Global Outreach Initiative

UCI Anesthesiology & Perioperative Care is committed to help developing countries that have many challenges to safe and effective healthcare.

The Global Outreach Initiative will give residents a unique opportunity to understand anesthesia practices within different socioeconomic environments and the many complex issues that define global health. Anesthesia plays a critical role in global healthcare and procedures that are considered routine in this country are potentially high risk in underserved areas due to the availability and vast differences in equipment, resources and even environmental locations.

The Global Outreach Initiative can be taken as an elective rotation during the CA-3 year. The senior resident and a UCI anesthesiology faculty member will arrange and join a volunteer group for one week and travel to an underserved area of the world to provide anesthesia care to a local community. Through this experience, residents are able to develop a sense of compassion for persons disadvantaged through disease and access to safe and effective healthcare. The goal is for residents to become advocates for the advancement and safe practice of anesthesia all around the world.

Locations

India

Since 2018, a team of UCI Anesthesiology faculty and residents have joined a volunteer group that travels to India to provide care for patients at the Shree Bidada Sarvodayay Trust – Bibada Hospital and Jain Mission Hospital.

The Shree Bidada Sarvodayay Trust - Bibada Hospital is a non-profit organization committed to providing medical services to those in their region. The organization organizes a medical camp every January in the village of Bidada, Kutch that sees patients from over 1200 villages in the region.

In a collaborative team setting, the volunteer team provides general and regional anesthesia for cases that range from tympanoplasties, thyroid and parathyroid removals, and hernia repairs.

Africa

A team of anesthesiology faculty and residents visit Africa to join a volunteer team of orthopedic surgeons, dentists, general physicians, medical assistants, and non-medical volunteers to care for patients in Zambia. The team screens more than 200 patients, ranging from infants to adults, and provides general check-ups, procedures, and surgeries at the Zimba Mission Hospital and Nyawa Rural Health Centre

Bolivia

Working with Operation Smile at their first surgical program in Bolivia, our team is part of an international group assembled to perform cleft lip and palate surgeries for hundreds of local children. Operation Smile has provided hundreds of thousands of free surgeries for children and young adults in developing countries who are born with cleft lip, cleft palate, or other facial deformities.