Developing a Surgical Simulation Curriculum for the Rwandan Context

OBJECTIVE: We report on the development and imple-mentation of a surgical simulation curriculum for under-graduate medical students in rural Rwanda. DESIGN: This is a narrative report on the development of scenario and procedure-based content for a junior sur-gical clerkship simulation curriculum by an interdisci-plinary team of simulation specialists, surgeons, anesthesiologists, medical educators, and medical students. SETTING: University of Global Health Equity, a new med-ical school located in Butaro, Rwanda. PARTICIPANTS: Participants in this study consist of sim-ulation and surgical educators, surgeons, anesthesiolo-gists, research fellows and University of Global Health Equity medical students enrolled in the junior surgery clerkship. RESULTS: The simulation training schedule was designed to begin with a 17-session simulation-intensive week, fol-lowed by 8 sessions spread over the 11-week clerkship. These sessions combined the use of high-fidelity manne-quins with improvised, bench-top surgical simulators like the GlobalSurgBox, and low-cost gelatin-based models to effectively replace resource intensive options. CONCLUSIONS: Emphasis on contextualized content generation, low-cost application, and interdisciplinary design of simulation curricula for low-income settings is essential. The impact of this curriculum on students' knowledge and skill acquisition is being assessed in an ongoing fashion as a substrate for iterative improvement. ( J Surg Ed 80:1268-1276. & COPY; 2023 Association of Pro-gram Directors in Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.) ABBREVIATIONS: LMIC, Low-and Middle-Income Coun-try HIC, High-Income Country ADW, Activity Develop-ment Worksheet FSG, Faculty Scenario Guide WHO, World Health Organization LA, Local Anesthesia FAST Focused Assessment with Sonography in Trauma