Global surgery in the 21st century: The voice from Africa – We need a new model

The narrative must change: Ethical research tenets do not change when you cross borders

“…Particularly are concerning are the ethics surrounding shortterm surgical mission work and relationships between the partners involved which are well considered in the accompanying editorial 2 as well another earlier editorial in Pediatric Anesthesia which proposes an alternative, more sustainable partnership model. 4 There is a concerning question as to whether this report fulfilled ethical requirements for a case series both at the authors' home institution and in Guinea-Bissau. The authors present a series of four cases, which we would argue constitutes a case series, describing a novel anesthetic technique not previously described in low-income settings.…”

Editorial: Ethics and short‐term surgical visits to low‐income countries

“…That may be true, but if the cost of ketodex means it is unlikely to be available or used on an ongoing There are also broader issues here. An earlier editorial in this journal criticizes "short-term surgical special projects," saying they are expensive-trips from the US then cost an estimated cost of $3.7 billion annually, a sum which "could fund 5800 physician full-time equivalents, and a much larger number, if considering low [low to middle income countries] physician salaries," that they "typically do not engage in sustainable systems development", 3 and have no significant impact on "the massive surgical burden of disease in "[low and middle income countries]". 3 "These projects," Nthumba et al 3 maintain, "must refocus from case-number driven metrics of success, to how a sustainable [low to middle income] surgery ecosystem can be built".…”

Global pediatric surgery and anesthesia inequities: how do we have a global effort?

“…To quote from an article by our friend and colleague Peter Nthumba, ‘the top three goals of any humanitarian surgical activity should be education, education, and education’ [15 ▪ ]. The need for additional surgical and anesthesia workforce [4] is simply too great to be overcome without training and education on a massive scale.…”