It is an historic partnership between the Chilean Society of Surgeons, the UFRO and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC) that has been concreted on Friday, June 15th, with the signing of the agreement between the institutions what will permit a laparoscopic surgical training for physicians who are doing their specialization training at the UFRO.

It is a high-impact agreement that has been sealed by the Universidad de La Frontera and the Chilean Society of Surgeons that will have a direct effect on patients in the region and will permit a better training for future surgeons, because with the equipment that is worth more than 100 thousand dollars, they can improve their work, what also consolidates the work in the postgraduate area of the Faculty of Medicine at the UFRO.

The president of the Chilean Society of Surgeons, Dr. Nicolás Jarufe, said that this agreement will allow to specify a project for the implementation of these systems for less invasive laparoscopic surgery in the regions, in which future surgeons are trained, such as our institution in Temuco.

“The UFRO has the capacity to receive this technology and the surgeons are able to get trained for the benefit of the patients,” Jarufe commented and added that during the first year, 10 physicians, who are doing their specialization training in surgery, will be trained, and also other specialization programs, such as gynecology and urology – in other words: the surgical specializations – will benefit.

Sergio Bravo, the rector of the University, values the training with these simulators. The PUC already has experience with it and it is very important to bring it into the regions in order to being able to train specialists of excellence. “These are modern techniques that protect the patients and the equipment allows a training under similar conditions as in the training of pilots who work with simulators. So the surgeons can take flight hours in laparoscopic surgical techniques.”

The dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Patricio Valdés, sees this agreement as a development of the modern era. “These are new training models in the field of surgery, in order to train high-complexity physicians in less invasive technologies through endoscopy, laparoscopy and robotics in the future. The partnership with the Society and PUC, together with the laboratories, give us access to technologies that will allow to strengthen our surgical specializations.”

One of the units that is going to benefit the most of this agreement is the UFRO Department of Surgery, Traumatology and Anesthesiology. The director of the department, Dr. Héctor Losada, said: “This will have an impact on the training of residents who are learning to perform surgeries, but also on the safety of patients in this region, since we will be able to accredit and reaccredit the surgeons of the Chilean Department of Health and their laparoscopic competencies. This is why there is no doubt about the patient safety benefits.”

WORK

The medical coordinator at the Simulation Center of the PUC and the coordinator of the project on Telesimulation of the Chilean Society of Surgeons, Dr. Julián Varas, explained the impact of this training. In medicine, a patient deserves to be treated by a physician who is technically prepared. Here, we offer access to centers in the region that have certain technical stability and are among the centers of excellence in surgical and laparoscopic simulation. The UFRO is becoming a benchmark in Chile.”

These simulations permit the students to acquire basic and advanced competencies in surgical specializations and to complement their residencies at university and hospitals during their specialization training. “If the physician already has a title of specialization in surgery and has only a few patients during the year, they can train their techniques for the next patient,” Varas added.