Improving Practices in the Delivery of Emergency Surgery

Recent catastrophes including the Wenchuan Earthquake in May 2008, the Haiti Earthquake in January 2010, and the recent earthquake in Japan have caused extremely high numbers in casualties and called for greater attention to be given to the role of medical teams providing emergency surgery. Many of those rescued have life-threatening injuries that require emergency surgery, a good percentage of which are severe limb injuries.

The international response to these disasters has at times revealed highly questionable practices in the delivery of emergency medical humanitarian assistance, contrasting with a wider move in recent years to improve humanitarian intervention standards. Specific concerns centre on clinical competency, record keeping and follow up steps, but also on accountability, quality control, coordination and reporting.

Emergency Surgery Workshop Davos 2011 - Organised by GRF Davos, the AO Foundation, HCRI and ESTES

To improve the quality of medical response immediately after sudden onset disasters and during the aftermath, the workshop on emergency surgery, jointly organised by the Global Risk Forum GRF Davos, the AO Foundation, the European Society for Trauma and Emergency Surgery ESTES and the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute HCRI was a first step to elaborate new guidelines for emergency surgery.

The workshop took place back-to-back with the AO training courses on 10 December 2011 in Davos, Switzerland and was very well perceived by the participants and the media.