50 episodes listed below
Global surgery, seen through roads, visas, cameras and clinics.
Global Scalpels pairs two co-hosts with people working on access to surgery, from orthopedic and plastic surgeons with ties to Nepal, Malawi and Ethiopia to a transport researcher and two producers from the nonprofit world. The conversations stay practical, asking how surgical care is taught, staffed, paid for and filmed where resources are thin.
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Global Scalpels: A Global Surgery Podcast is an interview show about surgical care in places where it is hard to get, and about the people trying to change that. Two co-hosts lead the conversations, and each episode title carries the names of one or two guests. The questions are practical ones. Who does the operation, who trained them, who pays, and what happens when the patient cannot reach the hospital at all? Orthopedic care comes up in several conversations. In one, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon describes a review of musculoskeletal clinics and village outreach in which about 40 percent of children seen had gluteal fibrosis or post-injection paralysis, well ahead of trauma, infection or cerebral palsy. A second study followed at a hospital just outside Kampala. Elias, a third-year medical student at UT Southwestern and an intern with the show, guest-hosts that episode. Dr. David Spiegel, a professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pennsylvania whose work has taken him to Nepal, Iraq, Mongolia, Pakistan and Tanzania, is asked how to weigh high-income evidence against what is workable where care is costly or far away. His answer turns to hospital systems, with Nepal as the example. The same conversation makes a sharp point about teaching: a short workshop on putting on a cast is not the same as months spent working through problems together on site. In 'Ep 53: Rowa and Gladys', with Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Gladys Ngondo, a military orthopedic surgeon, the focus is hand surgery in Malawi, where British and Malawian hand therapists work in the room next to the surgeons. Then the show leaves the hospital altogether. Patrick Miner, a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh who once worked in urban planning in Chicago, argues that fewer road crashes mean fewer trauma calls for emergency services. He also notes how moving a hospital to Edinburgh's outskirts made journeys to trauma care longer. Meryl Westlake and Lucy Taylor, who have produced content for charities and purpose-driven organizations, discuss where a code of ethics should stop a camera, including during childbirth, when a woman in labour cannot really give informed consent. Dr. Metasebia Abebe, an assistant professor of plastic and reconstructive surgery at St. Paul Hospital Millennium Medical College in Ethiopia, describes the visa refusals, flights, lodging and currency gaps that make overseas fellowships so hard for young surgeons from LMICs. Her conversation also covers training the next generation of plastic surgeons in Ethiopia, and a link between climate change and hyena bites that clearly surprised one of the hosts. The hosts' follow-up questions keep coming back to the practical: how a team is staffed, how a fellowship gets paid for. Episodes close by inviting suggestions of people whose global surgery work should be featured. A listener comes away seeing surgery as a chain that can break at the road, the border, the budget or the camera, long before anyone reaches the operating table.
Made for: Suits a listener who sees health care as a systems question and wants to hear surgeons, researchers and producers explain how operations are staffed, taught and paid for where resources are scarce.
What sets it apart: It doesn't stay at the operating table. It follows surgical access out to road policy, visa rules, fellowship costs and the ethics of filming patients, and its guests include a transport researcher and nonprofit storytellers as well as surgeons.
Dedicated to the 5 billion without safe and affordable surgery - come explore global surgery heroes in tech, law, war, business, and of course, the OR!
A cheap surgical clamp meets its shipping bill; Rhianna and Taylor let your tidy fix get complicated.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A focused look at how injection injuries are reshaping one pediatric orthopedic picture in Uganda.
Dr. Colleen Sabatini frames global surgery through pediatric orthopedic care in Uganda, where gluteal fibrosis and post-injection paralysis show up with unusual frequency in the communities studied.
A grounded look at adapting orthopedic care in remote communities, where systems and time matter as much as technique.
David Spiegel's account of orthopedic care in resource-limited settings is strongest when it stays close to the practical problem: what can still work when patients in a hilly region may need days just to reach a road?
A focused look at how car-dependent transport can shape injury, emergency care, and prevention in global surgery.
Patrick Minor connects car-dependent planning to global surgery through a clear public-health lens: road crashes increase emergency calls and trauma demand, while traffic pollution and sedentary travel add wider physical and mental health strain.
A grounded conversation on building hand-surgery capacity through teams, teaching, and emerging referral pathways.
Global Scalpels speaks with Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Gladys Ngondo and Ms. Roa Taha about hand surgery in Malawi, with the focus placed less on individual procedures than on the people and systems that make specialist care possible.
A grounded episode on consent, childbirth imagery, and ethical health storytelling.
Global Scalpels turns its attention to the ethics of health storytelling in international development settings, with Meryl Westlake and Lucy Taylor examining the choices behind digital content, consent, and images gathered for charities, nonprofits, and purpose-driven…
Brain science before it becomes a headline.
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Dr.
["Rihanna and Taylor interview Patrick Minor, a University of Edinburgh PhD candidate in geosciences and food systems, about his paper Car Harm and his work on transport and land use policy.", "He traces car-centered urban planning from late-19th-century Europe and North America through Peter Norton's Fighting Traffic, jaywalking laws, and the displacement of neighborhoods for motorways.", "Patrick breaks automobility into violence, ill health, social injustice, and environmental damage, then names lead exposure, noise pollution, sedentary commuting, and 246,000 annual deaths from traffic-related air pollution.", "The conversation also covers SUVs, emergency-service delays, U.S.
Global Scalpels episode Ep 53: Rowa and Gladys focuses on the BSSH Lion Hand Service at Kamuzu Central Hospital in Malawi, where Dr.
["Global Scalpels' Ep 52 with Meryl Westlake and Lucy Taylor looks at how international-development teams gather health stories for a podcast about the 5 billion people worldwide who lack safe and affordable surgery.", "Meryl brings experience from Comic Relief, VSO, and Q across sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, while Lucy brings journalism training, seven years in an international-development NGO, and Bond's 2019 ethical guidelines.", "They explain that digital content may be commissioned for fundraising appeals, funder reports, or public engagement, and that shoots can take eight weeks to six months of planning.", "The episode centers on consent, translators, power imbalance, and the line between persuasive storytelling and harmful pressure, especially when a hospital, a child, or a family is involved."]
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Global Scalpels interviews Dr.
Dr.
Global Scalpels interviews orthopedic surgeon Kiran Agarwal-Harding about global orthopedics, Sona Global, and surgical access in Malawi, Haiti, Ethiopia, Cameroon, and Ukraine.
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Tom Monaghan describes how biomedical engineers keep hospital equipment safe, functional, and accurate, using a C-arm in Haiti that had mice living inside it as one example of neglected maintenance.
Anita Makins describes how work with Médecins Sans Frontières in Sierra Leone and projects in Mozambique led her toward global surgery through obstetrics and gynecology.
Global Scalpels hosts Rihanna and Taylor interview Dr.
Global Scalpels hosts Rihanna and Taylor interview Joel Bervell, a Ghanaian American medical student and medical educator whose TikTok and Instagram platforms have more than 400,000 combined followers and 400 million impressions.
Global Scalpels features guest host Ayla Gurk interviewing Dr.
Global Scalpels hosts Rihanna and Taylor interview Operation Smile Global Surgery Fellows Priyanka Naidu and Zach Collier about expanding access to safe surgery.
An interview with Dr.
An interview with Andrew Binault, CEO of Nor Medical, discussing his background and work in global surgery technology in Africa.
This episode interviews a public health professional working on family planning and reproductive health in developing countries, focusing on integrating men into family planning.
An interview with Walter Ulrich, CEO of Medical Bridges, discussing his work providing medical equipment to low-resource countries and improving global surgery access.