Evidence-based Medicine and Cochrane trainings in war torn Syria

Article type
Authors
Hanafi I1
1Faculty of Medicine, Damascus University
Abstract
Background:
Research synthesis and even use is usually limited in the developing countries because it is usually expensive in terms of funds and time for the doctors to keep up-to-date with what is new worldwide and also to conduct research themselves. Furthermore, the ongoing war in Syria has caused a clear damage and added limitations to the abilities of medical research in Syria. This has also affected the ability of professors and experienced researchers who have gained their research skills abroad to share this experience and to boost medical research in our country. This created a community of young doctors who have limited to no idea how to read, appraise or conduct scientific research.
On the other hand, hospitals and medical records in Syria started to be crowded with important raw data for research about the consequences of war to the healthcare systems. These data cannot be used or even noticed with the community of doctors who have tiny knowledge and interest in conducting research.

Learning:
Few medical students took the initiative to learn about clinical research on their own and started a core for a research team of medical students. Although, it has been a hard start, they started to get support from professors and mentors which allowed them to success to publish several papers in a wide range of specialities. On the other hand, They also started to get involved with Cochrane as an open community for researchers either experienced or at the beginning of their way through the principles of research.

Teaching:
As this team of Medical young researchers started to get noticed they were encouraged to start a teaching program for their colleagues to get also involved in the research use and synthesis. Right after that the team started to grow up in collaborators, experience and publications. This was followed with three Cochrane approved trainings in Damascus and Aleppo because of the awareness of the importance of Cochrane in that field.

Limitations and faults:
The core team faced tons of limitations in conducting research and also in training their colleagues, and these limitations varied from language difficulties to hardships in funding and getting ethical approval from the university.

Patient or healthcare consumer involvement:
Since experience can sometimes have the side effect of narrowing the horizons of creativity, young inexperienced researchers have the ability to make new innovative projects out of very little supplies especially in countries of conflicts and low resources, creating a main and constant mean to spin the wheel of boosting the quality of healthcare systems worldwide in the near future. This benefits of involving young researchers is doubled in Countries with impaired infrastructure by war and conflicts.