global Surgical Frontiers conference the day after the Commission launch, with a final address by the President of RCS also calling on educators, funders and policy makers to make safe and affordable surgery and anaesthesia care accessible to all by 2030.