Repairing the Surgery Deficit

"For researchers like Bowman, the licentiate program and FlySpec are part of a larger push to make surgery more prominent on the global health map.  She believes that the international community has largely ignored surgery because there is no global advocate for the cause, because data have not existed and, perhaps most important, because many perceive surgery to be expensive.

'What people don’t understand about surgical care,' Bowman said, 'is that it might cost 200 dollars to fix a ruptured appendix, but it’s a one-time intervention.  You save them for the rest of their life.'  Research by the Disease Control Priorities Project has found surgery to be a cost-effective way to avert disability and death, especially if delivered locally and with low-cost technologies.

'I see the state of global surgery today similar to the state of H.I.V. 30 years ago,' said Bowman.  'Today, surgery needs to be recognized as a fundamental component of global health.  It should be right there with infectious disease.'"