期刊
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SURGERY
卷 12, 期 5, 页码 509-515出版社
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2014.02.009
关键词
Task-shifting; Pediatric surgery; Malawi
类别
资金
- University of North Carolina, Department of Surgery
- NC Jaycee Burn Center
- NIH Office of Research for Women's Health [1R25TW009340-01]
- American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
- Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health [K01TW009486]
- National Institutes of Health Office of the Director
- Fogarty International Center
- Office of AIDS Research
- National Cancer Center
- National Heart, Blood, and Lung Institute
Background: Specialized pediatric surgeons are unavailable in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Delegating some surgical tasks to non-physician clinical officers can mitigate the dependence of a health system on highly skilled clinicians for specific services. Methods: We performed a case-control study examining pediatric surgical cases over a 12 month period. Operating surgeon was categorized as physician or clinical officer. Operative acuity, surgical subspecialty, and outcome were then compared between the two groups, using physicians as the control. Results: A total of 1186 operations were performed on 1004 pediatric patients. Mean age was 6 years (+/- 5) and 64% of patients were male. Clinical officers performed 40% of the cases. Most general surgery, urology and congenital cases were performed by physicians, while most ENT, neurosurgery, and burn surgery cases were performed by clinical officers. Reoperation rate was higher for patients treated by clinical officers (17%) compared to physicians (7.1%), although this was attributable to multiple burn surgical procedures. Physician and clinical officer cohorts had similar complication rates (4.5% and 4.0%, respectively) and mortality rates (2.5% and 2.1%, respectively). Discussion: Fundamental changes in health policy in Africa are imperative as a significant increase in the number of surgeons available in the near future is unlikely. Task-shifting from surgeons to clinical officers may be useful to provide coverage of basic surgical care. (C) 2014 Surgical Associates Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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