Following their escape from war-torn Sudan, their upbringing in Cuba and several years in Canada, 11 Sudanese-Canadian doctors have graduated from a special medical training programme and have gone to where they are needed most: Sudan, their home country. Their story is told in a Comment piece in this week's edition of The Lancet, authored by Dr Rodney Crutcher, Health Sciences Centre, University of Calgary, Canada, and colleagues.
In 1985, while civil war raged in Sudan, the then children were part of a group of 600 chosen to pursue an education in Cuba, in the hope they would return one day to help rebuild their ailing country. These 11 students were part of 25 given grants by the Cuban government to study medicine in Cuba between 1997 and 2003, and upon graduating were sent to Canada as refugees.
A group of 15 of these graduates then approached Samaritan's Purse Canada (SPC), a Christian relief and development agency, for help in returning to Southern Sudan. Realising the scale of the help required, the agency in turn asked for assistance from The University of Calgary. SGC then paid for the refugees to relocate to Calgary, whereupon the University took charge of upgrading their clinical skills with a comprehensive programme including tropical medicine, clinical reasoning, professionalism, and language skills. It was a huge effort on the University's part, involving 77 instructors and 69 doctors who contributed to the training. The trainees then moved on to the second phase of the programme, based at seven hospitals in Kenya, and in consultation with the Sudanese government. Funding was significantly boosted by the US Agency for International Development and IMA World Health.
A total of 11 trainees graduated from the programme and now work in Southern Sudan, some in remote areas. The authors say: "This success has meant new access to medical care including emergency surgery, perhaps most notably in the provision of life-saving caesarean sections. One such case was a patient in need of a caesarean section who had this procedure under local anaesthesia because the nearest available operating room would involve travelling by boat for four days."
They conclude: "Will this group of Sudanese Canadians work as physicians in Southern Sudan in the long term? We do not know. Yet despite severe challenges, they have convinced many of their commitment to remain. Through relationships forged along their journey, they have inspired others to commit time, medical donations, and other support to further their work in Southern Sudan. Such commitments include those from the University of Calgary to continue further medical education for them and to foster university-to-university relations with medical schools in Southern Sudan. The Sudanese Physician Reintegration Program, culminating in the Juba Graduation, represents a unique approach of a return of the diaspora. It is one way of helping Africans help Africans."
For Dr Rodney Crutcher, Health Sciences Centre, University of Calgary, Canada please contact Media Relations T) +1 403 220 2431 E) medmedia@ucalgary.ca / crutcher@ucalgary.ca
Full Comment: http://press.thelancet.com/sudan.pdf
Journal
The Lancet