Operation Health: Surgical Care in the Developing World

by Adam L. Kushner (Editor)

Overview

Basic surgery is a crucial part of public health prevention.

A teenage mother arrives by donkey cart to a hospital after attempting to deliver her baby in the bush. A young father faces the loss of a leg after receiving a gunshot wound that will not heal. A man walks miles to a hospital for a pain in his side caused by an appendix that burst five days earlier. Without access to surgical resources, millions of people with conditions like these become disabled or die.

In Operation Health, Adam L. Kushner argues that not only are severe medical conditions— like a strangulated hernia or obstetric fistula—treatable by surgical means in low-income countries; they are, in fact, surgically preventable. Although the World Bank estimates that 11 percent of the global disease burden is treatable by surgery, more than a quarter of the world's population lacks access to straightforward and life-saving surgical procedures.

Operation Health makes a strong and compelling justification for adding surgical care to the global health agenda by providing an overview of dangerous but repairable medical conditions common in developing countries. Every chapter opens with a vignette by Kushner which tells the remarkable story of the patients and situations he encountered in the field. Carefully crafted case studies demonstrate the power of surgery to heal people suffering from potentially debilitating conditions, including clubfoot, obstructed labor, and broken bones.

The chapters—written by world-renowned surgical experts—cover related medical topics such as epidemiology, women's health, cancer, and trauma in locations from Sierra Leone to Nepal, Ghana, Mongolia, and elsewhere. This detailed and compassionate book will be of great interest to medical professionals, students, public health policy makers, philanthropic donors, and those with a general interest in global health.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421416694
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	05/28/2015
Series:	Operation Health
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Adam L. Kushner is an associate in the Department of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a lecturer in the Department of Surgery at Columbia University. The founding director of Surgeons OverSeas, he has offered surgical care to patients in conflict, post-conflict, and disaster settings around the world.

Table of Contents

Contributors vii

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

1 Quantifying the Need for Surgical Care: A Case Study from Sierra Leone Reinou S. Groen 3

2 Children's Health: Clubfoot Repair in Nepal David A. Spiegel Bibek Banskota Om P. Shrestha Tarun Rajbhandary Ashok K. Banskota 13

3 Women's Health: Access to Cesarean Sections in Ethiopia Lauren Owens Ticistu Adamu Ashenco Jean Anderson 21

4 HIV and Surgical Care: Improving Outcomes in Malawi Anthony Charles Carlos Varela 29

5 Cancer: Treatment in Low- and Middle-Income Countries T. Peter Kingham Olusegun I. Alatise 35

6 Anesthesia: Educating Providers in Ghana Mark Harris Cabriel Boakve 41

7 Trauma: Implementing Trauma Registries in Tanzania Marc Dakermandji Respicious Boniface Heather L. Gill Tarek Razek Dan L. Deckelbaum 51

8 Orthopaedics: The Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology Kushal R. Patel Richard A. Cosselin 59

9 Minimally Invasive Surgery: Challenges in Rural Mongolia Raymond R. Price Orgoi Sergelen 67

10 Surgical Process Improvement: Strategies to Combat Limitations in Ghana Iain Elliott Amber Caldwell Richard A. Cosselin 81

11 Medical Student Education in Sub-Saharan Africa Juliet S. Okoroh Benedict C. Nwomeh 91

Conclusion Adam L. Kushner Evan C. Wong 99

Index 103

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Operation Health—the first book of its kind on global surgery—will advance the field substantially. An excellent piece of scholarship, this book will appeal to surgeons and non-surgeons, policy makers and funders, and public health, medical, and nursing students.
—John G. Meara, Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, Harvard Medical School

John G. Meara

Operation Health—the first book of its kind on global surgery—will advance the field substantially. An excellent piece of scholarship, this book will appeal to surgeons and non-surgeons, policy makers and funders, and public health, medical, and nursing students.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: David James Dries, MSE, MD (Regions Hospital)
Description: This brief book addresses the need for greater access to surgical care for patients in the developing world.
Purpose: It describes surgical conditions that may be readily managed if appropriate resources are available to afflicted patients. The authors note that more than a quarter of the world's population lacks access to basic lifesaving surgical procedures.
Audience: Surgeons with an interest in public health and policymakers at the regional, national, and international level will benefit from reading this book, which makes a passionate plea for greater access to surgery and describes populations with potentially debilitating yet readily treatable conditions. The authors are of mix of public health authorities in the U.S. and Canada and surgical leaders working on the frontlines in the underdeveloped world.
Features: Each of the short chapters begins with a vignette reflecting the importance of fundamental surgical care to the management of significant public health problems such as trauma, perinatal care with access to cesarean section, and appropriate cancer treatment. Included in each case presentation is a brief review of lives compromised and lost due to diseases that cannot be adequately managed without access to basic surgical procedures. Ironically, where surgical care is available, operative teams are at risk for HIV, hepatitis, and other infectious disease simply because of the lack of appropriate protective wear. Chapters are effectively written to combine human interest with essential technical detail. Black-and-white photographs reproduce with excellent quality to complement the vignettes. Each chapter contains a short reference list from the anesthesia, surgery, and public health literature.
Assessment: This book highlights the human side of inadequate surgical resources for much of the world's population. Readers will come away with a clear image of the human cost of limited access to lifesaving and life-changing procedures and the public health rationale for making the "power of surgery" available to all people suffering from readily treatable conditions.

Doody's Review Service

Makes a passionate plea for greater access to surgery and describes populations with potentially debilitating yet readily treatable conditions . . . Chapters are effectively written to combine human interest with essential technical detail.
—Doody's Review Service

[Kushner] has weaved science, evidence, global surgery, and public health in a journalistic, readable style. In this 100 page account of the importance of surgery for global health, Kushner's editing was as sharp as his scalpel, but with the hope of good surgical outcomes for all.
—The Lancet

For [those] who work in surgical areas in UK healthcare this book is a must read.
—Nursing Times

From the Publisher

For [those] who work in surgical areas in UK healthcare this book is a must read.

Nursing Times

[Kushner] has weaved science, evidence, global surgery, and public health in a journalistic, readable style. In this 100 page account of the importance of surgery for global health, Kushner's editing was as sharp as his scalpel, but with the hope of good surgical outcomes for all.

The Lancet