Acquire a new surgical skill at any point in your career from anywhere in the world
SELF: The Surgical Education Learners Forum is a new initiative that has evolved from the Global Surgical Training Challenge (GSTC). SELF aims to sustainably change the paradigm of surgical training, dramatically increasing access in low and middle income countries.
The goal is to empower any clinician to learn independently and self-assess specific skill sets. They will do this by means of open source training modules that are freely available.
Among the parameters set forth were the need for surgical practitioners to be able to independently learn and practice their psychomotor surgical skills. They would do this through surgical simulators they could build using low-cost and readily available materials. The training needed to be open-source access. Most importantly, learners needed to have the ability to self-assess their skills so that they could self-assess their skills so that they could learn outside of the traditional education pathways.
The current surgical training modules are the result of a two-year Global Surgical Training Challenge, the goal of which was to change the paradigm shift of how surgical practitioners learn and assess surgical techniques.
The validated modules are free to download and inexpensive to reproduce in a variety of global settings. The initial modules that resulted from the Challenge provide a template for other global innovators to create their own modules that address surgical training needs.
The surgical training modules address the needs of a variety of learners, depending on the context and surgical sub-specialty. In some cases, the module was designed for non-specialists and even non-surgeons. For example, a non-orthopaedic surgeon can learn the fundamentals of fracture fixation. In other cases, a surgeon can learn an updated technique, as in the case of laparoscopic surgery for ectopic pregnancy.
Do you or your organisation want to:
