New report highlights SURGhub’s transformative impact on surgical education in low-resource and conflict-affected regions
Marking a major milestone in the fight to close the global surgical education gap – which leaves 93% of people in sub-Saharan Africa and millions more worldwide without access to safe surgical care when needed – an e-learning platform has brought the classroom directly to the homes and clinics of more than 19,000 healthcare workers across 190 countries in just two years.
The majority of the world’s population lacks access to safe, affordable surgical care, a crisis driven in part by a severe shortage of trained surgeons, anaesthetists, obstetricians, and nurses. This shortage is compounded by a chronic lack of accessible, affordable, and context-appropriate training resources – an educational gap that the United Nations Global Surgery Learning Hub (SURGhub) was specifically created to address.
In a new report published this week, it was revealed that the remote learning system, launched in June 2023, is not just transforming but revolutionizing how surgical, anaesthetic, obstetric, and surgical care professionals in low-resource and conflict-affected regions access high-quality training. This pioneering platform addresses a long-standing crisis that has crippled health systems for decades -bridging a gap that has long left millions without the surgical care they need. By prioritising low-bandwidth delivery, free access, and culturally relevant content, SURGhub is dismantling longstanding barriers of cost, geography, internet access, and language, demonstrating how digital tools can democratize education even in the most challenging environments.
SURGhub is a product of the global surgery community, powered by over 200 volunteers. It is an initiative of the Global Surgery Foundation (GSF) and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) supported by RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in association with the Johnson and Johnson Foundation.
The platform now hosts over 100 educational courses, contributed by 27 international organisations, with content quality maintained by more than 200 volunteer experts. The impact is particularly visible in countries where surgical education is often out of reach. At least 1,700 learners are b