• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)

Association for Academic Surgery (AAS)

Inspiring and Developing Young Academic Surgeons

  • About
    • AAS Staff
    • Contact Us
    • Foundation
  • Membership
    • Apply For Membership
    • New Member List
    • Membership Directory
  • Jobs
    • AAS Job Board
    • Post a Job
  • Educational Content
    • Blog
      • Submit a Post
    • Webinars
      • How to Write an Abstract
      • Succeeding in the General Surgery Residency Match: the International Medical Graduate Perspective
      • AAS Journal Club Webinars
      • Fireside Chat – Maintaining Balance & Control
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Equity Series
        • Allyship
        • PRIDE: The LGBTQ+ Community in Academic Surgery
        • Racial Discrimination in Academic Surgery
      • Academic Surgery in the Time of COVID-19 Series
        • How to Optimize your Research During the Pandemic
        • How to Optimize Educational Experiences During the Pandemic
        • Virtual Interviews
      • The Transition to Practice – Presented by Intuitive
    • Assistant Professor Playbook
  • Grants/Awards
    • AAS/AASF Research Awards
      • The Geoffrey Dunn MD Research Award in Surgical Palliative Care
      • AAS/AASF Henri Ford Junior Faculty Research Award
      • Joel J. Roslyn Faculty Research Award
      • AAS/AASF Trainee Research Fellowship Awards
    • Travel Awards
      • AAS/AASF Fall Courses Travel Award
      • AAS/AASF Student Diversity Travel Award
      • Senior Medical Student Travel Award
      • Visiting Professorships
    • Awards FAQ’s
  • Meetings
    • Academic Surgical Congress
    • AAS Fall Courses
    • Surgical Investigators’ Course
  • Leadership
    • Current AAS Leadership
    • AAS Past Presidents
    • How to Chair
    • Committee Missions & Objectives
    • AAS Officer Descriptions
  • Donate!
  • Login

Highlighting the Ethiopian Surgical Society: COSECSA Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course 2023

May 16, 2024 by Britney L. Grayson, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACS, FCS(ECSA)

I recently returned from my first in-person College of Surgeons of East, Central, and Southern Africa (COSECSA) annual meeting, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. For COSECSA members and trainees, the first week of December is notable each year for surgeons and residents from more than 14 African countries gathering for the annual fellowship-level exams, general meeting, and scientific conference.

Since 2018, the Association for Academic Surgery has partnered with the Annals of African Surgery (yes, that’s double AAS) and COSECSA to offer the Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course. With plans for the course to be fully COSECSA led within two years, we set a 2023 goal to increase the number of African speakers to 100% if possible. We nearly reached that goal with more than 80% of our speakers living full time in a COSECSA country!

We also set out to gather more data on who would be attending the course, to help guide modification of the course to best serve the east, central, and southern African attendees. Through the process, we realized that more than two thirds of the registrants were locals- surgeons, residents, and students from Ethiopia. Concurrently, our team contacted several Ethiopian Surgical Society members, all surgeons and researchers, who were interested in teaching and came highly recommended through the COSECSA networks. The result was a true contextualization of course content for the participants.

One example of the contextualization can be found in the below slide. Dr. Tihitena Negussie, Associate Professor of Pediatric Surgery in Addis Ababa and the Global Clinical Director for Lifebox, gave the “Introduction to Quality Improvement” lecture and used the analogy of growing, roasting, and drinking coffee as a demonstrative example (photo below, shared with permission). The audience was very engaged as she used a process well known to Ethiopians. For the rest of us visitors, we got to learn about the coffee process and culture while simultaneously learning about QI research.

 

There were 45 attendees, 15 speakers, and 7 additional volunteer mentors at the 2023 COSECSA FSRC, for almost 70 participants in total. Dr. Catherine Mohr, President of The Intuitive Foundation which sponsored the event, created a worksheet for the attendees to complete during the day that was complimentary to the session themes. There were great times of both large group learning as well as small group and one-on-one advice.

Each year, the COSECSA meeting is hosted by a different member country. Each year also, COSECSA fellows, residents, and students from the host country usually comprise the largest percentage of attendees at the meeting and therefore the FSRC course as well. It is my hope that highlighting local surgeon-researchers as the teaching faculty for the AAS-AAS-COSECSA FSRC course each year will continue, for the benefit of all those in attendance.

  • Bio
  • Latest Posts
Britney L. Grayson, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACS, FCS(ECSA)

Britney L. Grayson, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACS, FCS(ECSA)

Britney is a pediatric surgeon at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya, as well as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at IU School of Medicine. She graduated from the Medical Scientist Training Program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with her MD as well as a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology. She completed a residency in General Surgery at Vanderbilt followed by a fellowship in pediatric general and thoracic surgery at Indiana University - Riley Hospital for Children. Britney is committed to surgical education in the United States and abroad and joined the faculty of Kijabe Hospital in 2020 as a consultant pediatric surgeon and educator. She is actively involved in quality improvement and outcomes research in Kijabe, reducing pediatric central line associated bloodstream infections by 50% in her first few years. She has received multiple teaching awards, including the National Outstanding Resident Teacher Award from the Association for Surgical Education in 2017. You can follow her on twitter @britneygrayson and @kenyaoperate
Britney L. Grayson, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACS, FCS(ECSA)

Latest posts by Britney L. Grayson, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACS, FCS(ECSA) (see all)

  • Highlighting the Ethiopian Surgical Society: COSECSA Fundamentals of Surgical Research Course 2023 - May 16, 2024

Share this:

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

Related

Category: The Academic Surgeon

About Britney L. Grayson, MD, PhD, FAAP, FACS, FCS(ECSA)

Britney is a pediatric surgeon at AIC Kijabe Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya, as well as an Assistant Professor of Surgery at IU School of Medicine. She graduated from the Medical Scientist Training Program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with her MD as well as a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology. She completed a residency in General Surgery at Vanderbilt followed by a fellowship in pediatric general and thoracic surgery at Indiana University – Riley Hospital for Children. Britney is committed to surgical education in the United States and abroad and joined the faculty of Kijabe Hospital in 2020 as a consultant pediatric surgeon and educator. She is actively involved in quality improvement and outcomes research in Kijabe, reducing pediatric central line associated bloodstream infections by 50% in her first few years. She has received multiple teaching awards, including the National Outstanding Resident Teacher Award from the Association for Surgical Education in 2017. You can follow her on twitter @britneygrayson and @kenyaoperate

Previous Post:Learning From My (Ergonomic) Mistakes
Next Post:Industry Sponsored Studies: Friend or Foe?
Learning From My (Ergonomic) Mistakes
Industry Sponsored Studies: Friend or Foe?

Copyright © 2025 · Association for Academic Surgery (AAS) · All Rights Reserved