Surgical Training - Distance Education--A Training Tool for Rural Surgeons

The concept of Rural Surgery has developed during the past few years to make basic limb saving and life-saving surgery available within limited resources for those who have no access to it under their present socio-economic circumstances. Hafden Mahler, Ex-Director General of WHO labelled this type of care as 'Essential Surgical Care'. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has tried to translate this concept into an academic exercise with an objective to materialise the concept of 'surgery at doorsteps.' For a better understanding, the term 'Rural Surgery' may be defined as the practice of need-based multidisciplinary surgery under resource constraints to make surgical care affordable and accessible to the community.