IGOT is Celebrating its 15-Year Anniversary

Founded in 2006 by the UCSF Department of Orthopaedic Surgery faculty and residents, IGOT is celebrating 15 years of addressing global disparities in orthopaedic trauma care. This video highlights IGOT's incredible team and the programs that are dramatically changing surgical outcomes. Validating IGOT's global impact, the Wyss Medical Foundation, a long-time supporter of IGOT, renewed its commitment to our organization in 2021 with a five-year grant.

IGOT is recognized as one of the leading academic and global outreach initiatives in the field of orthopaedic trauma. IGOT’s goal is to improve patient care in under-resourced environments through sustainable programs with regional academic partners.

IGOT empowers through education, engaging a sustainable academic-to-academic partnership model with low and middle-income countries.

Our in-country SMART courses have trained thousands of surgeons. This initiative has been amplified through our digital learning platform, including bi-monthly webinars and our groundbreaking IGOT Portal.

The Global Need for IGOT

Of the 20-50 million people that are permanently disabled from road traffic injuries, over 5 million die. That’s twice the number of deaths from HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria combined. Many of these are preventable, but local surgeons in countries with limited resources where these accidents are so common lack the training required to perform life-saving procedures.

IGOT’s Impact

SMART Courses

The IGOT SMART Course model is an innovative approach to address the global disparity in orthopaedic trauma care.

• The SMART course provides orthopaedic surgeons in resource-limited settings with the skills and knowledge to successfully perform surgeries to reduce the incidence of amputations.

• Each surgeon attending a SMART Course trains 3-5 surgeons creating a ripple effect of education within low-income countries.

• Surgeons completing the SMART Course have a 93% success rate in treating patients with post-traumatic limb-threatening conditions.

• Course participation has increased 4x in 2020-21 through IGOT’s use of virtual training platforms and bi-monthly webinars.

IGOT Portal

The IGOT Portal is a self-paced, free platform for orthopaedic surgeons throughout the world, providing supplemental educational materials in an online classroom format.

• The IGOT Portal reaches orthopaedic surgeons throughout the globe with over 2500 registered uses.

• The portal is a novel endeavor that we hope to scale and expand using already existing technology. It strives to leverage our expert network of faculty and partner institutions to crowdsource solutions to surgical cases and meet the needs of orthopaedic surgeons in developing countries.