Botswana Education and Research Development

Nearly half of deaths in low- and middle-income countries could likely be avoided with the implementation of effective emergency care systems (ECSs). Trauma accounts for nearly five million deaths worldwide annually, and the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how vulnerable all health care systems are and how imperative it is to have functioning ECSs. Botswana is a country in which the specialty of Emergency Medicine (EM) is still growing, with few faculty fully trained in the specialty throughout the country. Over the next three years, this project aims to build on the existing tradition of collaboration between Botswana and UPenn and to support and enhance a new EM curriculum through remote and face-to-face instruction, to assist in the development of the research capacity to advance emergency care science, to provide mentorship of and to support the leadership of EM in Botswana, and to serve the resource-limited patient population in Botswana.