Top 10 Resources in Global Surgery

THE GROWING FIELD OF GLOBAL SURGERY

Global surgery is defined as¹:

an area of study, research, practice, and advocacy that seeks to improve health outcomes and achieve health equity for all people who need surgical and anesthesia care, with a special emphasis on underserved populations and populations in crisis.

The need is great. Surgical disease is among the top 15 causes of disability, and surgical conditions account for up to 30% of total disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) lost worldwide—with the greatest need in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).² Surgery has been shown to be highly cost-effective when compared with standard global health interventions.^3–5

The transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals has usheredin a new era for the global surgery community. Sustain-able Development Goal 3, to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being at all ages,” emphasizes health system strengthening and universal health coverage.⁶ The provision of available, accessible, safe, timely, and affordable surgical and anesthesia care is identified as an integral component of a functional health system in countries at all levels of economic development and as essential to achieving universal health coverage.^2,3,7 In addition, the importance of increasing education, safety, and capacity for the provision of surgical, anesthetic, and obstetric care is highlighted by several global health and development agencies and policy makers, including the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO).^8–11

As a result, the emerging field of global surgery has …