May 2020 Newsletter
Hello and welcome to our latest newsletter.
In this update, we share our new webinar series, introduce you to our latest War Doctor Hero and keep you in the loop with David's media appearances.
Thank you, as always, for your continued support and we hope you are keeping well at home.
Taking our Training Online
To do what we can for our surgeons, we have launched a fortnightly webinar series led by David Nott and our faculty. During these sessions, we invite medics from low-resource settings to present their surgical cases to each other and to our training faculty so that they can share experience and advice.
We’ve also launched a COVID-specific webinar series which aims to provide any information, support and advice that we can to surgeons, particularly around how to look after their own safety when operating on COVID-positive or unknown patients.
One surgeon who has benefitted from these webinars is Dr Lucien, who we trained on a UK course back in 2018. Lucien said: “With advice from David and others from across the world on this webinar, I hope we can improve protection for our surgical teams and continue to provide surgery for those that absolutely need it.”
We plan for these webinars to endure beyond this pandemic as an excellent way of supporting surgeons and keeping in touch with them.
Spotlight on Dr Binod
In this latest instalment of our #wardoctorheroes series, we're proud to introduce Dr Binod from Nepal.
Binod serves the rural, mountainous district of Dolakha, the epicenter of the 2015 Nepal Earthquake.
His patients have to travel for hours along bumpy, winding roads to reach the hospital, where a lack of resources can often present another obstacle to surgical treatment.
In 2018, we were able to offer Binod a scholarship to attend our UK-based STAE course, where he learnt how to manage orthopaedic and vascular injuries in low-resource settings.
The day after Binod returned from the UK, a child came to his hospital with a broken leg after falling from a height. Her left femur was completely crushed.
Using the skills learnt on the STAE course, Binod was able to repair the blood vessels, externally fixate the bone, and perform a skin graft to save her leg.
David in the News
David recently penned an editorial in The Lancet, in which he discussed the urgent need to coordinate a global response to COVID-19 and protect the world's most vulnerable populations.
David wrote that "in fragile settings, there is no massive infrastructure like the NHS. There are few ventilators - eg, South Sudan has four ventilators per 11 million people, Chad has three per 5 million people, and in northern Syria there is one ventilator for every 36,000 people." In order to prevent this pandemic from ravaging war-torn countries and refugee communities, David argues that governments must unite to coordinate a world-wide response. You can read the full article here.
If you would like to hear more about his experience treating COVID-19 patients on the NHS 'front-lines', then you can also hear him speak to NPR's Terry Gross in the US about the psychological similarities between this pandemic and operating in war zones. Click here to listen to the broadcast.
Missed out on David's talks last year?
If you missed out on David's speaking events or if you're just in need of some inspiration during lockdown, then this might just be the stay home ticket you need. You can watch a snippet of his talk with BBC's Sarah Montague here, or to watch the full video, click here.
Taking our Training Online
To do what we can for our surgeons, we have launched a fortnightly webinar series led by David Nott and our faculty. During these sessions, we invite medics from low-resource settings to present their surgical cases to each other and to our training faculty so that they can share experience and advice.
We’ve also launched a COVID-specific webinar series which aims to provide any information, support and advice that we can to surgeons, particularly around how to look after their own safety when operating on COVID-positive or unknown patients. David has brought on UK-based intensivists and anaesthetists to help with this and we are pleased to have opened it up to medics beyond our list of surgeons.
These online sessions have been very well received by the doctors. Lucien Wasingya, who we trained on a UK-based course back in 2018, said: "With advice from David and others from across the world on this webinar, I hope we can improve protection for our surgical teams and continue to provide surgery for those that absolutely need it."
We plan for these webinars to endure beyond this pandemic as an excellent way of supporting surgeons and keeping in touch with them.
War Doctor Heroes: Meet Dr Binod
We are proud to introduce Dr Binod Dangal in the latest instalment of our War Doctor Heroes series, which celebrates our global network of surgeons.
Binod grew up in Sindhupalchok, a remote, mountainous village in Nepal. Thanks to the support of a volunteer teacher from Italy, Binod was inspired to study medicine and, after training abroad, he now serves the community in the Dolakha region.
Nepal often suffers from earthquakes and landslides, and the difficult geographical terrain creates a barrier for Nepalese people seeking healthcare, particularly in the rural regions. Binod's patients sometimes have to travel for hours along bumpy, winding roads to reach the hospital, where a lack of resources often presents another obstacle to surgical treatment.
In 2018, the David Nott Foundation was able to offer Dr Binod a full scholarship to our UK-based STAE course. During this specialised training course, Binod was taught the proper management of orthopaedic and vascular injuries in low-resource settings, skills that he was able to put to use almost immediately.
Indeed, the day after he returned to Nepal, a nine-year-old child was brought to his hospital with a broken leg. She had fallen from a height and her left femur was completely crushed. Using the skills learnt on the STAE course, Binod was able to repair the blood vessels, externally fixate the bone, and perform a skin graft to repair her leg.
“With patience, teamwork and the right skills, it is even possible to manage complex trauma cases in low resource settings."
Doctors like Binod are at the heart of everything the Foundation seeks to achieve. With your support, we can train even more surgeons, helping them to serve the communities that need them most.
The Lancet: The COVID-19 response for vulnerable people affected by conflict
David Nott writes for The Lancet:
Next year I will have worked full time in the UK's National Health Service (NHS) for 40 years. I seem to be a survivor not only from the political rollercoaster that various governments have enacted on the NHS, but also from volunteering my surgical skills in places affected by conflict and natural disasters for the past 25 years. The experiences of the patients I have served whose lives have been impacted by war, injustice, and inhumanity during this time have given me insight into what life is really about. Every person on this planet has a right to live and survive by whatever means possible. Having seen the adverse health impacts of conflict and humanitarian disaster on patients, I understand the mass movement of unprotected people from war to places of relative calm.
Many of the estimated 70·8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide live in insanitary and inhospitable conditions, sometimes up to six families living in one tent in a 3 m area. At a time when so many people are living under lockdown because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, it is important to highlight the dreadful conditions that displaced people endure, which I have personally witnessed in refugee camps throughout the world. Apart from difficult living conditions in these camps, many people share one latrine and washing facilities and hundreds queue for food every day. People tolerate such conditions because they want to live. They have been forced to live this way by inhumane acts in conflict and authoritarianism.
Many people in high-income countries might think that these humanitarian problems happen to other people far away and have little to do with them. At the start of this year with the first reports of a new virus in China, some people watched with casual nonchalance. Even when Joseph Wu and colleagues reported in late January that COVID-19 was going to become a global pandemic requiring substantial preparation, this warning received insufficient attention. Too many of us were lulled into a false sense of security by shrugging politicians. Looking back now, it is hard to understand from a scientific and epidemiological standpoint that there seemed to be no one with sufficient leverage to wave that red flag very early on.
Read the full article here.