MEET! Herman Lule − Department of Clinical Medicine
Herman Lule
I am Herman Lule, a graduate General Surgeon from Uganda and a Doctoral Researcher in Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Turku and Turku University Hospital in Finland. I have also attained postgraduate training in global health from the University of Edinburgh (UK). I am an affiliate of the Injury Prevention Research Group and Turku Brain Injury Center, and an International Member of the Australian Injury Prevention Network, Australian College of Road Safety, Association of Academic Surgery (USA), Public Health Association of (Australia), and Association of Surgeons of (Uganda).
My research interests lie within the global health domain of addressing health and surgical care inequities amongst the most vulnerable populations, with a focus on Africa. I am passionate about trauma care and surgical education and aim to be a global leader in injury prevention. My recent contribution to Australia’s speed management policy through my work with the Australian College of Road Safety is an excellent step on this journey!
Currently, I am working on a motorcycle trauma outcome registry in a multi-center cluster randomized control trial, the MOTOR Trial. It employs the team concept of a locally contextualized rural trauma team development course model of the American College of Surgeons to improve the coordination, documentation, and treatment of road traffic-related injuries in rural Uganda.
This project is well suited for rural communities in the Global South, where there are scarce human resources for health. For instance, in Uganda, for its 50 million population, the doctor-to-patient ratio is 1:25,000 for non-specialized medical care, meaning that one general doctor is responsible for caring for 25,000 people. The situation is even worse for specialized care, such as for severely injured patients. We, therefore, use the training of trainers approach where skills are passed on to the surgery residents, who later transfer the skills to undergraduate medical students.
In MOTOR Trial (Pan African Clinical Trial Registry PACTR202308851460352), I strengthen rural trauma systems by training graduate and undergraduate medical students in trauma communication, coordination, documentation, and care. Further, I extend the training to traffic police officers who are concerned with the emergency evacuation and transportation of injured patients to the hospital by improving their trauma non-technical skills, such as how to transport patients with injured spines.
The participants benefit from didactic lectures, surgical case simulations, and “hands-on” experience by using dummies and animal models in wet labs, and they get a chance to participate and assist in theater operations on real-time cases of injuries. Finally, the project participants will participate in the trauma data registry to help collect data to improve the quality of injury data that may be actionable to inform prevention policy. This work is being supervised by Jussi P. Posti and Michael Lowery Wilson.
We are open to further collaborations on this and related projects! Please reach out to herman.h.lule@utu.fi.
