The role of collaboration in educating the global pediatric anesthesia workforce.

An estimated 1.7 billion children and adolescents do not have access to safe and affordable surgical care, and the vast majority of these are located in low-middle-income countries (LMICs). Pediatric anesthesia, a specialized field that requires a diverse set of knowledge and skills, has seen various advancements over the years and has become well-established in upper-middle and high-income countries. However, in LMICs, due to a multitude of factors including severe workforce shortages, this has not been the case. Collaborations play a vital role in increasing the capacity of pediatric anesthesiology educators and training the pediatric anesthesia workforce. These efforts directly increase access for children who require surgical intervention. Collaboration models can be operationalized through bidirectional knowledge sharing, training, resource allocation, research and innovation, quality improvement, networking, and advocacy. This article aims to highlight a few of these collaborative efforts. Specifically, the role that the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, the Safer Anesthesia from Education program, the Asian Society of Pediatric Anaesthesiologists, Pediatric Anesthesia Training in Africa, the Paediatric Anaesthesia Network New Zealand, the Safe Pediatric Anesthesia Network and two WhatsApp™ groups (global ped anesthesia and the Pediatric Difficult Intubation Collaborative) have played in improving anesthesiology care for children.

Children's surgery and the emergency, critical, and operative care resolution: Immediate actions to eliminate disparities in surgery, anesthesia, and perioperative care for all children.

Around 1.7 billion children lack access to surgical care worldwide. To reinvigorate the efforts to address these disparities and support work to address global challenges in surgery, anesthesia, emergency, and critical care, the World Health Assembly passed World Health Organization Resolution World Health Assembly 76.2: Integrated emergency, critical and operative care for universal health coverage and protection from health emergencies (ECO) in 2023. This resolution highlights the integral role of surgery, anesthesia, and perioperative care in health systems. However, understanding how best to operationalize this resolution is challenging. We review the ECO resolution and highlight points that the pediatric surgical and anesthesia community can leverage to advocate for its recommendations for operative care.

Delivery of Safe Pediatric Anesthesia Care in the First 8000 days: Realities, Challenges, and Solutions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.

BACKGROUND: Worldwide, perioperative mortality has declined over the past 50 years, but the reduction is skewed toward high-income countries (HICs). Currently, pediatric perioperative mortality is much higher in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) compared to HICs, despite studied cohorts being predominantly low-risk. These disparities must be studied and addressed. METHODS: A narrative review of the literature was undertaken to identify contributing factors and potential knowledge gaps. Interventions aimed at alleviating the outcomes disparities are discussed, and recommendations are made for future directions. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: There is a lack of adequately trained pediatric anesthesia providers in LMICs, and the number must be bolstered by making such training available. Essential anesthesia medications and equipment, in pediatric-appropriate sizes, are often not available; neither are essential infrastructure items. Perioperative staff are underprepared for emergent situations that may arise and simulation training may help to ameliorate this. The global anesthesia community has implemented several solutions to address these issues. The World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) and Global Initiative for Children's Surgery have published standards that outline essential items for the provision of safe perioperative pediatric care. Several short educational courses have been developed and introduced in LMICs that either specifically address pediatric patients, or contain a pediatric component. The WFSA also maintains a collection of discrete tutorials for educational purposes. Finally, in Africa, large-scale, prospective data collection is underway to examine pediatric perioperative outcomes. More work needs to be done, though, to improve perioperative outcomes for pediatric patients in LMICs.

The Capnography Project.

Capnography is an essential tool used in the monitoring of patients during anesthesia and in critical care which, while required in most high-income countries, is unavailable in many low- and middle-income countries. Launched in 2020, the Smile Train-Lifebox Capnography Project aimed to find a "capnography solution" for resource-poor settings. The project was specifically interested in a capnography device that would meet the needs of the Smile Train partner hospitals to help monitor children requiring airway or cleft surgery. Project advisory and technical groups were formed and included representation from anesthesia practitioners from a balanced representation from all level of income countries, technical experts in capnography, and representatives from the Global Capnography Project (GCAP), the University of California at San Francisco Center for Health Equity in Surgery & Anesthesia (CHESA), and the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA). Built upon the WFSA minimum capnometer specifications, a human centered design approach was used to develop a Target Product Profile. Seven manufacturers submitted 13 devices for consideration and 3 devices were selected for the testing phase. Each of these devices was evaluated for build quality, and clinical and usability performance. Based on the findings from the overall testing process, a combined capnography and pulse oximetry device by Zug Medical Systems was chosen. To accompany the new Smile Train-Lifebox capnograph, an international team of experienced anesthesiologists and educators came together to develop the necessary education materials. These materials were piloted in Ethiopia, subsequently modified, and endorsed by the education team. The device is now ready for distribution, with the accompanying education package, to the Smile Train network and beyond. In addition, a study is being planned to measure the impact of capnography introduction into operating rooms in resource-constrained settings.

Evaluation of Open Access Websites for Anesthesia Education.

BACKGROUND: While the prevalence of free, open access medical education resources for health professionals has expanded over the past 10 years, many educational resources for health care professionals are not publicly available or require fees for access. This lack of open access creates global inequities in the availability and sharing of information and may have the most significant impact on health care providers with the greatest need. The extent of open access online educational websites aimed for clinicians and trainees in anesthesiology worldwide is unknown. In this study, we aimed to identify and evaluate the quality of websites designed to provide open access educational resources for anesthesia trainees and clinicians. METHODS: A PubMed search of articles published between 2009 and 2020, and a Startpage search engine web search was conducted in May 2021 to identify websites using the following inclusion criteria: (1) contain educational content relevant for anesthesia providers or trainees, (2) offer content free of charge, and (3) are written in the English language. Websites were each scored by 2 independent reviewers using a website quality evaluation tool with previous validity evidence that was modified for anesthesia (the Anesthesia Medical Education Website Quality Evaluation Tool). RESULTS: Seventy-five articles and 175 websites were identified; 37 websites met inclusion criteria. The most common types of educational content contained in the websites included videos (66%, 25/37), text-based resources (51%, 19/37), podcasts (35%, 13/37), and interactive learning resources (32%, 12/37). Few websites described an editorial review process (24%, 9/37) or included opportunities for active engagement or interaction by learners (30%,11/37). Scores by tertile differed significantly across multiple domains, including disclosure of author/webmaster/website institution; description of an editorial review process; relevancy to residents, fellows, and faculty; comprehensiveness; accuracy; disclosure of content creation or revision; ease of access to information; interactivity; clear and professional presentation of information; and links to external information. CONCLUSIONS: We found 37 open access websites for anesthesia education available on the Internet. Many of these websites may serve as a valuable resource for anesthesia clinicians looking for self-directed learning resources and for educators seeking to curate resources into thoughtfully integrated learning experiences. Ongoing efforts are needed to expand the number and improve the existing open access websites, especially with interactivity, to support the education and training of anesthesia providers in even the most resource-limited areas of the world. Our findings may provide recommendations for those educators and organizations seeking to fill this needed gap to create new high-quality educational websites.

Delivering Essential Surgical Care for Lower-limb Musculoskeletal disorders in the Low-Resource Setting.

BACKGROUND: Mismatched surgeon-anesthesiologist ratios often exist in low-resource settings making safe emergency essential surgical care challenging. This study is an audit of emergency essential procedures performed for lower-limb (LL) musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) when an anesthesiologist was unavailable. It aims to identify strategies for safe anesthesia. METHODS: A 5-year retrospective audit of emergency essential LL orthopedic procedures performed at remote mission hospital in Central India was performed. Out of necessity, a regional anesthesia (RA) protocol was developed in collaboration with anesthesiologists familiar with the setting. The incidence of intraoperative surgical and perioperative anesthesia complications when RA was administered by a surgeon was evaluated. RESULTS: During this period, 766 emergency essential LL MSDs procedures were performed. An anesthesiologist was available for only 6/766. RA was administered by a surgeon for 283/766. This included spinal anesthesia (SA) for 267/283 patients, peripheral nerve blocks for 16/283. Local infiltration and/or sedation was administered to 477/766. There were 17 intraoperative surgical complications. Anesthesia-related complications included 37/267 patients who required multiple attempts to localize subarachnoid space and SA failure in 9/267 patients all of whom had successful re-administration. Additional sedation and infiltration of local anesthetic was required in 5/267 patients. CONCLUSION: Remote pre-anesthesia consultation for high-risk patients, local surgeon-anesthesiologist networking, protocol-guided management, and dedicated short duration of training in anesthesia may be considered as an alternative for delivering RA for emergency essential surgery for LL MSDs due to unavailability of anesthesiologists.

Assessment of Anesthesia Capacity in Public Surgical Hospitals in Guatemala.

BACKGROUND: International standards for safe anesthetic care have been developed by the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Whether these standards are met is unknown in many nations, including Guatemala, a country with universal health coverage. We aimed to establish an overview of anesthesia care capacity in public surgical hospitals in Guatemala to help guide public sector health care development. METHODS: In partnership with the Guatemalan Ministry of Public Health and Social Assistance (MSPAS), a national survey of all public hospitals providing surgical care was conducted using the WFSA anesthesia facility assessment tool (AFAT) in 2018. Each facility was assessed for infrastructure, service delivery, workforce, medications, equipment, and monitoring practices. Descriptive statistics were calculated and presented. RESULTS: Of the 46 public hospitals in Guatemala in 2018, 36 (78%) were found to provide surgical care, including 20 district, 14 regional, and 2 national referral hospitals. We identified 573 full-time physician surgeons, anesthesiologists, and obstetricians (SAO) in the public sector, with an estimated SAO density of 3.3/100,000 population. There were 300 full-time anesthesia providers working at public hospitals. Physician anesthesiologists made up 47% of these providers, with an estimated physician anesthesiologist density of 0.8/100,000 population. Only 10% of district hospitals reported having an anesthesia provider continuously present intraoperatively during general or neuraxial anesthesia cases. No hospitals reported assessing pain in the immediate postoperative period. While the availability of some medications such as benzodiazepines and local anesthetics was robust (100% availability across all hospitals), not all hospitals had essential medications such as ketamine, epinephrine, or atropine. There were deficiencies in the availability of essential equipment and basic intraoperative monitors, such as end-tidal carbon dioxide detectors (17% availability across all hospitals). Postoperative care and access to resuscitative equipment, such as defibrillators, were also lacking. CONCLUSIONS: This first countrywide, MSPAS-led assessment of anesthesia capacity at public facilities in Guatemala revealed a lack of essential materials and personnel to provide safe anesthesia and surgery. Hospitals surveyed often did not have resources regardless of hospital size or level, which may suggest multiple factors preventing availability and use. Local and national policy initiatives are needed to address these deficiencies.

Impact of COVID-19 response on global surgical volumes: an ongoing observational study.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether location-linked anaesthesiology calculator mobile application (app) data can serve as a qualitative proxy for global surgical case volumes and therefore monitor the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. METHODS: We collected data provided by users of the mobile app "Anesthesiologist" during 1 October 2018-30 June 2020. We analysed these using RStudio and generated 7-day moving-average app use plots. We calculated country-level reductions in app use as a percentage of baseline. We obtained data on COVID-19 case counts from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. We plotted changing app use and COVID-19 case counts for several countries and regions. FINDINGS: A total of 100 099 app users within 214 countries and territories provided data. We observed that app use was reduced during holidays, weekends and at night, correlating with expected fluctuations in surgical volume. We observed that the onset of the pandemic prompted substantial reductions in app use. We noted strong cross-correlation between COVID-19 case count and reductions in app use in low- and middle-income countries, but not in high-income countries. Of the 112 countries and territories with non-zero app use during baseline and during the pandemic, we calculated a median reduction in app use to 73.6% of baseline. CONCLUSION: App data provide a proxy for surgical case volumes, and can therefore be used as a real-time monitor of the impact of COVID-19 on surgical capacity. We have created a dashboard for ongoing visualization of these data, allowing policy-makers to direct resources to areas of greatest need.

Bradycardia and asystole during temporomandibular joint reconstruction.

Anesthesia providers are familiar with the oculocardiac reflex, one type of trigeminocardiac reflex. While less common, arrhythmias associated with manipulation of other trigeminal nerve branches can occur. We report the presentation and management of bradycardia and asystole from stimulation of the mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve during temporomandibular joint reconstruction.

Adaptations in pediatric anesthesia care and airway management in the resource-poor setting.

The need for safe and quality pediatric anesthesia care in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is huge. An estimated 1.7 billion children do not have access to surgical care, and the majority are in LMICs. In addition, most LMICs do not have the requisite surgical workforce including anesthesia providers. Surgery is usually performed at three levels of facilities: district, provincial, and national referral hospitals. Unfortunately, the manpower, equipment, and other resources available to provide surgical care for children vary greatly at the different level facilities. The majority of district level hospitals are staffed solely by non-physician anesthesia providers with variable training and little support to manage complicated pediatric patients. Airway and respiratory complications are known to account for a large portion of pediatric perioperative complications. Management of the difficult pediatric airway pathology is a challenge for anesthesia providers regardless of setting. However, in the low-resource setting poor infrastructure, lack of transportation systems, and crippled referral systems lead to late presentation. There is often a lack of pediatric-sized anesthesia equipment and resources, making management of the local pathology even more challenging. Efforts are being made to offer these providers additional training in pediatric anesthesia skills that incorporate low-fidelity simulation. Out of necessity, anesthesia providers in this setting learn to be resourceful in order to manage complex pathologies with fewer, less ideal resources while still providing a safe anesthetic.

Education: The Heart of the Matter.

There are inadequate numbers of anesthesia providers in many parts of the world. Good quality educational programs are needed to increase provider numbers, train leaders and teachers, and increase knowledge and skills. In some countries, considerable external support may be required to develop self-sustaining programs. There are some key themes related to educational programs in low- and middle-income countries:(1) Programs must be appropriate for the local environment-there is no "one-size-fits-all" program. In some countries, nonuniversity programs may be appropriate for training providers.(2) It is essential to train local teachers-a number of short courses provide teacher training. Overseas attachments may also play an important role in developing leadership and teaching capacity.(3) Interactive teaching techniques, such as small-group discussions and simulation, have been incorporated into many educational programs. Computer learning and videoconferencing offer additional educational possibilities.(4) Subspecialty education in areas such as obstetric anesthesia, pediatric anesthesia, and pain management are needed to develop leadership and increase capacity in subspecialty areas of practice. Examples include short subspecialty courses and clinical fellowships.(5) Collaboration and coordination are vital. Anesthesiologists need to work with ministries of health and other organizations to develop plans that are matched to need. External organizations can play an important role.(6) Excellent education is required at all levels. Training guidelines could help to standardize and improve training. Resources should be available for research, as well as monitoring and evaluation of educational programs.

Are Short Subspecialty Courses the Educational Answer?

There is an urgent need to train more anesthesia providers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). There is also a need to provide more educational opportunities in subspecialty areas of anesthetic practice such as trauma management, pain management, obstetric anesthesia, and pediatric anesthesia. Together, these subspecialty areas make up a large proportion of the clinical workload in LMICs. In these countries, the quality of education may be variable, there may be few teachers, and opportunities for continued learning and mentorship are rare. Short subspecialty courses such as Primary Trauma Care, Essential Pain Management, Safer Anaesthesia From Education-Obstetric Anaesthesia, and Safer Anaesthesia From Education-Paediatric Anaesthesia have been developed to help fill this need. They have the potential for immediate impact by providing an opportunity for continuing professional development and relevant subspecialty training. These courses are all short (1-3 days), are presented as an off-the-shelf package, and include a teach-the-teacher component. They use a variety of interactive teaching techniques and are designed to be adaptable and responsive to local needs. There is an emphasis on local ownership of the educational process that helps to promote sustainability. After an initial financial outlay to purchase equipment, the costs are relatively low. Short subspecialty courses appear to be part of the educational answer in LMICs, but there is a need for research to validate their role.

Guidelines and checklists for short-term missions in global pediatric surgery: Recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics Delivery of Surgical Care Global Health Subcommittee, American Pediatric Surgical Association Global Pediatric Surgery Committee, Society for Pediatric Anesthesia Committee on International Education and Service, and American Pediatric Surgical Nurses Association, Inc. Global Health Special Interest Group.

Pediatric surgeons, anesthesia providers, and nurses from North America and other high-income countries are increasingly engaged in resource-limited areas, with short-term missions as the most common form of involvement. However, consensus recommendations currently do not exist for short-term missions in pediatric general surgery and associated perioperative care. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Delivery of Surgical Care Subcommittee and American Pediatric Surgical Association (APSA) Global Pediatric Surgery Committee, with the American Pediatric Surgical Nurses Association, Inc. (APSNA) Global Health Special Interest Group, and the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia (SPA) Committee on International Education and Service generated consensus recommendations for short-term missions based on extensive experience with short-term missions. Three distinct, but related areas were identified: (i) Broad goals of surgical partnerships between high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries. A previous set of guidelines published by the Global Paediatric Surgery Network Collaborative (GPSN) was endorsed by all groups; (ii) Guidelines for the conduct of short-term missions were developed, including planning, in-country perioperative patient care, post-trip follow-up, and sustainability; and (iii) travel and safety considerations critical to short-term mission success were enumerated. A diverse group of stakeholders developed these guidelines for short-term missions in low- and middle-income countries. These guidelines may be a useful tool to ensure safe, responsible, and ethical short-term missions given increasing engagement of high-income country providers in this work.

Factors influencing anesthesia residency selection: impact of global health opportunities.

PURPOSE: There is growing evidence to suggest that the current generation of medical students and young physicians is interested in global health. However, there are few data on the interest in global health by students pursuing a career in anesthesiology. The objective of this survey was to evaluate the importance of global health opportunities in regard to applicants' choice of anesthesiology residency programs. METHODS: Anesthesiology residency program directors in the United States were invited to distribute an online survey to recently matched residents. To reduce study bias, the survey included a wide selection of reasons for program choices in addition to global health. Participants were asked to rate independently, on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 = least important, 10 = most important), the importance that each factor had on their selection of an anesthesiology residency program. RESULTS: Of the 117 U.S. anesthesiology programs contacted, 87 (74%) distributed the survey. Completed surveys were obtained from 582 of 1,092 (53%) polled participants. All factors assessed were rated between 5 and 9 and the global health median [interquartile range] rating was 6 [3-7]. Nearly half of the survey respondents were interested in incorporating global health into future careers. More than three-quarters reported being interested in participating in, or reading about, global health activities during their residency. Responders with previous global health experience, or who were interested in an "in-country" experience, were more likely to choose programs that had global health opportunities available during residency. CONCLUSIONS: Anesthesia residency program applicants are interested in global health. Having a global health opportunity was an important reason for choosing a residency program, comparable to some more traditional factors. Regardless of previous global health experience, the majority of future anesthesia residents are either planning or considering participation in global health activities during or after training.