The United Nations Global Surgery Learning Hub (SURGhub)
The surgical care crisis requires action at all levels, from changes in health policymaking to the provision of infrastructure and equipment to the expansion and the upskilling of the frontline surgical care workforce. Development of the existing and future surgical care workforce is a key component – perhaps the key component – in the provision of safe surgical care worldwide.
The open access United Nations Global Surgery Learning Hub is a UN-based platform that gathers and allows easy access to a wide range of trusted, quality global surgery educational resources. It provides appropriate in-service and pre-service education and training opportunities to all cadres involved in the delivery of surgical care as well as relevant stakeholders in research, policy, academia, and industry.
The platform enables institutions and individuals to work with the content to build combinations of courses tailored to their learning needs, and to see the appropriate usage, feedback, and activity completion data.
It is built on the combined expertise of leading institutions in global surgery, global health and training:
- The United Nations Institute for Training and Research
- The Global Surgery Foundation
- RCSI Institute of Global Surgery
Additional key partners are involved through an equitable consultative process. This project commenced in September 2022, and the platform was launched in June 2023.
Project outputs
- A user-centred, supported website and learning management system
- A robust, equitable process for stakeholder representation
- Easily accessible, relevant, and quality learning content
Stakeholder engagement
Stakeholder engagement at both institutional and individual level is key to the success of the platform. This is reflected in the significant opportunities for partner engagement built into the project plan and plan for ongoing running of the platform.
The project began with an open consultative process. Relevant institutions – whose members may be supplying content, accessing content, or both – were invited to join the project as partner institutions.
Every effort is made to ensure that partner institutions are representative of the broad spectrum of cadres of target user.
Watch the announcement of the UN Global Surgery Learning Hub by UN Assistant Secretary-General Nikhil Seth below:
Find out more about the United Nations Global Surgery Learning Hub project here.
SURGhub is made accessible to users through a UN-based website and a mobile app available on Android or iOS.
The RCSI team
The RCSI team working with partners on this project is led by: