ABSTRACT
Global health is the health of populations in the global context. Global surgery is surgery with an understanding of public health. Surgeons understand the needs of their individual patients, while public health adds the understanding of the surgical operations needed in the population. Global surgeons are not system-specific surgeons but are ‘specialised’ in providing the surgical needs of their communities. The Disease Control Priorities group of the World Bank has clearly identified surgical procedures that address the substantial needs of populations. Surgeons are tasked to operate and, in so doing, aim to successfully treat the surgical condition. Surgeons are familiar with vital-sign-based scoring systems for individual patients and with hospital metrics for inpatient hospital stay, surgical site infection or ventilator-associated pneumonia.
