The Journey Begins: By Dr. Nikhil Rastogi

I’ve had a passion for global health and outreach since an elective in medical school over 30 years ago. Since then I have come across ethical and social issues such as accessibility to care, sustainability, and quality of care disparities. Those challenges still persist but are navigable.

The bottom line is that I believe that safe surgical and anesthesia care is a basic human right. The way to get there is through partnerships. With this in mind I am excited to start out on my anesthesia education adventure. My national organization, the Canadian Anesthesia Society has long had an International Education Foundation: CASIEF, that has a successful track record in countries such as Nepal, Rwanda, Ethiopia. They are sending me on a newly established partnership with the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation, the main teaching hospital in Guyana. Guyana has only a handful of anesthesiologists and has recently established a residency program. Our new partnership has already seen a resident come for training in Canada. Weekly teaching session are broadcast for didactic teaching. My role will be to mentor and teach in their operating rooms. But first there will be so much to learn.

Every medical system is complex and has unwritten rules and hierarchies so this will take some getting used to.