Although global health has come a long way over the past 25 years, access to surgical care remains very uneven across the world. Five billion people lack access to basic surgical care; this translates into unnecessary death and disability. More than one-third of all global deaths are from conditions requiring surgical care—more than the number of deaths from HIV/AIDs, tuberculosis and malaria combined. In addition, one-quarter of the world’s disability has been attributed to surgically treatable conditions.

In January 2014, an international team of 25 surgeons and public health experts launched The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery to address the widespread need for surgical care around the world. After 14 months of global consultation and four international meetings, the commission published a 32,000- word report today in The Lancet that provides a strategy for governments, policy makers, non-profits, funding agencies, academic institutions, professional associations, health care providers and local communities to engage in concrete action in low- and middle-income countries.

On May 6, the commission hosts its North American launch in Boston to present its key findings and priority action items. John G. Meara, MD, DMD, MBA, Plastic Surgeon-in Chief at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Kletjian Professor of Global Surgery at Harvard Medical School, is one of three chairs of the commission. We sat down with Meara to learn more about the commission’s work, which he describes as one of the “most impactful things he has done in his career to date.” …