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Doruk Ozgediz, MD, MSc

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Many thanks to Dr Abdullah¹ for an eloquent account of the challenges and benefits of surgical mission work in Africa. Voluntarism in environments with such profound resource constraints reminds many of us of our initial motivations for entering a career in surgery and highlights the ground reality of global surgical disparities.

In the last 5 years, collaborating with a surgical training program in Uganda, we have also found that a longitudinal, mutually beneficial relationship with shared goals and objectives is critical.² In particular, the support of local training is an essential component of long-term capacity building.

Global disparities in surgery are staggering, with only 26% of operations performed in poor- and low-health expenditure countries, which account for 70% of the world's population.³ The surgical workforce and infrastructure in these countries have often been neglected for years and sometimes decades. With recent evidence supporting the substantial burden . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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Perspective of West Africa: Why Bother to "Mission"?
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RELATED LETTER

Voluntarism and the Global Unmet Need for Surgery—Reply
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