A dedicated roundtable brought international perspectives together to examine colonial legacies, lived experience, language, representation and the power relationships that can influence how global neurosurgery partnerships are designed.
The roundtable was held on 23 February 2024 at the Principal Secretariat, Northwest School of Medicine.
Themes include equity, decolonisation, global neurosurgery and dialogue.
Global surgery is also about who gets heard
Discussions about global surgery frequently focus on measurable shortages:
workforce, infrastructure, equipment, training and financing.
Those are important.
But there is another set of questions that is harder to quantify:
Who defines the priorities?
Whose knowledge is considered authoritative?
Who designs the partnership?
Who receives visibility, resources and decision-making power?
The roundtable placed these questions at the centre of the discussion.
The meeting was moderated by Franco Servadei, Graham Fieggen and Gail Rosseau.
Ernest Barthelemy opened by examining the meaning of decolonisation, while Beverly Cheserem discussed how colonial legacies influence lived experience.
Dr Mario Ganau later moderated discussion exploring multiple geographic and linguistic perspectives.
The subject was therefore not approached as a single definition.
It was explored through history, language, identity and experience.
Multiple histories, multiple realities
The discussion addressed Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone perspectives, Pan-Africanism and post-colonial realities in Asia.
That range matters because global healthcare partnerships do not operate in a historical vacuum.
Different regions entered contemporary health systems through different political, educational and institutional histories.
Language affects who can participate in scholarship.
Research funding affects which questions are prioritized.
Institutional prestige affects whose expertise travels internationally.
Recognizing those structures does not diminish collaboration.
It can help make collaboration more balanced.
From reflection to practice
The roundtable concluded with discussion about next steps rather than presenting decolonisation as a completed task.
The event created space to examine how global neurosurgery can become more inclusive and critically aware of the structures that shape international collaboration.
Equity matters not only to the patient who receives care, but also to the relationships through which research, education and health-system interventions are created.
Equitable global surgery requires sharing not only expertise, but voice, responsibility and ownership.
- Who defines priorities?
- Who owns the research?
- Whose knowledge is visible?
- Are partnerships mutually accountable?