The landscape of academic global surgery: A rapid review

Abstract

Interest in academic global surgery, which comprises clinical, educational, and research collaborations to improve surgical care between academic surgeons in high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and their corresponding academic institutions, has grown over the years. However, there is no collective knowledge of academic global surgery. Thus, this review aims to understand the current landscape of academic global surgery and discuss future directions. A rapid review, a streamlined approach, was conducted to identify and summarize emerging studies systematically. The keywords applied in the search strategy were "global surgery" and "academic programs". The total number of retrieved articles in PubMed was 390, and after the investigation, 20 articles were extensively reviewed for the result section. According to the results, this study provided findings regarding: (I) perceptions of residents, faculty, and surgical program directors toward academic global surgery programs, (II) key program characteristics of implemented academic global surgery programs, and (III) evaluation results of available academic global surgery programs. We also drew lessons and challenges for a useful guide for future academic global surgery research and the development of optimal educational programs. This review identified a small but rich set of information on academic global surgery. Further research and discussion are needed on how to successfully incorporate the academic global surgery program into medical institutions.