Designing a set of safety standards for surgical short term medical missions

The global burden of surgical disease is on the rise. In underserved areas this need is being increasingly met by surgical short-term medical missions (STMMs). However, access to safe surgical care is still of great concern to global health advocates. We sought to evaluate the current safety practices and outcomes of surgical care being provided by STMMs. We looked at 35 primary research papers from surgical STMMs between 1991-2016 and analyzed their documentation of safety standards and follow up procedures. This led us to two important conclusions: 1 surgical STMM practices and outcomes are not well documented and 2 there is a need for standardized safety guidelines when participating in surgical STMMs. Here we introduce an actionable set of international surgical safety standards that we invite all short-term surgeons and groups to utilize as a means of setting a foundation for the practice of safe surgery on mission trips.