Global health is a field dedicated to addressing health issues that transcend national boundaries. Rather than “international health,” which implies the medical care and health of foreign nations, the term global health indicates that we are all part of one shared humanity. No time in recent history has this been clearer than the recent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2015, and SARS-CoV-2 in 2019. Whether or not we are interested in it, global health is becoming increasingly irrelevant; we no longer have the choice of remaining isolated from the global community of patients. Our world is interconnected.
Trainees in anesthesiology understand this. An overwhelming number of them demonstrated an interest in global health programs, indicating that such opportunities would influence their ranking of programs in the residency match. Historically, anesthesiologists have played a critical role in medical missions, aiming to improve the health of...
