07 February 2020
On 16-17 January 2020, 30 frontline healthcare professionals (surgeons, residents, medical officers and interns) gathered in Bharatpur, Nepal for a seminar on pediatric fracture management organized by AO Alliance for the first time in the country.
The objectives of the seminar were to provide knowledge and guidelines for the basic treatment of pediatric fractures. Such treatment requires a different skill set than that for adult patients, as pediatric patients’ bodies are still growing and many surgeons are only trained to treat adult patients. It is therefore important to train them on the specificities of pediatric fracture care.
Fracture care in Nepal faces many challenges, such as the scarcity of specialist surgeons (there are only 400 orthopedic surgeons for a population of 28 million people); the topography of the country making access to specialized health facilities difficult, especially in rural and mountainous areas; the increasing rate of road traffic accidents.
The event was successfully led by Regional Chair, Parmanand Gupta and by National Chair, Vijayendra Adhikari, who delivered the lectures along with support from faculty members: Heng Sophea, Ramesh P. Singh, Ram K. Shah, Hemant K. Gupta, Sudeep Man Vaidya and Pramod Lamichhane.
The feedback collected after the seminar was very positive. Participants enjoyed putting into practice the theory they had just learned, for instance, by applying plaster on each other. They found that the discussions held after the sessions were a productive way to share experiences and ask questions. All participants expressed the hope of having this kind of training organized more often.
