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Neurosurgeons require post-graduate training to deliver safe, effective, and evidence-based care; to continually improve and adapt their methods through assessing the effect of their care and patient outcomes; and to train the future neurosurgeons of tomorrow to surpass current standards of care. We describe methods used by global collaborations to address these training needs on a worldwide scale, their risks, and their perceived benefits., Competing Interests: Disclosure R. Hartl declares consulting work for DePuy Synthes and Brainlab. R. Hartl reports a financial relationship with Zimmer Biomet and Realist. No other author declares any financial interests or personal relationships., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Postgraduate neurosurgical training is essential to develop a neurosurgical workforce with the skills and knowledge to address patient needs for neurosurgical care. In Tanzania, the number of neurosurgeons and neurosurgical services offered have expanded in the past 40 years. Training opportunities within the country, however, are not sufficient to meet the needs of residents, specialists, and nurses in neurosurgery, forcing many to train outside the country incurring associated costs and burdens. We report on the Dar es Salaam Global Neurosurgery Course, which aims to provide local training to neurosurgical health care providers in Tanzania and surrounding countries., Methods: We report the experience of the Global Neurosurgery Course held in March 2023 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We describe the funding, planning, organization, and teaching methods along with participant and faculty feedback., Results: The course trained 121 participants with 63 faculty-42 from Tanzania and 21 international faculty. Training methods included lectures, hands-on surgical teaching, webinars, case discussions, surgical simulation, virtual reality, and bedside teaching. Although there were challenges with equipment and Internet connectivity, participant feedback was positive, with overall improvement in knowledge reported in all topics taught during the course., Conclusions: International collaboration can be successful in delivering topic-specific training that aims to address the everyday needs of surgeons in their local setting. Suggestions for future courses include increasing training on allied topics to neurosurgery and neurosurgical subspecialty topics, reflecting the growth in neurosurgical capacity and services offered in Tanzania., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Within neurosurgery, there are fewer women than men at all levels. The authors aimed to assess whether opportunities and representation within neurosurgery are proportional to the existing gender gap., Methods: The authors analyzed the program of the 2019 joint European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS)/Society of British Neurological Surgeons (SBNS) conference to assess the proportions of presentations given through abstract submission and invitation by men and women. They compared proportions to the previous joint conference in 2007 and to the gender proportions of board-certified European neurosurgeons., Results: Women delivered 75/577 (13%) presentations at the 2019 EANS/SBNS conference: 54/283 (19%) abstract submissions and 21/294 (7%) invited presentations. Fifteen of 152 (10%) session chairs were women. This increased significantly from 4/121 (3%) presentations delivered by women in 2007. When only presentations given by neurosurgeons (residents or consultants) were analyzed, the proportion of female speakers increased from 1/111 (1%) in 2007 to 60/545 (11%) in 2019. Pediatrics was the subspecialty with the highest proportion of invited female speakers. Across subspecialties, there were no differences in gender proportions for presentations from abstract submissions. Across the top 5 participating European countries, the proportion of female invited speakers (8%) and chairs (8%) was half the proportion of female board-certified neurosurgeons (16%)., Conclusions: The proportion of women delivering invited presentations and chairing sessions at a European neurosurgical conference is lower than expected from the available pool of board-certified neurosurgeons. The proportion of women participating is higher through application (abstract submission) than through invitation. The higher proportion of presentations from abstract submission may reflect submission from a pool of trainees with a higher proportion of women. The authors suggest implementation of strategies that increase invited speakers from minority groups and have been shown to be effective in other disciplines, such as improving minority group representation in organizing committees.