The Discovery Award teams have submitted their modules and the judges have met to review them before the finalists are announced in January 2022. It is a major milestone in an eventful journey for the teams, the judges, our partners, and our internal team.
As we prepare to close out this year, we want to take a moment to reflect on accomplishments and key learnings.
Five continents Represented Among Multidisciplinary Teams
The multidisciplinary teams were composed of clinical, educational, and technical experts. They represented five continents and spanned across specialties such as orthopaedics, pediatric surgery, trauma, laparoscopic surgery, and plastic surgery.
The diversity of languages, clinical and technical backgrounds, cultures, geographies, and time zones posed both challenges and opportunities.
The importance of mentoring
To guide the Discovery Teams in the development of their modules, the Royal College of Surgeons partnered with the Global Surgical Training Challenge to provide structured mentorship and coaching throughout the process. Mentors and coaches offered expertise in management and leadership, e-learning methodologies, simulation technology, and AI, among other topics.
Leveraging productive conflict
Through a series of workshops, teams learned about the natural leadership roles and group dynamics. By leveraging “productive conflict,” team members strengthened mutual trust and confidence. Each team member was encouraged to engage and participate, bringing their own perspectives and backgrounds to enhance the collaborative process.
Designing self-assessment
A critical requirement of the Global Surgical Training Challenge is that the modules include self-assessment tools. That is, learners must be able to assess their performance against specific metrics. This capability is the primary source of value to learners as it has direct implications on patient outcomes.
Internationally-recognized surgical training experts led a workshop to teach the foundational principles of assessment. Team members learned about theoretical frameworks, question design, physical models for assessment, and best practices for learning feedback.
Ensuring open source accessibility
The reproducibility of the training modules in low and middle income countries is a central judging criteria of the Global Surgical Training Challenge. Open source modules must be free, modular, and adaptable to local contexts. Teams have uploaded their modules to partner Appropedia.
Teams learned how to maximize the usability of their training modules through online training with open source experts.
The journey ahead
The judging panel met on 13 December 2021 to evaluate the submissions. After their deliberations, there will be a public announcement of the Finalists in January 2022. The next year will focus on validating the modules and development of new modules by the Finalists. We will announce a validation partner(s) early next year.
Global Surgery News
Call for abstracts
The Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland is accepting abstracts for the Annual Dublin Meeting in Patient-Centered Global Surgery, 15-16 March 2022. The deadline for submission is Sunday, 9 January 2022.
The College of Surgeons of East, Central, and Southern Africa (COSECSA) celebrated an online graduation ceremony on 1 December. You can see the entire ceremony on YouTube.
Interested in learning more about other challenges being delivered by Nesta Challenges? Take a look at our website to find out about our other prizes.
