Tropical surgery

Abstract

You are a surgical trainee nearing the end of your training. You decide to take a break from surgical training and volunteer your services for 6 months in a rural hospital in southern Uganda. Your role initially concerns training local clinical officers in surgical techniques, while you adapt to the change in environment before taking on service provision. However, 3 days after your arrival, you are told that the senior surgeon has had to leave the hospital temporarily to care for a family member, and so you are left on your own. As you are digesting this information, a nurse walks into the ward bringing a message from the outpatient department which acts as an emergency department. There is someone with severe abdominal pain that the clinical officers are concerned about and have requested a surgical opinion.