The peacebuilding potential of healthcare training programs.

Global health professionals regularly conduct healthcare trainings, such as first aid courses, in disadvantaged communities across the world. Many of these communities lack healthcare infrastructure because of war and political conflict. The authors draw on their experience conducting a first aid course in South Sudan to provide a perspective on how healthcare trainings for people with no medical background can be used to bridge ethnic, political, and religious differences.

Wilderness First Aid Training as a Tool for Improving Basic Medical Knowledge in South Sudan.

Introduction: The challenges presented by traumatic injuries in low-resource communities are especially relevant in South Sudan. This study was conducted to assess whether a 3-day wilderness first aid (WFA) training course taught in South Sudan improved first aid knowledge. Stonehearth Open Learning Opportunities (SOLO) Schools designed the course to teach people with limited medical knowledge to use materials from their environment to provide life-saving care in the event of an emergency.

A new paradigm for disease surveillance in Vietnam.

Medical surveillance data from all government health clinics in Vietnam are currently collected through a slow, paper-driven process. Short message service (SMS) technology delivered through mobile phones offers a simple solution to improving the speed through which disease surveillance information can be collected. Identifying health concerns earlier with this mobile-based disease surveillance system has the potential to improve the care for patients seen at community health clinics as well as predict more quickly that a medical emergency, such as a pandemic, will occur.

Disseminating surgery effectively and efficiently in Haiti.

The need for surgical care in Haiti remains vast despite the enormous relief efforts after the earthquake in 2010. As the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Haiti lacks the necessary infrastructure to provide surgical care to its inhabitants. In light of this, a multidisciplinary approach led by Partners In Health and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center is improving the access to surgical care and offering treatment of a broad spectrum of pathology.