INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION

INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION

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 surgery aims to provide equitable and improved surgical care across the world. Global surgeons are not system-specific surgeons but are ‘specialised’ in providing the surgical needs of their communities. A practising surgeon can be viewed as a ‘retailer’ for the individual patient, whereas a global surgeon is typically the ‘wholesaler’ of the surgical needs of the population. This means that all surgeons working in non-tertiary hospitals who perform life-saving and essential surgeries, guided by the prevalent burden of surgical disease, are global surgeons. There is a misconception that a global surgeon is primarily a high-income country (HIC) surgeon helping low- and middle-income country (LMIC) surgeons periodically or through surgical missions. The HIC surgeons and subspecialist surgeons will be able to mitigate only a very small part of the vast unmet need of surgical disease burden in LMICs. Global surgery focuses on improving surgical health systems in parts of the world with a high surgical burden of disease by the local surgeons in those communities. INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION

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 surgery aims to provide equitable and improved surgical care across the world. Global surgeons are not system-specific surgeons but are ‘specialised’ in providing the surgical needs of their communities. A practising surgeon can be viewed as a ‘retailer’ for the individual patient, whereas a global surgeon is typically the ‘wholesaler’ of the surgical needs of the population. This means that all surgeons working in non-tertiary hospitals who perform life-saving and essential surgeries, guided by the prevalent burden of surgical disease, are global surgeons. There is a misconception that a global surgeon is primarily a high-income country (HIC) surgeon helping low- and middle-income country (LMIC) surgeons periodically or through surgical missions. The HIC surgeons and subspecialist surgeons will be able to mitigate only a very small part of the vast unmet need of surgical disease burden in LMICs. Global surgery focuses on improving surgical health systems in parts of the world with a high surgical burden of disease by the local surgeons in those communities. INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION

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 surgery aims to provide equitable and improved surgical care across the world. Global surgeons are not system-specific surgeons but are ‘specialised’ in providing the surgical needs of their communities. A practising surgeon can be viewed as a ‘retailer’ for the individual patient, whereas a global surgeon is typically the ‘wholesaler’ of the surgical needs of the population. This means that all surgeons working in non-tertiary hospitals who perform life-saving and essential surgeries, guided by the prevalent burden of surgical disease, are global surgeons. There is a misconception that a global surgeon is primarily a high-income country (HIC) surgeon helping low- and middle-income country (LMIC) surgeons periodically or through surgical missions. The HIC surgeons and subspecialist surgeons will be able to mitigate only a very small part of the vast unmet need of surgical disease burden in LMICs. Global surgery focuses on improving surgical health systems in parts of the world with a high surgical burden of disease by the local surgeons in those communities.