The burden of pediatric surgical disease in low-resource settings: Discovering it, measuring it, and addressing it

Global surgery has come of age as an emerging discipline poised to impact health care worldwide with a concerted plan of action and wide stakeholder support. Much less can be said about global pediatric surgery, despite a growing awareness of the global burden of pediatric surgical disease. The author describes his exposure to this burden of disease as a pediatric surgeon working in resource-limited countries in Africa and outlines his personal journey from recognizing the burden to measuring it and eventually attempting to address it. The article, based on the Hugh Greenwood International Lecture at the 2015 BAPS Congress, reviews what is known so far within global pediatric surgery, what is currently happening, and what lies ahead.