Memorandum of Understanding: IGOT/UCSF/Walter Sisulu Medical School

Over the course of 2008 and 2009, members of IGOT helped draft a Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at UCSF and the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Walter Sisulu University and the Eastern Cape Department of Health in South Africa. The purpose of this memorandum is to lay the groundwork for future collaboration in education and research in orthopaedic surgery. The overall goal is to improve the orthopaedic healthcare of the people in this underserved region .

Our first objective is to formalize the educational liaison that has existed between UCSF and Bedford Orthopaedic Hospital since 1999, when UCSF orthopaedic residents began spending a month at Bedford in their fourth year of training. The hope is to provide reciprocal opportunities in San Francisco for South African orthopaedic residents when their training program gathers momentum. In addition, a collaborative research project has been initiated under the guidance of Dr. David Oloruntoba, Chief of Orthopaedic Surgery at Bedford. Two UCSF medical students have been sent to Bedford to gather data on the burden of trauma in the hospital and to assess the effects of a unique outreach education program designed by Dr. Oloruntoba.

We are very proud that this relationship has been formalized in this fashion, and point to it as a reflection of our Mission Statement, which is “to lessen the burden of musculoskeletal conditions and injuries in developing countries in a sustainable, capacity-building way through teaching, training, and research.”