Welcome to
the International Foundation for Advancement of Surgical Telementoring  (IFAST)

Surgical telementoring is the teaching of surgery from a distant location by remote presence.

The purpose of this organization is to create a global platform to share knowledge and experience with others around the medical world. 

Our Faculty and Leadership are surgeons and other professionals that teach through this medium and wish to share their experiences and technical modalities.  We encourage you to join our membership which is currently composed of 50 countries and over 200 hospitals  interested  in developing improved patient care through this activity.

We intend to show in our library most of the published literature available, as a resource for our members.   In addition, members may upload any video , deidentified as to patient name. to be  shared with other members as a learning tool.  Teaching videos by our Faculty will also be available in the Video Library, for your interest.   With our Faculty Member, Globalcastmd, we recently broadcast a two hour program on “ Comparative Technology in Telemenoring” now available on this site at all times.

A Template for surgical learning developed in 1999, by  the Foundation for Advanced Medical Education ( FAME ) and studied with a 2 million dollar grant to six US surgical societies has been widely adopted.

The template includes first, a didactic experience, utilizing the study of all important literature on a specific subject, which includes the observation of surgical videos. This is followed by simulation, with a minimum of lab sim and other standard teaching tools.   Finally, the preceptor, ( mentor ) , preceptee interaction is the most important third step.  Impedients such as travel, conflicting schedules, and physician or patient postponement,  led to cancellations of the necessary interactions.   A Grant to SAGES, by The American Medical Foundation,  recently showed the effectiveness of telementoring to improve skills in the use of bariatric sleeves.  We hope to encourage world attention to this helpful modality in the safer treatment of patients.