LAUSR

The need for more timely, accessible and affordable surgical care in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs) is increasingly recognised [1]; however there is an extreme paucity of good data to guide the necessary resource allocation. Increasing the research workforce can only accelerate the realisation of the Lancet’s recommendations to improve service provision and, ultimately, patient outcome [1]. Medical students are particularly well placed to help with this data drive. Almost all students in high-income countries (HIC) do medical electives: 40% choose to do these in LMICs [2]. Further, recent years have seen student research network collaboratives emerge such as STARSurg [3], based on the trainee research collaborative model that is now well established [4]. Working with two paediatric surgeons in Oxford, the Oxford Society of Paediatrics has helped to develop a novel collaboration uniting HIC-based medical elective students with the need for gathering global paediatric surgery data: OxPLORE (Oxford Paediatrics Linking Oncology Research with Electives). OxPLORE focuses on three paediatric solid tumours (Wilm’s tumours, neuroblastomas and rhabdomyosarcomas) and aims to report their incidence, management and outcomes in LMIC settings visited by Oxford medical students on their elective placements abroad. Students enrolled in the pilot of OxPLORE for 2017–2018 are now partnering with doctors and medical students abroad, with pilot centres in Rwanda and Tanzania already gathering data. We aim to enable sustainable, bidirectional partnerships through which further research questions can be answered, when future generations of elective students return to Oxford-partnered centres. Oxford medical students and their counterparts in the LMIC will learn about conducting global health research and contribute something of tangible value to centres that currently lack the infrastructure and manpower to carry out research locally. Host centres will benefit from scientific evidence to advocate to governing bodies for resource provision. National data may already be available, but local data are more practically useful since there may be significant regional variation in incidence across a nation [5]. Furthermore, local medical students and trainees benefit from research experience and partnerships. They will contribute to an evidence basis for care pathways in LMICs globally. OxPLORE is novel as it aims to answer specific questions with worldwide coverage involving keen medical students on their electives. OxPLORE is a test of principle: we hope to scale up to new questions, and spread the idea to other universities nationally and worldwide. OxPLORE is all-inclusive: the data proforma is simple enough to be used by any medical student, in any country. Most crucially, OxPLORE * Kokila Lakhoo [email protected]