Chapter 16 Global Health and Surgery

Global health is the health of populations in the global context. Global surgery is surgery with an understanding of public health. Surgeons understand the needs of their individual patients, while public health adds the understanding of the surgical operations needed in the population. Global surgeons are not system-specific surgeons but are ‘specialised’ in providing the surgical needs of their communities. The Disease Control Priorities group of the World Bank has clearly identified surgical procedures that address the substantial needs of populations. Surgeons are tasked to operate and, in so doing, aim to successfully treat the surgical condition. Surgeons are familiar with vital-sign-based scoring systems for individual patients and with hospital metrics for inpatient hospital stay, surgical site infection or ventilator-associated pneumonia.

Multiple Choice Questions
Weblinks

Journal article

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6830053/ (free)

This BMJ Global Health article helps define global surgery, emphasising the multidisciplinary nature of the solutions for equitable surgical care delivery, involving clinical and non-clinical specialists.

Webpages

https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/global-surgery/ (free)

The dedicated weblink to the entire spectrum of the Commission’s work on Global Surgery and the full report for Vision 2030.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/issue/vol3nonull/PIIS2214-109X(15)X7031-8/ (free)

Over 100 papers were published simultaneously in 2015, alongside the Lancet Commission report on Global Surgery. This compilation in the Lancet Global Health journal discusses in greater detail specific global surgery issues, such as manpower, blood and economics.

http://dcp-3.org/sites/default/files/chapters/DCP3_Essential%20Surgery_Ch1.pdf (free)

The Disease Control Priorities series will remain a good reference for cost-effective surgical interventions for equitable healthcare provision for reducing mortality and disability. In this chapter, the authors propose solutions to the surgical burden of disease that are evidence based, scalable, multidisciplinary and adaptable to contexts.

Manual

https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/42564 (free download)

Surgical Care at the District Hospital remains the most important manual (published by the World Health Organization) for the district hospital surgical provider. Besides the surgical bellwether procedures, anaesthesia and obstetrics, and trauma, this compact manual also covers leadership and other essential functions of the district hospital.

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