The four finalist teams in a $5m global surgical training challenge have been announced today.

The challenge aims to stimulate the creation of novel, low-cost surgical training modules that will help surgical practitioners to learn new skills to improve the health of their communities.

Up to 17 million people, particularly in low and middle income countries, die every year from lack of access to surgical care. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery's report identified the development of a surgical workforce as a key indicator for addressing this critical need.

A multi-disciplinary team from RCSI was selected by the challenge funder, Intuitive Foundation, to lead a mentorship programme for the teams participating in the challenge. This reflects the university's extensive experience in surgical training, education and research partnerships in low-resource environments, and world-leading capacity in simulation education and research

"We wish to congratulate the four finalist teams," said Eric O'Flynn, Programme Director Education, Training and Advocacy at RCSI Institute of Global Surgery. "It has been a privilege working with the teams over the past year and we look forward to supporting the finalists to refine and validate their prototypes in this final year of the Challenge."

The four teams will receive up to US$500,000 to support the further development of their open-source surgical training models.

The successful teams include members from multiple continents and represent a variety of surgical specialties, including obstetrics, orthopedics, trauma and reconstructive surgery. Over the last year, they have been working with the Global Surgical Training Challenge partners through workshops and mentoring sessions, to refine their models. The finalist teams are:

Team	Surgical speciality area	Countries represented
CrashSavers Trauma	Hemorrhage control in trauma triage	Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile, United States
AMOSmile	Periodontal open flap surgery	South Africa, Ghana, United Kingdom, United States
Tibial Fracture Fixation	Modular external fixation of open tibial shaft fractures	Nigeria, Uganda, Canada, United States
ALL-SAFE	Laparascopic surgery for ectopic pregnancy	Ethiopia, Cameroon, Kenya

The Global Surgical Training Challenge is a collaboration between Nesta Challenges, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, MIT Solve, Appropedia Foundation, and Intuitive Foundation.

Catherine Mohr MD, President of the Intuitive Foundation, commented: "These teams have been on a remarkable journey over the last year. They are all passionate surgical educators who have embraced the idea of open-source training as well as self-assessment, both new concepts in surgical training."

The Global Surgical Training Challenge launched in early 2020, just as the global pandemic was impacting international travel and creating unprecedented pressure on healthcare providers around the world. Against this backdrop, international teams composed of surgical educators, engineers and global surgery experts gathered virtually to collaborate in solving critical surgical needs in low and middle income countries.

Caroline Purslow, Challenge Manager at Nesta Challenges, said: "The level of collaboration and the resulting quality of the submissions is impressive. It has been inspiring to see team members from such diverse backgrounds learning from each other, as well as from our judging panel and partner organisations."

Over this year, the finalist teams will continue to develop their training models. A grand prize award of US$1 million will be granted to the team that has demonstrated that their original model and further models are validated and impactful. Modules created as part of the Challenge will be freely available for download on a community platform.

The RCSI mentorship programme is led by the RCSI Institute of Global Surgery (IGS) in collaboration with RCSI's Centre for Simulation Education and Research (RCSI SIM) and supported by RCSI Department of Surgical Affairs and a range of subject matter experts across RCSI and beyond. The university has broad experience of designing and managing mentorship programmes in Ireland and worldwide, including working with the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) and Women in Surgery Africa to establish a mentorship programme for young female surgeons and surgical trainees in Africa.

RCSI is an innovative, world-leading international health sciences university with a commitment to global surgery as a core pillar of its strategy. The university was ranked the joint second academic institution in the world for contribution to Sustainable Development Goal 3 'Good Health and Wellbeing' in the 2021 Times Higher Education Impact rankings.