Standing from left to right- Assistant Professor O&G Dr. Julia Singh, Monash Children’s Simulation Project Manager Nour Chaudhry, Assistant Professor Surgery Dr. Abhay Choudhari, Monash Children’s Simulation Fellow Mr. Damir Ljuhar, Lecturer Surgery Dr. Haikiu Taukawe. Sitting from left to right- Director Monash Children’s Simulation Mr. Ramesh Nataraja and Fiji National University Acting Vice-Chancellor Dr William May.
Fiji National University’s (FNU) College of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (CMNHS), along with Monash Children’s Simulation, conducted the Pacific Islands Virtual Online Training in Surgery (PIVOT) course. It is a comprehensive surgical educational resource combined with virtual simulation-based educational activities created by content experts from Monash Children’s Simulation Surgical Educational Interventions under the guidance of Associate Professor Ram Nataraja, a Surgical Educator and Pediatric Surgeon at Monash Children’s Hospital and Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. Head of Department of Surgery, Anaesthesia & Women’s Health, Assistant Professor Dr Abhay Choudhari was FNU focal point in establishing collaboration with Monash Children’s Simulation to enable PIVOTS in Fiji.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has created the need for virtual simulation-based surgical training, and PIVOTS was developed by Monash Children’s Simulation with the objective of delivering continuous and sustainable opportunities for online surgical education to encourage and enhance the delivery of surgical care,” Dr Choudhari said.
“PIVOTS aims to deliver a sustainable solution to provide local trainees and surgeons with the opportunity to use simulation-based education and virtual educational methodology with novel technology.
“It focuses on improving the quality of surgical care and associated skillsets for greater confidence in the delivery of surgical care. It also aims to assist facilitators in further developing their skills in providing education using this novel intervention, moving toward a sustainable educational system in the future.”
The programme aims to provide surgical and obstetrics and gynecology trainees in Fiji, an opportunity to have continued practice of surgical skills using simulators with simulation instrument tracking software, hence enabling sustainable up-skilling of surgical skills and enhancing learning opportunities for improving health outcomes.
“The educational content covered by Monash University Learning Management System includes key fundamental principles of surgical techniques and practice, including laparoscopy, mechanisms for the management of pre-existing patient comorbidities and risk of surgery, factors optimizing surgical outcomes and minimize potential morbidity in low resource settings, critical factors in assessment and management of deteriorating surgical patients, key communication and cognitive skills required for ward rounds, consent, difficult conversations and improvement in core and advanced laparoscopic skills along with online assessment platform.
“Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Global Health Team have donated 10 laparoscopy trainers (eOsims) to CMNHS, FNU for hands-on laparoscopy training. A working group comprising of Sndurgical, and obstetrics and gynecology has been created which will later form a local faculty group who will have the competency to continue the delivery of the simulation-based program with the support of Monash Children Simulation remotely in the future,” he highlighted.
The access to Monash University Learning Management System and online webinars has been granted to the Working Group, Faculty, and surgical trainee participants. A significant number of surgery and O&G trainees from Fiji and the region are participating in this important training to enhance their surgical and laparoscopy skills.”