Letter to the Editor: Are American Surgical Residents Prepared for Humanitarian Deployment? A Comparative Analysis of Resident and Humanitarian Case Logs

Excerpt

Dr. Lin et al. [1] should be congratulated for their thorough comparison of operative experience of US surgical residents during training versus that of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) deployed surgeons. Such an analysis is a useful contribution in defining the professional and training requirements likely required for a surgeon wishing to deploy on a variety of humanitarian missions. However, the conclusion that US trained residents are unprepared for humanitarian deployment is overstated, as it only considers one model of care, that of the solitary pluripotent surgeon who can practise across a broad area of expertise. Unquestionably, this model of care has served several humanitarian actors well over many decades and has definite financial and logistic advantages. It is agreed that the increasing drive towards subspecialisation will make such surgeons harder to find, but an awakening of the requirements of global surgery may offset this somewhat. …