Tips for Trainees Interested in Global Surgery
Written by Rami S. Kantar, MD, MPH
The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery and World Health Organization (WHO) has shown that around 5 billion individuals, or more than 50% of the world population, do not have access to safe and affordable surgical care. This results in significant preventable global morbidity and mortality, and has driven the international surgical community to try and address this gap in access to surgical care. This has also triggered increasing involvement by medical trainees in global surgery initiatives targeting low to middle-income countries (LMICs). These medical trainees have included both medical students interested in surgery as well as surgical trainees at different stages of their training. Getting involved in global surgery initiatives can be daunting for medical trainees, especially in light of work hour limitations by training programs, as well the busy schedules of medical students and surgical trainees. The goal of this entry is to hopefully encourage interested trainees to get involved in global surgery initiatives despite their crazy schedules, as well as select the opportunity that is right for them.
1. Start Small: Getting involved in global surgery initiatives can be extremely daunting for medical trainees in light of their extremely busy schedules and work hour limitations that are sometimes imposed by surgical training programs. Trainees that are interested in global surgery should start small and grow with the initiative/organization that they are involved in as their schedules become more flexible.
2. Global Surgery Is So Much More Than International Surgical Missions: Unfortunately, global surgery is often solely viewed from the lens of international surgical missions. This is not the case, and there is so much more to alleviate the global surgical burden than traveling to LMICs to perform surgical procedures. Alleviating surgical burden in areas that need it can be carried out through clinical, educational, and research initiatives. Fundraising for global surgery initiatives, educating international trainees, as well as researching the determinants/solutions to address international disparities in surgical care, can also alleviate the significant surgical burden. Pick the opportunity that you feel you could contribute most effectively based on your strengths and availability.
3. Capacity Building Is Key: When considering getting involved with global surgery initiatives/organizations, the first question that should come to mind is whether they are geared towards building surgical capacity or not in areas of need. Surgical missions are highly effective in treating patients, but should be conducted within a framework that ultimately aims at achieving surgical autonomy for areas in need. Training local surgeons and trainees is perhaps the most straightforward example of doing that. Essentially, global surgery initiatives should be carried out with an ultimate exit strategy in mind, and visiting teams should treat host teams and patients the same way they would in high-resource settings.
Resources: There is an OVERWHELMING amount of resources for trainees interested in getting involved in global surgery, a quick “global surgery resources” search will prove it. Websites of surgical societies, associations, non-profit organizations, as well as institutional surgery department homepages often have links to good resources too. Hopefully, the tips listed above will help you screen these abundant resources and allow you to select the most appropriate opportunity.
Best of luck and feel free to reach out with any questions!
