During this two-week medical mission trip to Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi, my primary goal is to educate the anesthesia clinical officers (ACOs) and training anesthesia clinical officers (TACOs) through hands on- teaching in the operating rooms (known as theaters in Malawi), lecture and simulation. I served on a one-month mission trip to the same hospital in February 2024, which allowed me to build rapport and many relationships with the anesthesia department. A typical day includes spending the mornings from 7a-12p in the theaters providing hands-on training. From 1-5 pm, I will give lectures on various clinical topics, and help to facilitate at least one simulation per day. During this mission trip, I will focus on ensuring our ACOs are self-sufficient in leading a simulation so that this practice can be continued without our team being present. My goal is simply to continue to improve the delivery of anesthesia care to the people of Malawi through improved education of the anesthesia providers.
UNC has a longstanding relationship with the Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe since 1999. Unfortunately, there are only 1-2 anesthesiologists in the entire country of Malawi. Most of Malawi’s anesthesia care is delivered by anesthesia clinical officers. Each year, members from UNC’s Department of Anesthesiology have the opportunity to contribute to the department’s mission of providing continual medical education to the ACOs so that the people of Malawi receive excellent anesthesia care. Due to UNC’s pre-existing strong relationship, I participated in a medical mission trip last year which allowed me to build rapport with the anesthesia faculty and trainees. I look forward to going back again this spring with the same group of anesthesiologists. This mission’s goal is to benefit the ACOs and training ACOs. Through improving the anesthesia provider’s knowledge and skills, this will also positively impact the health and well-being of Malawi’s people.
UNC donated many simulators, sim software and computers to facilitate simulation training for the ACOs and TACOs in an effort to improve knowledge, performance, and skillset in the operating room in a lower stakes setting. During my first medical mission trip in February 2024, we ran a simulation with the TACOs every day. However, we did not have the chance to teach the ACOs how to run a simulation themselves, without us present. This year, three of the senior anesthesia clinical officers are being sponsored by UNC to come to UNC at Chapel Hill in March for one month with the intent to teach them the ins and outs of simulation including the design, facilitation, pre-briefing, and de-briefing. The goal is to train the ACOs to be fully proficient in leading simulation sessions without us being present in Malawi. Because we are visiting Malawi in April, immediately after the ACOs come to UNC, this will allow us to reinforce what they learned, and address any remaining questions and knowledge gaps. Our team intends to perform a quality improvement project to provide objective data on the success of our simulation training efforts, and to allow publication of our work so that others across the world can mimic our education efforts.
I spent 2 weeks teaching the training anesthesia clinical officers at Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi. I spent the mornings teaching hands on in the operating theaters, and the afternoons teaching by lecture and problem- based discussions. The trainees were preparing for their upcoming exams, and were an incredibly bright class!
