Greetings from Uganda and the Global Surgery Elective Course

The Global Surgery elective course for medical students is given each semester at Karolinska Institutet since 2016. The fifth course for 20 students has just been completed in Uganda.

We spent the first week in Soroti Regional Referral Hospital, 8 hours drive from Kampala. The students rotated in surgery, obstetrics and the outpatient department. Week two was spent in Kampala with rotations in Cardio-thoracic surgery, orthopaedics, plastic and burn surgery as well as in medical and surgical oncology.

Through this course, the students get to see and feel what surgery with limited resources really means. It includes the realisation that lack of surgery and anaesthesia care have direct implications on survival. It also includes the understanding that smart solutions exist and that the potential for research, training and advocacy to lead to real change is real. For many of the students, it is also the first time to see basic general surgery such as hernia repair, advanced level of care including open heart surgery and their first exposure to extensive trauma including burns.

With warm greetings from Uganda - the Pearl of Africa.
The Global Surgery Faculty