Commentary on “Plastic surgery and global health: How plastic surgery impacts the global burden of surgical disease”

Abstract

It is enormously encouraging to have this publication in the Journal to draw much needed attention to the role of reconstructive plastic surgery in managing the global burden of surgically correctable disease. At the outset of a short commentary, my sole reservation relates to the need for such a message to be broadcast as widely as possible in global medical literature, where it might be acknowledged and acted upon by those outside our discipline who have influence in world health policy direction. I hope that this important message reaches a wider audience in due course, possibly in a general medical publication. As well as surveying the broad areas of morbidity and disease that plastic surgery can address, the paper makes a valuable start at quantifying the extent of such disabling conditions. It also describes the level of medical workforce support which is currently marshalled to address the problem. There are a couple of matters which I suspect might have augmented the authors argument yet further. Firstly, whilst the limitations of the DALY in quantifying the long-term life impact of conditions such as chronic burn contracture, or Clefting are described, there is no attempt to direct future efforts to improve such estimations. I would suggest that one of the most urgent requirements in developing world surgically related research should be a twin pronged attack to a) develop much more accurate data on the incidence