Education is one of the most important ways of reinforcing, replicating and transmitting the GEO model. Training starts with our own clinical staff and with our partners in the communities where we work the patients and community health workers whose participation and leadership are essential to our success. And it starts with the assumption that we all have a great deal to learn from each other, not just about the latest diagnostic techniques and training protocols but about the needs and resources of the community and the value of genuine partnership and shared commitment.
Our strong focus on training responds not just to our projects needs but to the critical shortage of medical professionals competent in ear disease diagnosis and surgical treatment services in the countries where we work.
Training is also a key to spreading our model of care far beyond the communities where we serve. As we have grappled with effective ways to respond to the global issue of ear disease, GEO has scaled up its ability and commitment to provide training and technical assistance for other governmental and nongovernmental organizations battling ear disease as well.
In Ecuador, Peru, El Salvador, and now American Samoa, we have built programs to deliver ear care at a level never seen there before. Similarly, in Peru GEO and CBM are constructing a temporal bone training center that will educate ENT from Latin countries and which is geographically sutiable for them.
Finally, we are working to simplify, standardize, and make affordible equipment, supplies, and training materials used at our programs to help insure quality, internal consistency, and the transfer of learning globally.