Global Includes Local

For over a decade, the Stanford Division of Global Health Equity (SGHE), within the university's Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, has worked with academic partners facilitating medical education and training for under-resourced settings. The WHO defined health in 1948 as: “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (asamonitor.pub/3qo5x4X). Physical health and mental health are both well recognized. Yet the barriers that prevent the social well-being of all people remain indistinct and unaddressed for some global health programs. Similarly undefined is the scope of work implied by the term “global.” Driven by safe anesthesia's promotion of physical health, many of SGHE's partners are anesthesia training programs located in low- and middle-income countries. However, with growing inequities in health care access and disparate health outcomes within the U.S., the Division calls for broadening the scope of global...