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Lara Herbert, Lifebox Fellow 2016

What motivated you to apply for the Lifebox Fellowship?  Working in a low-resource setting has been a long-standing ambition of mine, but I wanted to ensure I had the technical skills, maturity and support to deal with the complex challenges I would undoubtedly face. The Lifebox fellowship was appealing to me because it is a […]

Lifebox in Nepal

We met volunteer nurse Erin Horn through friends at Mercy Ships. The name Anandaban, she told us, literally means ‘forest of joy,’ and the hospital is ‘a sanctuary for those affected by leprosy’. And as the country’s leading site for reconstructive surgery and research, it’s also a life-changing opportunity. Erin sent us some wonderful photos of the oximeters […]

Vanderbilting bridges: Tennessee to Kenya

Watch the video on the VIA home page, which focuses on Vanderbilt’s relationship with the Kijabe Hospital, in Kenya.  Panning down crowded hospital corridors, the images are stark and the voices are shocked. “What do you do with a girl that needs a caesarean section?” VIA director Dr Mark Newton recalls asking a clinician at […]

Urgent recruitment: Lifebox Fellowship, Tanzania

The Fellowship will involve developing and delivering a sustainable and high-impact QI project in collaboration with local colleagues, in addition to taking part in delivery of anaesthesia care. Upon completion of the Fellowship, you can expect to have completed the ‘Anaesthesia in developing countries’ and ‘Improvement Science, Safe and Reliable Systems’ units within the RCOA […]

Urgent recruitment: Lifebox Fellowship, Tanzania

The Fellowship will involve developing and delivering a sustainable and high-impact QI project in collaboration with local colleagues, in addition to taking part in delivery of anaesthesia care. Upon completion of the Fellowship, you can expect to have completed the ‘Anaesthesia in developing countries’ and ‘Improvement Science, Safe and Reliable Systems’ units within the RCOA […]

Steppe-by-Steppe: Safer Surgery in Mongolia

Take, for instance, the recent collaboration between the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA), the Australian Society of Anaesthetists (ASA) and the Mongolian Society of Anesthesiologists (MSA) to deliver the first Lifebox training and distribution project in Mongolia. Dr Simon Hendel, an Australian anaesthetist who wrote about Lifebox last year for the Global Health […]

Surgery is aimed at the majority, not the rich

Did you know that a full 11% of the global burden of violence and injury – which occurs overwhelmingly in low and lower-middle income – countries could be treated with surgery? That’s an incredible opportunity to save lives! And it’s one of the reasons why we need to do something about the fact that the […]

Just so splendid

Lifebox sent an oximeter and the hospital found funding to buy some additional units. But Benson told us some very difficult stories about his anaesthesia practice, and we knew that these few units wouldn’t be enough to keep patients safely monitored in the operating rooms across the region. That was back in October.  Coming on for […]