Global Surgery

Through education, research, and collaboration, the Department of Surgery aims to reduce health disparities in underserved and resource-limited populations around the world. Explore this page to learn about the international opportunities offered through our residency programs, current research projects, and efforts to improve surgery and surgical education around the world. 

Dr. Jim Chang: Stanford's Efforts in Global Reconstructive Surgery

Dr. James Chang is the Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor and chief of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Stanford University Medical Center. He also serves as the Consulting Medical Officer for ReSurge International, a global nonprofit that has worked to deliver and teach reconstructive surgery to those in need overseas for over 50 years.

Dr. Joe Forrester is a trauma and critical care surgeon with fellowship training in surgical critical care and field epidemiology. He was the first surgical resident to complete the Epidemic Intelligence Service Fellowship with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During his training with CDC, he was deployed twice to Liberia in 2014 to assist with the Ebola virus disease response and developed an acute febrile illness surveillance program in the West Nile region of Uganda. His global health research interests include developing better ways to build infectious disease surveillance systems in resource limited settings and improving provision of surgical care in austere, resource-poor situations. Dr. Forrester enjoys mentoring undergraduates, medical students and residents through research projects from inception to publication. In his free time, he enjoys rock climbing with his wife and daughter in Pinnacles, Yosemite, and the Utah desert.  

Dr. Tom Weiser's research is focused on evaluating the role surgical care plays in the delivery of health services in resource-poor settings, particularly low- and middle-income countries. He is interested in barriers to access and provision of surgical care, the quality of surgical services, and outcomes research. He is also interested in the science of implementation, how improvements can be made and how to strengthen compliance with best practices and change behaviors for the better.

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Dr. Sherry Wren’s research program has international and domestic components. Internationally she is investigating access or barriers to care in humanitarian conflict zones and low and middle income countries. In the humanitarian context, she is actively engaged in work to redesign the delivery of surgical care in the humanitarian response to modern conflicts.  This work includes surgical disease epidemiology, logistic and response design, international humanitarian law, and policy implications of humanitarian responses. In the non - humanitarian context in low and middle income countries Dr. Wren is using a gender lens to examine barriers to women obtain surgical care and identifying opportunities to address the disparities and under-representation of women as surgical patients in hospitals.

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