Nordic Network for Global Surgery and Anaesthesia

Global Surgery and Anaesthesia

Global surgery is a field of research, practice and advocacy, prioritising underserved populations world wide, with a goal of achieving equity in health. It involves all surgical specialities and anaesthesia. By tradition, surgery has been considered costly and of little importance to population health. As a consequence, surgery has not been a priority on the global health agenda. It has even been called the neglected stepchild in global health. Contrary to previous beliefs, a third of the global burden of disease is caused by conditions amenable to surgery but five billion people lack access to high quality surgery at an affordable cost when needed.

This is something that students, medical practitioners and decision makers are not aware of. Today, patients come from all corners of the world with resulting implications for disease epidemiology and needs for flexible health care systems even in high income countries. Therefore, knowledge about global surgery is not only important for those involved in work and research in low resourced settings – it is also important to anyone interacting with patients from such backgounds.

The Nordic Countries have taken on leading roles within the global surgery movement. This will be the third Nordic Global Surgery meeting. By participating in this meeting, you will gain insight into several aspects of the field of global surgery. You will be able to meet and interact with professionals within surgery and anaesthesia from all over the world. We anticipate a progressive meeting where clinical and scientific partnerships of the future will form.