M. Swaroop1, E. Yang4, C. T. Richards3, M. Schuller1, S. Krishnaswami4 1Northwestern University,Trauma And Critical Care,Chicago, IL, USA 3Northwestern University,Emergency Medicine,Chicago, IL, USA 4Oregon Health And Science University,Pediatric Surgery,Portland, OR, USA
Introduction:
With the rapid increase in online collaboration and educational platforms available, clinicians and researchers in low and middle-income countries and their partners, can benefit from an introduction to these tools. This abstract aims to describe a workshop that was designed to introduce emerging technologies that may be leveraged to strengthen cross-continent clinical, education and research collaborations.
Methods:
An Association for Academic Surgery-sponsored workshop was piloted as a parallel session at the 2013 World Congress of Surgery, Obstetrics, Trauma, and Anesthesia in October 2013 in Trinidad. During the interactive session, participants signed up for services and practiced networking using learning management systems (such as Moodle), scheduling platforms (such as Doodle), virtual meeting software (such as Oovoo or Skype), and social media tools (such as Facebook or twitter) in real-time. Potential uses for these tools in collaborative global surgery initiatives were then discussed. Demographics of participants and evaluations from the session were analyzed.
Results:
Twenty-one of 335 congress registrants attended the Technology workshop as a parallel session during the Congress. The majority of workshop participants (55%) were male and 70% were physicians. The remainder represented other allied health professionals or healthcare administrators. A significant minority (25%) of participants were from low and middle income regions. All participants who evaluated the session rated it as excellent or very good with an mean rating of 4.5 out of 5, and 90% felt the session objectives were fully met. Themes in feedback for the workshop included its practical utility and the ability for the session to improve and enhance practice.
Conclusion:
Leveraging technology to promote educational initiatives among international collaborators on global surgery initiatives is critical to effective and timely communication. This pilot workshop on the subject was very well-received by a small but diverse audience. Ongoing curriculum development for such courses to match new technologies and deployment to a wide audience in both low, middle, and high income countries will be essential towards ensuring efficacy.