Pediatric Anesthesia Training in Africa‍

1.75 billion children lack access to safe surgery and anesthesia and the majority of these children live in low- and middle-income countries. To address this issue, Boston Children's Global Health Program has partnered with Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health, Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft organization, The ELMA Foundation, and the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists to launch the Paediatric Anaesthesia Training in Africa (PATA) Collaborative. The PATA collaborative aims to improve perioperative care for children by building capacity for pediatric anesthesia education and training across Africa. In order to strengthen health systems, we realize we need to invest in African physician educators who will train other anesthesia providers caring for children in their home institutions including anesthesia residents as well as nurse anesthetists. Prior to PATA, the entire continent of Africa graduated two pediatric anesthesiologists per year.

The initial project has been the establishment new pediatric anesthesiology fellowship programs at three program sites: the University of Zambia, National Hospital Abuja (Nigeria), and the Association of Anesthesiologists of Uganda. In PATA's first year, this number grew exponentially as PATA graduated nine fellows from its first cohort. Within the next three years, PATA aims to expand to additional countries and train up to fifteen pediatric anesthesiologists per year. 

Each September a two-week intensive “bootcamp” training is held in Lusaka, Zambia to kick off  the academic year. The bootcamp is facilitated by the fellowship program directors and numerous at-large PATA faculty members from our leadership team. Thirteen faculty representing seven countries—Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, United States and Zambia—joined our recent bootcamp in person; an additional one faculty participated virtually. The training they receive during the bootcamp including lectures, BLS and PALS certification, as well as difficult airway and US guided regional workshops. The bootcamp provides an excellent opportunity for the fellows and faculty from the different sites across Africa to get to know one another in our effort strengthen our pediatric anesthesia community on the continent. 

To learn more about the PATA program, please watch this video.