Bethune Round Table in Global Surgery

Sustainability in Global Surgery

May 27th to 29th, 2023 - Hybrid Meeting
Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, Toronto

The Bethune Roundtable is an annual interdisciplinary meeting hosted at a Canadian academic centre to discuss challenges and solutions to improving surgical care to underserved and marginalized patients locally, regionally and globally. The objective of the meeting is to bring together health professionals from across disciplines to share their experiences in delivering safe surgery and anaesthetic care in low-resource settings.

Why ‘Sustainability in Global Surgery’?

The theme of Bethune 2023 is Sustainability in Global Surgery. We have entered the Anthropocene where planetary systems are significantly perturbed by the actions of the human population. Climate change, pandemics, and other challenges require us to rethink how we engage in every activity – including making surgery available to people who lack it.

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals assert that attaining health (goal 3) is inextricably linked with all other aspects of social progress. Addressing the climate crisis (Goal 13) will be a dominant theme for decades. Collectively, the goals highlight the interdependence of people, planetary, and economic domains in achieving sustainability.

Learning Objectives

  1. Understand the relationships between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Surgery field.
  2. Recognize the dominant role of climate change adaptation and mitigation within the Sustainable Development Goals
    • Consider the unequal burden of climate-associated health impacts globally
    • Understand how to decarbonize health sector activities.
  3. Acquire tools, technology, and techniques to make Global Surgery sustainable in the people, planetary, and economic domains.

Organizers

Dr. Andrew Howard
Co-Convener

Dr. Anna Dare
Co-Convener

Joanna Giddens
Academic coordinator

Faryal Mehboob
Logistics coordinator