Navigating the Global Surgery Ecosystem

IntroducTION

Modules

Speakers

FAQ

Paediatric Surgeon, Director at IRD Global, and Co-Chair of the GSF High-Level Council

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Frequently asked questions

What is this educational series about?

This is not a series “about global surgery”. Instead, it was carefully designed to help you navigate global surgery, and global health more broadly, effectively. Our goal is to help you make meaningful, impactful changes in your local surgical care setting.

Guided by expert guest speakers, we will cover six critical topics:

1. Introduction to Global Surgery

2. Key Stakeholders in Global Surgery

3. Funding Mechanisms and Financial Strategies

4. Research Methodologies and Policy Development

5. Training and Education for Surgical Professionals

6. Innovation and Digital Technology in Global Surgery

Our moderator, Dr. Lubna Samad, will navigate through the live sessions and help us make sense of it all.

Who is this for?

This series is designed primarily for frontline healthcare providers and global health professionals in low- and middle-income countries, offering resources and strategies on how to navigate the global surgery ecosystem. It emphasises collaboration, partnerships, and a UN-based approach.

Additionally, it is also very valuable for students and trainees worldwide who are interested in global surgery and wish to gain a better understanding of how to get involved.

Will I receive a certificate?

We are very proud that we offer learners who complete all requirements official United Nations Certificates of Completion.

You’ve earned it.

How can I support SURGhub?

Today, almost 10,000 surgical care workers access free training resources on SURGhub.

If you can, consider supporting our work with a donation. Every dollar helps our mission to make the best surgical training more accessible in all corners of the world. Thank you.

Donate here

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The Global Surgery Foundation (GSF)

The GSF exists to accelerate and expand the provision of surgical care for attaining better health for all. The GSF is a foundation under Swiss law and serves as a common platform for all global surgery stakeholders.

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The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)

UNITAR is the principal training arm of the United Nations system, providing training and capacity development activities to assist mainly developing countries. It has become a leading institute in the provision of customized and creative learning solutions to institutions and individuals from both public and private sectors.

GLOBAL SURGERY

This series is an initiative of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Global Surgery Foundation (GSF), implemented in partnership with several co-hosting organisations.

It aims to empower frontline providers with knowledge and understanding of the global surgery landscape so they can effectively navigate and leverage it to meet local needs and ultimately inform and re-focus global surgery priorities.

Specialty: Non-Technical Skills
Subspecialty: Global Surgery
Level: Beginner
Target audience: For frontline healthcare providers and global health professionals in low- and
middle-income countries, healthcare students
Language: English

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Understand what Global Surgery is today and how we arrived here
Understand the opportunities for collaboration
Identify and navigate current challenges in global surgery
Analyse and implement financial and policy strategies
Understand the global surgery landscape
Utilise technology and training for surgical advancements

Mr. Nikhil Seth
UNITAR Executive Director
Dr. Emmanuel Makasa
Founding Director of the University of Witwatersrand Regional Collaboration Centre for Surgical Healthcare Improvement
Dr. Nobhojit Roy
Lead of the Program in Global Surgery & Trauma at The George Institute of Global Health, India
Dr. John Meara
Director of the Harvard Medical School Program in Global Surgery and Social Change
Dr. Kathryn Chu
Director and Professor of Global Surgery at Stellenbosch University
Dr. Rifat Atun
Director of the Health System Innovation Lab and Professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard Medical School
Dr. Mark Shrime
Lecturer in Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and the Editor-in-Chief of BMJ Global Health
Dr. Dion Morton
Barling Professor of Surgery, University of Birmingham, Head of Surgery, Department of Applied Health Sciences
Dr. Lovenish Bains
Faculty Member and Surgeon at Maulana Azad Medical College, Academic Consultant (Global Surgery) with the WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Surgical Care Delivery in LMICs
Dr. Dhruva Nath Ghosh
Professor in Pediatric Surgery at Christian Medical College, Co-Director of the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery and their India Hub Director
Dr. Barnabas Alayande
General Surgeon and Assistant Professor of Surgery with the University of Global Health Equity
Dr. Andrea Parker, MD, FACS, FCS(ECSA)
Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery, Warren Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University; Director of Medical Education and Research, Consultant Surgeon, Tenwek Hospital, Bomet, Kenya
Dr. Jan Wynands
Plastic-Reconstructive Surgeon and leads the section Global Surgery at the University Hospital in Bonn, Germany
Dr. Annie Hartley MD PhD MPH
Professor and Director of LiGHT-BWH/Harvard (Laboratory for Intelligent Global Health and Humanitarian Response Technologies)

Dr. Lubna Samad

Dr. Lubna Samad is a paediatric surgeon based in Karachi, Pakistan, committed to improving patient outcomes with a specific focus on LMICs.

As a Director at IRD Global and Chairperson Board of Directors IRD Pakistan, she has contributed to developing innovative strategies to overcome health delivery challenges in the Global South. Her experience in public sector hospitals in Pakistan has informed her understanding of the many individual, social and institutional barriers that result in poor access to, and provision of, quality surgical care. Her work spans research, implementation, and policy level initiatives in the global surgery space.

Dr. Lubna Samad

Director at IRD Global and Co-Chair of the GSF High-Level Council

What Learners Are Saying

"I thoroughly enjoyed the live discussion on Education and Clinical Training in Global Surgery. It was highly engaging, rich in new insights, and covered many points that deeply resonated with me."

Medical Student, Zambia

"What stood out most was how the course presented global surgery as a complete ecosystem rather than a narrow clinical concept. The structured progression through stakeholders, financing, research, education, and innovation helped me understand where surgical care fits within public health and health systems."

Medical Student, Iraq

"The module on education and training was very interesting."

Postgraduate Academic, Rwanda

"I found the research component the most interesting—especially how the course emphasized ethical, locally led global surgery research."

Medical Student, Mexico

"I found the course interface especially engaging, it was very interactive and easy to navigate. I also really enjoyed the live sessions: the classes were well delivered, and the invited speakers were extremely interesting and knowledgeable. Listening to their experiences and insights was genuinely enriching."

Medical Student, Brazil

"I finally understood how healthcare financing works in high income countries and low and middle income countries."

General Medical Officer, South Sudan

The Global Surgery Foundation

The Global Surgery Foundation works with governments and frontline providers to build surgical care systems that will save lives and decrease disability. As a common platform for global surgery stakeholders, the GSF focuses on the low and middle-income countries which are furthest behind.

Johns Hopkins Medicine

Johns Hopkins Medicine is a nonprofit academic health system dedicated to improving health through excellence in patient care, education, and research. We envision a future where innovative, evidence-based medicine is accessible to individuals and communities worldwide.

Frequently asked questions

What is this educational series about?

This is not a series “about global surgery”. Instead, it was carefully designed to help you navigate global surgery, and global health more broadly, effectively. Our goal is to help you make meaningful, impactful changes in your local surgical care setting.

Guided by expert guest speakers, we will cover six critical topics:

1. Introduction to Global Surgery

2. Key Stakeholders in Global Surgery

3. Funding Mechanisms and Financial Strategies

4. Research Methodologies and Policy Development

5. Training and Education for Surgical Professionals

6. Innovation and Digital Technology in Global Surgery

Our moderator, Dr. Lubna Samad, will navigate through the live sessions and help us make sense of it all.

Who is this for?

This series is designed primarily for frontline healthcare providers and global health professionals in low- and middle-income countries, offering resources and strategies on how to navigate the global surgery ecosystem. It emphasises collaboration, partnerships, and a UN-based approach.

Additionally, it is also very valuable for students and trainees worldwide who are interested in global surgery and wish to gain a better understanding of how to get involved.

Will I receive a certificate?

We are very proud that we offer learners who complete all requirements official United Nations Certificates of Completion.

You’ve earned it.

How can I support SURGhub?

Today, over 40,000 surgical care workers access free training resources on SURGhub.

If you can, consider supporting our work with a donation. Every dollar helps our mission to make the best surgical training more accessible in all corners of the world. Thank you.

Donate here

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SURGhub is designed primarily for healthcare professionals. Previous medical knowledge is required to understand the contents.The use of any information on this site is undertaken solely at your own risk, and the creators and hosts of this site shall not be liable for any damages, losses, or other injury caused by the use of any information on this site, nor for any reliance on the accuracy or reliability of such information.

Professor Emmanuel Malabo Makasa is a Global Health/Global Surgery Consultant, an Academician, a Researcher and an experianced Clinician. He is the founding Executive Director of the Southern Africa Development Community’s University of Witwatersrand based regional-hub and collaboration Centre for Surgical Healthcare Improvement (WITSSURG) and its spoke, the Centre for Surgical Hdealthcare Research (CSHR) in the Republic of Zambia. He chairs SADC’s Technical Experts Working Group on surgical healthcare, the Partnerships Subcommittee of the Pan-African Surgical Health Forum (PASHeF) and he is the current Secretary General of the International Federation of Surgical Colleges (IFSC). Professor Makasa is a member of the Medical Education and Research Board of the Zambia Medical Association (ZMA MERB), he is a committee member of the Zambia Orthopaedics and Trauma Association (ZOTA) and he also on the board of Trustee for the Lusaka Orthopaedics Research and Education Trust (LORET), Community Without Boarders – Zambian Chapter and Africa Directions (AD).

Professor Emmanuel M Makasa has extensive experience in global health diplomacy, in regional and national surgical (peri-operative) health policy formulation and implementation and he has worked as a senior health systems manager, as honourary lecturer and as a specialist clinician in orthopaedics and Trauma Surgery. He is passionate about improving surgical healthcare in LMIC and has a track record of mobilising and coordinating multiple state and none-state actor stakeholders and partners within the United Nations Systems, in the Global Health/Global Surgery community, health professional groups and within clinical care around surgical systems and service delivery improvement. He has presented on and he has published on safe, timely, equitable, appropriate and affordable universal access to surgical (peri-operative) healthcare in Africa and beyond.

John G. Meara is the Kletjian Professor of Global Surgery, Director of the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, and Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Meara serves as the Plastic Surgeon-in-Chief of the Department of Plastic & Oral Surgery at Boston Children's Hospital. He was Co-Chair for the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery and was a commissioner on the Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the SDG Era and the Lancet Oncology Commission. In 2008 he created the Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellowship program. He is also interested in value-based health care and implementation science research, including time driven activity-based cost research and outcomes research. Dr. Meara has led several ICHOM projects focusing on outcomes reporting and international benchmarking.

Dr. Meara's interests and innovation activities lie in the areas of craniofacial anomalies, cleft lip and cleft palate, but he has a particular interest in augmenting the delivery of quality surgical and anesthesia care in low-resource settings through long term capacity building. He is involved in multiple global surgery projects looking at the burden of surgical disease, the surgical capacity and health systems building in low-resource environments, surgical education and the economic impact of untreated surgical disease. He is also interested in value based health care and implementation science research, including time driven activity based cost research and outcomes research. Dr. Meara has led several ICHOM projects focusing on outcomes reporting and international benchmarking. Since 2008, he has directed the Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellowship program in collaboration with Partners In Health. Its purpose is to strengthen global surgical systems through a combination of research, advocacy, and implementation science as well as train leaders who will further promote surgical care, education, and research pertinent to global surgery.

Dr. Atun is Professor of Global Health Systems at Harvard University and the Faculty Chair of the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. In 2008-12 he served as a member of the Executive Management Team of the Global Fund as Director of Strategy, Performance and Evaluation where he chaired the panel that oversaw annual investments of ~US$4 billion each year.

In 2006-2013 Dr. Atun was a Professor of International Health Management at Imperial College London, where he led the Centre for Health Management and was involved as founder, adviser and investor in biotech and health technology companies. He is a visiting professor at University of Kyoto, Japan.

Professor Atun’s research focuses on health system transformation, and innovation. He has published more than 350 papers in leading journals such as NEJM, Lancet, JAMA, Academy of Management Journal, Lancet Oncology, Lancet Global Health and Science Translational Medicine.

Prof Atun has advised more than 30 governments on health policy, strategy and health system reform, and has consulted for the World Bank, WHO and leading organizations such as Medtronic, Merck & Co, Novartis, Hoffman-La Roche. In 2019-20 he was a senior advisor to the G20 Presidency.

Professor Atun served as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine Committee on Health Systems. He also served on the Advisory Boards of WHO Research Centre for Health Development in Japan and the Norwegian Research Council’s Programme for Global Health Research. He Chaired the STOP TB Partnership Coordinating Board in 2009-2011, and was as a member of the UK Medical Research Council’s Global Health Group. He is a member of the Longitude Prize Committee – the largest science prize in the world.

Professor Atun studied medicine at University of London as a Commonwealth Scholar and subsequently completed his postgraduate training in family medicine and public health. He obtained a Masters in Business Administration at University of London and Imperial College London. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Faculty of Public Health, and the Royal College of General Practitioners.

Professor Atun was appointed President of the GSF Foundation Board in October 2021.

Professor Mark G. Shrime, MD, MPH, PhD, FACS previously served as the O’Brien Chair of Global Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, as the founder and Director of the Center for Global Surgery Evaluation at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and as Research Director for the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard.

He is the author of seminal papers on the global burden of surgical disease, the financial burden facing surgical patients, and the number of people who cannot access safe surgery worldwide. He served as a co-author on the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery.

Dr. Shrime graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1996 with a BA in molecular biology. He received his MD from the University of Texas in 2001, after taking a year to teach organic chemistry in Singapore. Medical school was followed by a residency in otolaryngology at the joint Columbia/Cornell program in Manhattan, followed, in turn, by a fellowship in head and neck surgical oncology at the University of Toronto in 2007. He completed a second fellowship in microvascular reconstructive surgery, also at the University of Toronto, in 2008. He was the first to identify a novel independent prognostic indicator in head and neck cancer.

To date, he has worked and taught in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Benin, Togo, Congo, Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, and Madagascar. In May, 2011, he graduated with an MPH in global health from the Harvard School of Public Health, where he was a finalist for both the Albert Schweitzer award and the HSPH Student Recognition award, and in May, 2015, he received his PhD in health policy from Harvard University, with a concentration in decision science.

His research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Iris O’Brien Foundation, the Damon Runyon Cancer Foundation, an anonymous donation to the Center for Global Surgery Evaluation, the GE Foundation’s Safe Surgery 2020 project and the Steven C. and Carmella Kletjian Foundation.

Barnabas Alayande, MBBS, PgDTh, MBA, FMCS (General Surgery) is a general surgeon and Assistant Professor of Surgery with the University of Global Health Equity. He is passionate about equity-based solutions for global surgical care, and works to achieve surgical access for underserved areas within the Center for Equity in Global Surgery through surgical education, research, innovation and improvisation for Low and Middle-Income Countries with an emphasis on sub-Saharan Africa.

He has an academic background in Medicine and Surgery, Theology, and Business, and has specialty training in general surgery with interests in trauma care, and human factors. He has carried out pilot randomized control trial dissertations in thyroid surgery, and benign anorectal haemorrhoid treatments for variable resource settings. Following medical training at a WHO collaborating center for community-based education and service, and a surgically oriented internship in Southwest Nigeria, he served in the South East as a National Youth Service Corps Camp Medical Director, Community Health Team Chair leading a team of volunteer medics serving 4.9 million people of Imo State, and a medical officer covering 19 local government health facilities. He helped start an innovative private practice in North-Central Nigeria, and then transitioned into his surgical residency with training by the West African College of Surgeons and the National Postgraduate Medical College. He graduated from the National Postgraduate Medical College, and subsequently helped establish surgical systems for underserved HIV/AIDS patients in Northern Nigeria, as a volunteer surgeon with the Faith Alive Foundation. He completed a 2-year Global Surgery fellowship with the Harvard Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, serving as chief research fellow, before transferring into a faculty role at the UGHE. He is also a Fogarty Global Health Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Dr. Barnabas has contributed to strategic surgical curriculum development for Rwanda, the design of non-technical skills for surgery curriculum for the Nigerian variable resource context, trauma care evaluation and training for the West African sub-region, surgical educational research in the East, Central and Southern Africa region, and the strategic implementation of UGHE’s regional Center for Equity in Global Surgery. His research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center, The Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, Association for Academic Surgery, The UGHE Dean’s Grant. He is the recipient of awards and scholastic honors including the Baxiram S. and Kankuben B. Gelot Community Surgeons Travel Award, poster award from the Trauma Association of Canada, the HBNU Fogarty Global Health Fellowship, the Faculty of Rural Remote and Humanitarian Health Care Fellowship Award, the Association for Academic Surgery Global Surgery Research Grant, the Duro Soleye Annual prize, nomination for the Dr Hamza Olayinka Braimah academic prize, the Shell University Scholarship Award, and the Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited Scholarship Awards. Dr Barnabas has contributed numerous presentations, abstracts, and publications within the Global Surgery space, with work in surgical ethics and equity, disparities in access to trauma care, grassroots advocacy, conference equity, surgical quality, surgical history, COVID and surgical care, surgical improvisation, surgical systems strengthening, baselining of surgical access, non-technical skills in surgery, and machine learning and surgery, among others.

He is a member of the Association for Academic Surgery Global Affairs Committee, the West African College of Surgeons, and the Nigerian Medical Association, a fellow with the National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria, an international associate fellow with the American College of Surgeons, and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh Faculty of Rural, Remote and Humanitarian Healthcare.