AMODISC
Medical education without borders, leaving no trainer or trainee behind
Team AmoSmile is designing a surgical training model to teach surgeons how to restore form, function and feeling through local flap surgery from wounds and defects due to burns, trauma, cancer and congenital conditions. The team plans to implement a unique mixed methods approach to surgical training that will use a simulation platform that will incorporate virtual learning modules and simulations with a low cost, adaptable psychomotor training system.
Patients in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are disproportionately burdened by surgically treatable conditions such as burns, trauma, infection, cancer, and congenital conditions, which have debilitating physical and psychological consequences if left untreated. These patients often live in areas without adequate access to the corrective surgical procedures that would allow their physical wounds to be reconstructed in order to restore form, function and feeling. While a considerable number of medical and surgical treatment options exist for these pathologies, there is one surgical intervention – reconstructive flap surgery – that can effectively ameliorate a large proportion of the complications arising from these pathologies and allow patients to have an improved quality of life.
Team AmoSmile is building a model to teach reconstructive surgery using local flaps, the transfer of skin and underlying tissues to reconstruct a wound or a congenital condition such as cleft lip. In this mixed methods approach, the virtual education platform that accompanies the physical training platform will contain interactive step-by-step surgical modules specifically designed to facilitate self-directed learning and training for local flap surgery.
This will help trainees learn critical elements of this procedure, including understanding which flap to select for different reconstructive requirements, best practices for designing these flaps, and the step-by-step approach to performing these procedures. Finally, trainees will learn the optimal way of performing closure, so they can achieve the best reconstructive results for their patients.
The beauty of global surgery is that people from different backgrounds get to know eachother, share experience and exchange very innovative ideas like this one
