title: Injuries and surgical needs of children in conflict and disaster: From Boston to Haiti and beyond.
abstract: Comprehensive care of patients in conflict and disaster requires coordination of medical, social, and public health agencies. Pediatric patients in these settings comprise a particularly vulnerable group subject to disruption of social networks and separation from family, inadequate surgical care due to lack of surgeon, anesthetist, and nursing specialization, and a general lack of advocacy within the global public health agenda. In the recent upswell of attention to the global surgical burden of disease and deficiencies in necessary infrastructure, the needs of pediatric surgical patients remain underappreciated and underemphasized amid calls for improvement in global surgical health. Experience in recent natural and man-made disasters has demonstrated that pediatric patients makeup a significant proportion of those injured, and has perhaps refocused our need to better characterize the surgical needs of children in conflict and disaster. In addition to treat such patients, we recognize the unmet challenges of improving pediatric emergency and surgical infrastructures in the low- and middle-income country settings where conflict and disaster occur most often, and continuing to advocate for vulnerable children worldwide and keep them out of harm's way.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
authors.forename: Maeve O
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Trudeau
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Surgery, Women and Children's Hospital of Buffalo, State University of New York, 219 Bryant St, Buffalo, New York 14222; Department of Surgery, State University of New York, School of Medicine and Bioscience, Buffalo, New York. Electronic address: drothstein@kaleidahealth.org.
authors.forename: David H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Rothstein
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D000067576:Child Health; D003191:Comprehensive Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D019049:Developed Countries; D003906:Developing Countries; D064891:Disaster Victims / Q000534:rehabilitation; D004190:Disasters; D014943:Global Health; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand; D006801:Humans; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D012036:Refugees; D014857:Warfare; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*
keywords: Conflict medicine; Disaster; Pediatric surgery