What is it about?
War trauma surgery is a critical field that focuses on penetrating bullet wounds or blast trauma. In conflict areas, surgical teams face immense pressure to provide life‐saving care to trauma and emergency patients. Surgeons must be trained to manage polytrauma patients and teach local surgeons, transfer knowledge, and empower them. Wars are associated with an increase in age‐standardized all‐cause mortality of 81.5 per 100,000 population, contributing 29.4 million civilian deaths globally from 1990 to 2017.1 Telemedicine, a remote healthcare delivery technology which has evolved during the last 75 years, is potentially being used in conflict zones due to high rates of violence and instability. Telesurgery, a subset of telemedicine, can help address limited access to surgery in these areas. This paper discusses the importance of telesurgery implementation in humanitarian care and highlights its potential for improving healthcare access in conflict zones.
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Why is it important?
This paper discusses the importance of telesurgery implementation in humanitarian care and highlights its potential for improving healthcare access in conflict zones.
Perspectives
To achieve globalization, universal licensing for telesurgery platforms, free training, and government subsidies can promote telesurgery. Governments in every country must be prepared with the necessary infrastructure and provide training so that potential challenges can be overcome. Collaboration among NGOs, WHO, academic institution, and the government is also a vital step to establish global health diplomacy toward making telesurgery a viable strategy to reduce casualties in emerging conflicts
Dr Ardalan Shariat
Tehran University of Medical Sciences
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Telesurgery for humanitarian care—Highlighting its potential for improving healthcare in conflict zones, World Journal of Surgery, August 2024, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/wjs.12311.
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