This report demonstrates that it is feasible to establish surgical services in rural areas of developing countries by utilizing simple facilities, providing them with basic equipment, and employing local personnel selected and trained on the job by teams composed of a consultant surgeon, anesthetist, and scrub nurse. This seems to be the only realistic possibility for providing surgical care to the rural populations of the least developed countries.
This experience in southern Sudan demonstrates that surgical services can be established utilizing simple facilities and equipment and employing local personnel selected and trained on-the-job by teams composed of a consultant surgeon, anesthetist, and scrub nurse. Delegation of tasks relating to anesthesia and surgery to midlevel health providers is an appropriate approach in developing countries facing shortage and maldistribution of more qualified health workers.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.