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| FIENS has been active in the following countries (click for more on any location): |
Belize |
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| The Neurosurgical Residency Training Program is provided by the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Honduras Medical School teaching hospital, Hospital Escuela. FIENS has been involved in assisting the Neurosurgical Training Program since 1999.
The problems faced with the training program at Hospital Escuela, a public hospital run by the government, are in common with the hospitals in other developing countries: 1. lack of materials, instruments and equipment, 2. poor maintenance of basic hospital infrastructures, instruments and equipment, 3. inefficient utilization of manpower and facilities, and 4. poor quality control. However, the weekly conferences, abundant clinical case materials, talented hard working residents, dedicated faculty members, and the recently developed microsurgical training laboratory make up a major strength of this training program. Every year, at least one FIENS volunteer comes to teach the residents in surgical techniques, giving lectures and clinical analysis when doing ward rounds. Residents have gone abroad to some centers in the United States, this is the case of Drs. Ena Miller and Tulio Pompeyo Murillo both of which have been to Dr. Roberto Heros´s Vascular and Skull Base service at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. The former as visiting resident and the latter as a Leksell Fellow awarded by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. Among other important contributions was the opening of the first Microsurgery Training Laboratory in Central America. It is run by Dr. Prof. Otto Spoerri, retired professor from Germany and FIENS volunteer. The laboratory serves not only Neurosurgery residents, but ENT, Ophthalmology and Plastic Surgery as well. Microsurgery instruments, suckers, two Zeiss Opmi-6 microscopes and tables for rat dissections are featured in the laboratory, which is open seven days of the week. The neurosurgical residency training program of the University of Honduras at Hospital Escuela has made a significant improvement, despite difficult circumstances. The FIENS volunteers, US corporations, and hospitals played an important role in the improvement. |