Amount Requested: $1,191,500.00

This project will allow rural surgeons and their support teams to learn a particular surgical skill or master a procedure through the Methodist Institute of Technology, Innovation and Technology (MITIE) via telementoring without leaving their home site.  The telementoring program extends training beyond the classroom and into the private surgeon’s own hospital setting. As a result, this project will improve the quality of patient care throughout all areas of Texas.  Surgical re-training would enable rural and small communities to meet urban/national standards of care. Rural patients would benefit from access to these less invasive procedures. Inpatient hospital days could be reduced. At the same time health care could move toward true national standards. In 2007 MITIETM received national accreditation from the American College of Surgeons as a certified Comprehensive Education Institute. The project would identify three potential sites for a pilot program located in East Texas, the Valley area near the Texas-Mexico border, and central rural Texas. Funding is requested largely for one time expenses such as equipment, hardware and software development. MITIETM would work in each community to determine the existing training and physician skills as compared with urban/national standards and then design and implement clinical training problems based on that community’s unique requirements.