In sub-Saharan Africa, maternal and neonatal outcomes are some of the worst in the world. What would happen to those numbers if 1,000 new obstetrician/gynecologists were trained with state-of-the-art educational materials in the region over the next ten years? The 1000+OBGYN Project, a collaborative training effort between American and African universities, aims to do just that.
The University of Michigan's Open.Michigan initiative, in partnership with the UM Medical School's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Department of Learning Health Sciences, just released four new collections into the 1000+OBGYN Project's open-access database, thanks to a grant from the World Bank.
A UM press release published today describes the new contributions, which cover a diverse range of subjects, including abnormal uterine bleeding, pregnancy complications, vaginal surgeries, pelvic masses, newborn care, postpartum care and family planning. The materials are all free, publicly available, and licensed for students, teachers and practitioners to modify according to their own curricular context.
Frank Anderson, MD, MPH, associate professor in the UM Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of the 1000+OBYGN Project, comments in the release:
There is an urgent need to train Obgyns [sic] in sub-Saharan Africa, but their institutions don't always have access to the same body of educational materials as doctors in developed countries have... Many newborn and maternal deaths are preventable. We want to ensure that future Obgyns in low resource countries have access to the same high-quality learning materials available here so they are equipped to provide the best care possible for mothers and babies.
The project hopes to overcome local barriers to good education, such as availability of training materials, licensing costs, and unreliable internet access. To make the materials available offline, the initiative partnered with the Global Library of Women's Medicine, which compresses research onto USB flash drives and distributes them globally, particularly to women's health professionals in Africa.
Previously: Countdown to Childx: Global health expert Gary Darmstadt on improving newborn survival, Gates Foundation makes bold moves toward open access publication of grantee research, Improving maternal mortality rate in Africa through good design and Using family planning counseling to reduce number of HIV-positive children in Africa
Photo by DFID - UK Department for International Development
