Structured mentorship so district general surgeons perform common cancer operations safely
Surgery cures more cancers than any other treatment, but most district hospitals refer everything to a distant centre. Train and mentor general surgeons to do common cancer operations well, with specialists checking results.
Mastectomy, colectomy, gastrectomy, and hysterectomy for cancer are within the technical reach of general surgeons in district hospitals if they are trained in oncological principles (margins, lymph node handling, staging documentation) and mentored through their first cases, with pathology review and outcome audit. Surgical mentorship networks and low-cost simulation exist in general surgery; the oncology-specific layer is missing.
- Not enough oncologists, nurses, pathologists, physicists · The number of people with cancer is rising faster than the workforce trained to treat them.
- Most of the world has almost no cancer care · Seven in ten cancer deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries, where radiotherapy, pathology, surgery and drugs are scarce.
- Surgery and radiotherapy cure most, get least · Surgery and radiotherapy cure more people than drugs do, but attract a fraction of the research investment.
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