Academic Global Surgery: Creating Opportunities, Equity, and Diversity.

Area of Science:

• Global Health
• Surgical Education
• Health Equity

Background:

• Equitable surgical care delivery is crucial for reducing the global burden of surgical disease.
• Academic global surgery initiatives focus on collaborative partnerships to enhance surgical capacity in resource-limited settings.
• Existing inequities in surgical care necessitate targeted interventions and capacity building.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore the role of academic global surgery in addressing surgical inequities.
• To identify barriers and facilitators in developing and delivering equitable surgical care globally.
• To understand the challenges faced by surgeons pursuing global surgery careers, particularly in low-resource contexts.

Main Methods:

• Literature review on academic global surgery initiatives and challenges.
• Analysis of partnership models in global surgery.
• Examination of barriers to surgical capacity building in resource-limited settings.
• Discussion of career development challenges for global surgeons.

Main Results:

• Academic global surgery fosters research, education, advocacy, and training through multi-level partnerships.
• Key barriers include resource deficiencies, lack of personnel and funding, communication gaps, and geographical challenges.
• Surgeons face challenges balancing clinical duties with global surgery integration, compounded by lack of mentorship, research time, and funding, especially in low-resource countries.

Conclusions:

• Multi-level partnerships are fundamental to academic global surgery, but must avoid "voluntourism" and respect frontline providers.
• Developing a collaborative global surgical community requires addressing systemic barriers and supporting surgeons' careers.
• Strengthening surgical capacity and promoting equity necessitates sustained investment and tailored support for surgeons worldwide.