Exploring the knowledge and attitudes of Cameroonian medical students towards global surgery: A web-based survey.

INTRODUCTION:Global surgery is a growing field studying the determinants of safe and affordable surgical care and advocating to gain the global health community's attention. In Cameroon, little is known about the level of knowledge and attitudes of students. Our survey aimed to describe the knowledge and attitudes of Cameroonian medical students towards global surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS:We performed an anonymous online survey of final-year Cameroonian medical students. Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman correlation analysis were used for bivariate analysis, and the alpha value was set at 0.05. Odds ratios and their 95% confidence intervals were calculated. RESULTS:204 respondents with a mean age of 24.7 years (±2.0) participated in this study. 58.3% were male, 41.6% had previously heard or read about global surgery, 36.3% had taken part in a global surgery study, and 10.8% had attended a global surgery event. Mercy Ships was well known (46.5%), and most students believed that surgical interventions were more costly than medical treatments (75.0%). The mean score of the global surgery evaluation was 47.4% (±29.6%), and being able to recognize more global surgery organizations was correlated with having assumed multiple roles during global surgery studies (p = 0.008) and identifying more global surgery indicators (p = 0.04). Workforce, infrastructure, and funding were highlighted as the top priorities for the development of global surgery in Cameroon. CONCLUSION:Medical students are conscious of the importance of surgical care. They lack the opportunities to nurture their interest and should be taught global surgery concepts and skills

Systematic Review and Bibliometric Analysis of African Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine Research Part II: A Scientometric Analysis of the 116 Most Cited Articles

Abstract Background Scientometrics is used to assess the impact of research in several health fields, including Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine. The purpose of this study was to define the landscape and key players of Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine research in Africa.Methods The authors searched Web of Science from inception to May 4, 2020, for articles on and about Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine in Africa with ≥ 2 citations. Quantitative (H-index) and qualitative (descriptive analysis of yearly publications and interpretation of document, co-authorship, author country, and keyword) bibliometric analyses were done.Results The search strategy returned 116 articles that had a median of 5 (IQR: 3-12) citations on Web of Science. The most frequent journals were Anesthesia and Analgesia (18, 15.5%), World Journal of Surgery (13, 11.2%), and South African Medical Journal (8, 6.9%). Most (74, 63.8%) articles were published on or after 2013, and seven authors had more than 1 article in the top 116 articles: Epiu I (3, 2.6%), Elobu AE (2, 1.7%), Fenton PM (2, 1.7%), Kibwana S (2, 1.7%), Rukewe A (2, 1.7%), Sama HD (2, 1.7%), and Zoumenou E (2, 1.7%). The bibliometric coupling analysis of documents highlighted 10 clusters with the most significant nodes being Biccard BM, 2018; Baker T, 2013; Llewellyn RL, 2009; Nigussie S, 2014; and Aziato L, 2015. Dubowitz G (5) and Ozgediz D (4) had the highest H-indices among the authors referenced by the most-cited African Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine articles. The U.S.A. had the largest global node, while South Africa and Uganda had the largest African nodes. The most prominent keywords were anesthesia, mortality, and surgery. Conclusion This study highlighted a decline in the number of top-cited African articles and the roles of the U.S.A, Southern African, and East African countries in scholarly output. Future studies should focus on understanding the time trends of the publications.</jats:p