Navigating the Global Surgery Ecosystem

IntroducTION

Modules

Speakers

FAQ

1. Introduction to Global Surgery

Understand what Global Surgery is, its history and challenges, and the the global burden of surgical diseases and their impact on health systems.

2. Stakeholders and International Collaboration

Understand who the major stakeholders are and fit into in the global surgery ecosystem as well as how global surgery is an element within global health.

3. Financing Global Surgery

Analyse and implement financial strategies for global surgical care initiatives using innovative financing and models for sustaining and scaling surgical programs.

5. Education and Training

Understand innovative methods for educating and training surgical professionals in LMICs and strategies for providing effective clinical support.

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

Write your awesome label here.

Frequently asked questions

When does this educational series start?

The series officially launched in January 2025, and a new module goes live at the beginning of each month! Plus, the date for the corresponding live session will be announced alongside each release.

Register now to receive reminders so that you don't miss it!

What is it 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.

Do I need to join the live sessions?

Joining the live sessiony will offer the best experience.

However, if you cannot make it, don’t worry. All materials, including the session recordings, will be available on SURGHub at any time. You can complete this course at your own pace, for free, where and whenever you want.

This is SURGhub, after all.

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.

What is SURGhub Live?

SURGhub Live is a major new feature that combines the user-friendly interface of SURGhub with an integrated live capability.

As the first-of-its-kind, we are hosting this educational series on SURGhub Live to offer you an even more engaging learning experience, combining live sessions with supplementary readings and assessments. Also, through the SURGhub Community, you will be able to exchange ideas, network, and ask questions throughout.

We are confident that SURGhub Live will elevate your learning experience.

When will the content be available?

The content of each module will be available at the start of each month, with pre-readings, discussions, and assessments accompanying the monthly live sessions.

We recommend that you register now so that you receive updates and reminders.

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

Write your awesome label here.

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.

Write your awesome label here.

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.

I would like to receive news, tips and tricks, and other promotional material

Thank you!

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.

SURGhub Live Educational Series

Navigating the Global Surgery Ecosystem

Modules

Welcome

1. Introduction to Global Surgery

2. Stakeholders and International Collaboration

3. Financing Global Surgery

4. Research and Policy

5. Education and Training

6. Innovation and Digital Technology

Certificate of Completion

Speakers

Moderator

Dr. Lubna Samad

Session 4

Dr. Dion Morton

Dr. Lovenish Bains

Dr. Dhruva Nath Ghosh

Frequently asked questions

When does this educational series start?

What is it about?

Who is this for?

Do I need to join the live sessions?

Will I receive a certificate?

What is SURGhub Live?

When will the content be available?

How can I support SURGhub?

This course is provided by

The Global Surgery Foundation (GSF)

The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)

Courses

About

Contact

Terms

Cookies

Privacy

SURGhub Live Educational Series

Navigating the Global Surgery Ecosystem

Modules

Welcome

1. Introduction to Global Surgery

2. Stakeholders and International Collaboration

3. Financing Global Surgery

4. Research and Policy

5. Education and Training

6. Innovation and Digital Technology

Certificate of Completion

Speakers

Moderator

Dr. Lubna Samad

Session 4

Dr. Dion Morton

Dr. Lovenish Bains

Dr. Dhruva Nath Ghosh

Frequently asked questions

When does this educational series start?

What is it about?

Who is this for?

Do I need to join the live sessions?

Will I receive a certificate?

What is SURGhub Live?

When will the content be available?

How can I support SURGhub?

This course is provided by

The Global Surgery Foundation (GSF)

The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR)

Courses

About

Contact

Terms

Cookies

Privacy

Dr. Lubna Samad

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

Dr. Dion Morton OBE, MBChB, FRCS (Eng), MD

Barling Professor of Surgery, University of BirminghamHead of Surgery, Department of Applied Health Sciences

Dr. Lovenish Bains

Professor of Surgery, Maulana Azad Medical CollegeAcademic Consultant, WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Surgical Care Delivery in LMICs

Dr. Dhruva Ghosh

Professor of Paediatric Surgery, Christian Medical College LudhianaIndia Hub Director, NIHR Global Research Unit in Global Surgery

This is a private prototype only and must not be shared. Thank you.

Dhananjaya Sharma

Committee MemberGeneral Surgeon

Jean O'Sullivan

Committee ChairEmergency Medicine Physician

Emilie Joos

Committee MemberTrauma Surgeon

Pauline Wake

Committee MemberAnaesthesiologist

Ainhoa Costas

Committee MemberGeneral Surgeon

Sherry Wren

Committee MemberGeneral Surgeon

Lilian Mwape

Committee MemberNurse

Sara Mohan

Committee MemberGynaecologist

Jackie Rowles

Committee Vice ChairNurse Anaesthetist

Rahel Nardos

Committee MemberGynaecologist

Claude Martin Jr.

Committee MemberOrthopaedic Surgeon

Adolfo Leyva-Alvizo

Committee MemberGeneral Surgeon

Andrea Parker

Committee Chair General Surgeon

Lubna Kahn

Committee MemberGeneral Surgeon

Musliu Adetola Tolani

Committee MemberUrologic Surgeon

Sabina Siddiqui

Committee MemberPaediatric Surgeon

Rick Gardner

Committee MemberOrthopaedic Surgeon

Luiz Fernando dos Reis Falcão

Barling Professor of Surgery, University of Birmingham
Head of Surgery, Department of Applied Health Sciences

Professor of Surgery, Maulana Azad Medical College
Academic Consultant, WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Surgical Care Delivery in LMICs

Professor of Paediatric Surgery, Christian Medical College Ludhiana

India Hub Director, NIHR Global Research Unit in Global Surgery

Committee Member
General Surgeon

Committee Chair
Emergency Medicine Physician

Committee Member
Trauma Surgeon

Committee Member
Anaesthesiologist

Committee Member
General Surgeon

Committee Member
General Surgeon

Committee Member
Nurse

Committee Member
Gynaecologist

Committee Vice Chair
Nurse Anaesthetist

Committee Member
Gynaecologist

Committee Member
Orthopaedic Surgeon

Committee Member
General Surgeon

Committee Chair
General Surgeon

Committee Member
General Surgeon

Committee Member
Urologic Surgeon

Committee Member
Paediatric Surgeon

Committee Member
Orthopaedic Surgeon

Committee Member
Anaesthesiologist

Technical Advisor
Pediatric Neurosurgery & Critical Care Nurse Practictioner

Committee Member
Intellectual Property Lawyer

Committee Chair
General Surgeon

Committee Member
E-learning Expert

Committe Member
Educationalist

Committee Vice Chair
Information Specialist

Committee Member
Orthopaedic Surgeon & E-learning Expert

Committee Member
Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine

Committee Member
General Surgeon