Global Surgery Episode 2: Trauma Care in Resource-Limited Settings

28 snips

Mar 25, 2024

Global Surgery podcast discusses trauma care in resource-limited settings, highlighting the high mortality rates of traumatic injuries globally. Dr. Anthony Charles shares his experiences in establishing trauma care in Malawi, emphasizing the importance of training and funding for frontline healthcare providers. The podcast also explores the challenges in developing trauma training standards, advocating for investment in trauma care, and enhancing trauma care through training personnel and system improvements.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Trauma's Ripple Effect

Trauma's impact isn't limited to individual health; it affects families, economies, and overall societal well-being.
Addressing trauma effectively strengthens the entire healthcare system.

ANECDOTE

Malawi's Trauma Burden

Dr. Charles witnessed the mortality rate from trauma in Malawi due to limited surgical resources.
An American tourist's near-death experience highlighted the system's fragility, emphasizing the need for comprehensive trauma care.

INSIGHT

Trauma vs. Infectious Disease

Global health initiatives often prioritize infectious diseases due to their perceived threat as national security issues.
Trauma, being non-communicable, receives less attention and funding despite its significant impact.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Join us for another episode of our Global Surgery series, where we have a special focus on trauma care in resource-limited settings.

Traumatic injury remains one of the largest burdens of disease and causes of mortality internationally. The WHO estimates that 4.4 million lives are lost to traumatic injuries per year, accounting for approximately 8% of all deaths. Notably, traumatic injuries are the top killer of children, adolescents, and young adults, compounding the patient-years lost. Trauma is ubiquitous–accidents and injuries happen all over the globe, and thus differences in trauma incidence and mortality is often a function of health systems and infrastructure.

Jon Williams is joined by Dr. Anthony Charles. Dr. Charles is a trauma surgeon at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Additionally, he holds professorships in the medical school and school of public health at UNC, as well as serving as the director of the adult ECMO program and the director of global surgery at the UNC Institute of Global Health and Infectious Diseases. He leads the Malawian Surgical Initiative, designed to train and support local surgeons in the country of Malawi where he has established a longstanding partnership with UNC. Having been raised in Nigeria, Dr. Charles completed medical school at the University of Lagos, and subsequently underwent general surgery residency training in London at North Middlesex University Hospital and subsequently at Charles Drew University in Los Angeles. Upon completion of trauma and critical care fellowship at University of Michigan, he took a faculty position at UNC where he has remained since and grown the global surgery presence to what it is today.

Key Points:

Often, the pivotal first step in developing global surgery trauma initiatives is increasing trained personnel, and so training initiatives are very meaningful and provide sustainability to the effort.
Growing a health system’s ability to provide trauma care helps develop improved care for all aspects of disease. The resources, training, and infrastructure required benefits healthcare at large.
Improvement of trauma care extends well beyond in-hospital care–injury prevention and pre-hospital care/triage/transport are even more impactful.
It takes more than surgeons to improve trauma care globally. Thus, clinician and non-clinician training and oversight is critical, and foundational concepts of care of the trauma patient must be familiar to all.
Local governing bodies need to understand the importance of trauma care to invest in it. Traumatic injuries and mortality are a health burden, but even more so an economic burden to a country. This is what is compelling to investment in trauma care.

We now have over 725 episodes! The easiest way to find specific topics or episodes is on our website https://app.behindtheknife.org/home or on our new Apple/Android app. You can search or browse by topic, podcast series, etc., making it much easier to navigate than podcast players.
iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/behind-the-knife/id1672420049
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.btk.app

PREMIUM BUNDLE:
https://app.behindtheknife.org/bundle/95
Please email hello@behindtheknife.org to learn more about our premium bundle and institutional discounts.

Premium Bundle Includes:
General Surgery Oral Board Audio Review
Trauma Surgery Video Atlas
Colorectal Surgery Oral Board Audio Review
Surgical Oncology Surgery Oral Board Audio Review
Vascular Surgery Surgery Oral Board Audio Review
Cardiothoracic Surgery Surgery Oral Board Audio Review