TRAINING OF SURGEONS FOR PRIMARY HEALTH-CARE

It has been the view of the Association of Surgeons of East Africa (AS EA) that, like primary health care, there is primary surgery. The unit of provision of primary surgery is the district hospital. The trainin g of surgeons for district hospitals starts at the undergraduate level , leading to the attainment of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Su rgery (M.B. Ch.B.) degree. After internship the doctor works in a dist rict or provincial hospital for 2 - 3 years, then trains for the degre e of Master of Medicine (M. Med. (Surg.)) for a period of 3 years. The training involves rotation through all branches of surgery, so that t he surgeon should be able to handle all aspects of routine surgery in a district hospital. To equip the surgeon further, a period in an outs ide setting is considered advisable. There are arrangements for region al surgical colleges to standardise the form of surgical training in t he ASEA region. To keep surgeons in touch with the outside world, spec ialist training is done outside the region, but arrangements are being made for localised specialised units to offer this training.