Lancet Commission on Global Summary

The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery was held in Dubai from November 11-13, 2014 at the Mohammed bin Rashid Academic Medical and by the Harvard Foundation. The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery meeting in Dubai was the third and final structured meeting of this Commission. The first meeting was held in Boston, Massachusetts and was hosted by Harvard Medical School. The second meeting took place in Freetown, Sierra Leone and was hosted by King’s College London and Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Surgery is an integral, indivisible component of a properly functioning health system, and all people should have access to safe, high-quality surgical and anesthesia care with financial protection when needed. The purpose of The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery is to make this vision a reality by embedding surgery within the global health agenda, catalyzing political change, and defining scalable solutions for provision of quality surgical and anesthesia care for all.

The symposium of the Lancet Commission was extremely successful and consisted of 3 days.  The first two days were closed to the Commissioners and the third day was open to all invited participators. The purpose of the symposium was to convene members of the Lancet Commission and key members of the Gulf Cooperation Council region’s medical, healthcare, academic, and policy-making communities:

1. Introduce The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery to the Gulf region.
2. Receive input regarding how the Commission may assist in addressing surgical concerns in the Gulf region.
3. Share the work of the Commission and anticipated next steps.

The meeting was fruitful, yielding discussions regarding future and long-term collaborations, new perspectives, and a further strengthening of our evolving Global Surgery foundation. The key points from the meeting are listed below:

• Preliminary discussions of long-term Commission involvement in Global Surgery
• Discussions of the Gulf Perspective on Global Surgery

For more information, please visit our website at http://globalsurgery.info/.