The Importance of Global Medical Collaboration

 

 Buy Article Permissions and Reprints

“Risk is relative, and moderate risks not only fend off boredom but can open great opportunity.”

Richard T. Johnson

At a time when our world is becoming increasingly insular and nationalistic, international collaboration becomes more essential than ever. Few professions unify humanity more than medicine, as disease, illness, and suffering are not constrained by national borders. As such, the medical profession is uniquely suited to develop opportunities to provide for aid, education, and collaboration across nations and between people of all cultures. International medical efforts not only provide opportunities to promote and enhance amity but also to facilitate knowledge transfer, capacity building, and goodwill. Cross-cultural partnerships bring people together and aid in the medical welfare of those most in need.

International medical collaboration work has historically been dominated by the fields of infectious disease, primary care, and obstetrics. However, given the increasing growth of chronic cardiovascular diseases due to the “western” diet and lifestyle, the emergence of “new” neurologic diseases such as the Zika and West Nile viruses and the vast neurologic consequences of neuroinfectious diseases such as tuberculosis, cryptococcal infection, neuro-HIV, and toxoplasmosis, the opportunity for neurologists to become involved in international medical work has increased.

I have had the privilege to spend much of my professional career internationally (i.e., outside the United States), and was delighted to accept the invitation to guest edit this issue of Seminars in Neurology and to bring together varied chapters on different aspects of global neurology. The colleagues who offered their time to contribute a chapter to this edition of Seminars in Neurology are a diverse and international group with global expertise, and we are grateful to them for the time they invested and their excellent contributions.

We have attempted to start the edition with a framework of the status of neurology training worldwide and opportunities for medical professionals to pursue careers in global neurology. This is followed by chapters discussing pressing issues of the day such as refugee neurologic health, emerging neurotropic viral infections, and the rise of global stem cell tourism—topics frequently covered in the popular press. These are then followed by updates on the global aspects of various specialties in neurology including epilepsy, stroke, infectious diseases, and pediatric neurology. Finally, as a word of caution to any physicians considering international travel, we conclude with an excellent chapter on Nervous System Infections in the Global Traveler.

It has been a pleasure to read the chapters contained in this volume and I am grateful to the authors from so many different countries who shared their expertise and contributed to this volume. I also want to thank the Editor-in-Chief, David Greer, for this opportunity and for his insightful edits and guidance in each chapter. It is my sincere hope that this edition of Seminars in Neurology inspires more international collaboration and travel among neurologists to counteract the inward-looking, xenophobic attitude of the current global political climate.