SICOT contribution to natural disaster assistance: the external fixator

Excerpt

One of the problems encountered by most of volunteer orthopaedic surgeons taking part in the humanitarian missions during natural disasters is to prepare them for unusual environments. To operate in a remote area with limited equipment, deficient infrastructure and small medical teams is not usually taught at medical school or as part of university training. To prepare these volunteers with a minimal knowledge of what they will encounter is the objective of the symposia we have been holding on natural disasters since the SICOT Congress in Gothenburg, 2010, where we had a debriefing after the Haiti earthquake. In 2011, the symposium was on the controversial topic of amputation [1‐6], in 2012 on triage [7‐11] and in 2013 on external fixator application [12‐15]. In 2014 in Rio, it will be on the prerequisite regarding training, equipment and infrastructure. …