The world needs to train more surgeons in the next decade than have ever lived according to Dutch serial entrepreneur Jaap Maljers. So it is perhaps not surprising that investors are starting to see training in, and of itself, as a profit centre.

This is particularly true in emerging markets, especially those whose medical skills and resources are being stolen by rich countries that don’t want to pay to produce the doctors and nurses they need. Savvy investors such as Prof Dr Hatem Elgabaly, Egypt’s former minister of health and a serial entrepreneur in his own right, who is now running the RX Health Management fund, told us in an interview this week that he sees that buying such institutions across Africa might make sense.

Many private hospital operators are also targeting training. VPS wants to set up huge training hospitals in India to train Saudi Arabians as doctors and nurses at a fraction of the price charged by the West. Medanta’s CEO, unveils his plans for training in our news story here.  Also in India, Vivo Healthcare which is trying to organise the market for health care-based skill training and education, has just attracted investment from Dutch group ICCO Investments. Vivo already has centres across India offering training in specialist areas such as dialysis technicians/nurses and is now seeking to expand internationally. We will be talking to Vivo shortly.

New remote courses and technologies will also play an important role. Maljers, for instance, is behind Incision Academy which has systematically taken to pieces the way in which surgeons are trained and then put the whole process back together again in a defined and structured way in a series of online video and training courses covering a vast range of operations.

All too often, the barrier to the skills expansion the world needs to see is the medical profession itself.  In countries like India and in many in Africa, it is doctors who seek to limit training places.  To get round this, groups like heart hospital group Narayana are seeking to set up international accreditation schemes which are recognised by nations across the world over the head of the local incumbents. Now that would be progress.