Humanitarian Missions: From the Resident Perspective
2008, Volume 1, Number 2 65 Introduction Throughout residency training, various programs em-phasize development of sharp clinical and surgical skills. Today, as reflected in the ACGME core com-petencies, ethics is becoming an additional compo-nent of resident education [1]. The fifth ACGME competency, professionalism, focuses on the ability of the resident to care for patients with compassion and in an ethical manner with sensitivity to cultural val-ues. The sixth competency, system-based practice, further emphasizes the need for effective work in various health care delivery settings and systems. Humanitarian missions provide a unique perspective through empathetic care in systems that are chal-lenged by cultural and economic access to health care services. Internationally, cataracts are the leading cause of re-versible blindness. Health care professionals recog-nize a desperate need to correct this serious problem, especially in remote areas. Through increased resi-dency involvement in humanitarian missions, resi-dents can increase their knowledge and surgical skills, particularly with large incision extracapsular surgery (ECCE); they can enhance altruistic behavior and em-pathy for patients and serve a greater good in the global community of ophthalmology. Methods The author searched the PubMed database for peer-reviewed literature on humanitarian eye surgery and resident training. Various terms and their combina-tions were used, beginning with humanitarian resi-dent eye surgery, which yielded no results, then sub-sequent search terms that were increasingly more gen-eral in nature. Only results for human subjects were included. Results Literature searches combining the terms: resident, eye surgery, humanitarian, and third world, resulted in no findings. The search terms humanitarian cataract surgery and humanitarian eye surgery produced one result and three results, respectively. A total of 10 results for humanitarian residency training and nine for third world residency training indicated that residency training during humanitarian missions Humanitarian Missions: From the Resident Perspective John B. Cason, MD 1* 1 Department of Ophthalmology, Naval Medical Center San Diego, San Diego, CA * Corresponding Author & e-mail: john.cason@med.navy.mil Abstract To investigate current literature available for resident training in humanitarian eye surgery and to communicate the potential benefits of resident education in humanitarian medicine worldwide. Review of the medical literature. The combination of the search terms: humanitarian, resident, eye, and surgery revealed no results. Expanded searches with more generic terms revealed more results. In the course of humanitarian missions, residents can develop proficiencies in two ACGME core competen-cies: professionalism and system-based practice. Residents report a significant educational benefit when deployed on hu-manitarian missions. This paper illustrates that thoughtful planning and supervision during these missions can ensure good learning and safe medical care. Accepted for publication August 17, 2008 Revision received October 19, 2008 2008; 1:65-68 Available via open-access on the web at http://www.academic-ophthalmology.com The author(s) have no personal financial interest in any of the products or technologies cited herein. The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense, or the United States Gov-ernment. 2008