Cornelius Masambu and Naomi Kekisa are second year plastic surgery trainees at CoRSU Hospital Uganda. From 24th October to 4th December, they were funded by Interface for the opportunity to train in an Interburns fellowship program from Choithram Hospital and Research Centre Burns Unit Indore Madhiya Pradesh, India.
To read the full report from Cornelius, click here.
Here is part of the report:
The Burns Unit and Interburns Fellowship
Choithram Hospital Burn Unit is an Interburns fellowship training centre located in Indore City Madhya Pradesh State in Central India. It is a busy unit that provides excellent learning environment in burns surgery training. The Unit is headed by Dr Shobha Chamania a senior burn surgeon. The unit is comprised of a multidisciplinary team including four burn surgeons (three of whom are plastic surgeons), dieticians, psychologist and psychiatrist, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, nurses and nursing aids among others. The unit provided us with practical skills that are ideal and practical in our setting in Uganda and such skills in patient management and problem solving can be directly replicated in Uganda in order to improve the patient care and outcomes in burns.
Proper Burns management is an important skill in the training of a surgeon since we will more frequently be faced with major burn cases. Therefore I don’t take for granted this opportunity. Knowledge and skills were given to us in form of tutorials, lectures, seminars, clinics and theatre and also routine conversations with the seniors based on their experience. We also had the opportunity to meet two others in the program, one from Palestine and another from the UK. We shared experiences and knowledge. They actually gave us some teachings since they were senior to us.
The opportunity to have fellowship training from centres of excellence during residency training of a surgeon remains a dream for many in Uganda. However this has become a reality for us. None of this would have happened without the generous support of Interface Uganda. Special thanks to Dr Sarah Hodges and Ms. Karen Devaraj for coordinating the activities to make this planned trip a reality. Interface Uganda, we can never thank you enough.
Special thanks to Dr Andrew Hodges, the training director of the residency program and Dr George Galiwango the head of department for identifying a centre of excellence for our training in burns.
I also would thank Dr Shobha Chamania our teacher for the unwavering commitment to training us in burns care and Interburns for giving us the opportunity to have training from their centre.
In short Dhanyawad (thank you in Hindi) to everyone.