From Swindon to the States: teaching key healthcare skills across the globe
Staff have been travelling overseas to share healthcare skills, training and learning with clinical colleagues across the world.
Breast surgeon Anushka Chaudhry recently spent time in Saudi Arabia teaching at their first ever oncoplastic course, before jetting to the States to present at a breast cancer conference in Denver.
She's been meeting with practicing consultants to teach new techniques and help them perfect skills to improve the outcomes for patients with breast cancer.
They identify patients who need surgery from free screening camps in more remote areas of the country, to ensure everyone has access to healthcare if they need it.
The team then work from a newly built clinic, and have performed over 90 operations in two weeks alone.
Other colleagues from Great Western Hospital also supported the trip, by donating old equipment for Angus to take to Nepal. Old equipment can still have a long lifespan, and recycling it means that people all over the world can have improved health outcomes.
Angus said, about one 11-year-old youngster: "All of our middle ear surgery in this new theatre is done under local anaesthetic. This is always done at Great Western Hospital under general anaesthetic for various reasons, but that’s not an option here so the patients have to be prepared to lie very still for up to 90 minutes for an operation. This little boy from Jumla up in the hills was as brave as you like. His mother had assured me he would be strong, and indeed he was."
Experiencing healthcare services from cultures all over the world also help staff to learn more about some of the patients they care for locally, and how they can ensure their needs are always met.
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