Global Surgery & Anesthesia
Lancet articles concerning surgical services
The current edition (Volume 376, Issue 9746, Pages 1025-1116 (25 September 2010-1 October 2010) of the Lancet has a number of articles of interest to our community.
From their editorial: What is the Point of Surgery?
“Surgeons are renowned for imaginative solutions, translating ideas into practice, and for leading teams.
All these skills are needed to redefine surgery’s role and extend its benefits to wider populations. By uniting stakeholders and identifying opportunities, surgeons can help to overcome disparities within and between
health-care systems. Broadening surgical influence effectively requires strong, visible leadership and a commitment to education that develops the core principles and unique skills of the profession; otherwise surgery’s noblest aspirations risk being subsumed by the basest common interests”
I think this nicely expresses the goals of the everyone participating with the ghd online global surgery and anesthesia site.
nbs
Neelam Adhikari
Thanks,
I am eccouraging our surgeons to participate on this GHD site.
Neelam
--
Neelam Adhikari MD
Rector
Patan Academy of Health Sciences
P.O.Box#26500
Kathmandu,Nepal
Tel: +977-1-5545112
Cell: 98510-53122
Fax: +977-1-5545114
Office secretory: Sushila Rai
Tel:+977-1-5545112
Web: www.pahs.edu.np
11:23 PM, 25 Sep 2010 | Permalink
Sarah Arnquist
On her excellent blog, Karen Grepin discusses the Lancet article in the context of the considerable focus on improving maternal and child health at last week's UN Summit on the MDGs and the Clinton Global Initiative.
Grepin write, "Key to reducing maternal mortality is to ensure that, when needed, women have access to emergency obstetric care, including the capacity to surgically deliver her baby. This point at times get lost with the justified focus on family planning, skilled birth attendants, and facility-based births. As I have highlighted on this blog before, the accessibility of safe surgery is poor in many developing countries and is likely limiting the availability of such life saving technologies."
Speaking from a communications and not a clinical background, perhaps "selling" the need to invest in surgery and anesthesia capacity would be most successful within the context of these larger goals, such as maternal and child health or injury and trauma.
Any thoughts?
Here's the link to Grepin's blog: http://karengrepin.blogspot.com/
9:00 AM, 29 Sep 2010 | Permalink
Nadine Semer
Sarah,
you offer a compelling point. Maternal/ child health is finally garnering more worldwide attention. As pointed out in the blog many global health experts feel that access to emergency obstetric services is the next vital step to decreasing the unacceptably high maternal (and infant) mortality rates in many countries. Performance of c-sections is a large part of these services. I’ve just returned from a trip to the Dem Republic of Congo, looking at obstetric fistula programs. Their statistics show that 20% of cases of fistula are iatrogenic in cause, and of these, the vast majority are due to complications from C-sections.
This underscores the necessity of safe surgical capabilities within these programs.
Other thoughts?
10:05 PM, 29 Sep 2010 | Permalink