Surgery, obstetrics and anaesthesia: a Cambrian explosion for global health

Our current global health structure has not yet evolved to do what the world needs of it. Despite significant advances in some areas of public health over the past few decades, disparities in health have worsened in many areas. The historical approach of global health governance to health issues has been overwhelmingly led by vertical, single disease efforts. Yet, this structure cannot effectively implement broad-reaching international development goals set forth by the United Nations. The solution requires a rapid evolution of the present health system conceptualisation. As the Cambrian period brought skeletal infrastructure to life on our planet with vertebrates, allowing life to take on new capabilities never before witnessed on earth, so will surgery, obstetrics and anaesthesia provide the much needed healthcare delivery infrastructure that will allow health system strengthening to take global healthcare along a new path. Surgery, anaesthesia and obstetrics form the core foundation upon which the whole of global health is built and serve as the skeletal structure and indicator of robust health systems. Integrating these domains as the backbone of health system strengthening will finally allow global health to stand and support all sectors of healthcare delivery as an equal partner in health.