Establishing a surgical partnership between Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Toronto, Canada

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Academic partnerships between high- and low/middle-income countries can improve the quality of surgical education and health care delivery in each setting. We report the perceived needs related to collaborative surgical education in a resource-limited setting. METHODS: We used qualitative methods to elicit the opinions of surgical faculty members and surgical residents and quantitative methods to outline surgical procedure type and volume. RESULTS: Ethiopian faculty members identified the management of trauma and emergency surgical care as a priority. They identified supervision in the operating room (OR), topic-specific lectures and supervising resident assessments in the clinic as appropriate roles for partners. Residents were in agreement with faculty members, highlighting a desire for supervision in the OR and topic-specific lectures. CONCLUSION: We present specific experiences and needs of a surgical teaching unit in a low-income country, paving the way to form a meaningful and responsive relationship between 2 surgical departments in 2 universities.