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"Uganda: Pay Doctors Well to Stem Brain Drain"

The Ugandan Health Minister recently announced that 14 senior surgeons left Uganda last year to work in Rwanda, where salaries are reportedly several times higher, according to an editorial on allafrica.com.

Already, Uganda has a severe shortage of surgeons and cannot afford to lose more to other countries. According to the news article, fresh graduates from Uganda's medical schools can expect to earn roughly $270 a month.

While Uganda and many African countries have an immense need for additional health professionals from all backgrounds and sufficient incentives to prevent brain drain, surgery and perioperative services have been particularly neglected. There is no UNAIDS of PEPFAR for trauma care, yet injuries alone accounts for 16% of the global burden of disease. The result is a crisis in health workforce and infrastructure that needs immediate attention.

Story link:
http://allafrica.com/stories/201004070499.html

Online Global Surgery & Anesthesia Forum

"Harmonization" is the degree to which public health research or clinical activities share information and coordinate with each other to avoid duplication of efforts and maximize efficacy.

Lack of harmonization among researchers, health care workers, donors etc... poses a significant obstacle to optimizing the utilization of limited resources available for improving public health in low-income countries.

This is just as true in surgery and anesthesia as it is for other areas of global health.
The Paris Declaration (PD) (2005) and Accra Agenda for Action (AAA) (2008) outlined the critical need for higher levels of collaboration, transparency and coordination between research efforts, both at a national and international level.

There is great need for mechanisms to facilitate harmonization.

GPAS has recently began pursuing several projects in this area... more to come on those soon.

One project not created by GPAS but already out there is the ghdonline.org. You can read about the mission at www.ghdonline.org, but in essence this moderated discussion group/forum is an interesting tool that has potential to facilitate communication and collaboration among others interested in this are of global health.
The "Surgical and Anesthesia" discussion group was just launched in recent weeks. I encourage all those interested to join, contribute, and provide feedback on ways to improve the forum.

Anyone who knows of other "surgery and anesthesia" forums, other tools or even new ideas to promote harmonization, please post!