Harvard Catalyst Profiles

Millions die of hemorrhage from trauma and other causes (obstetrics, cancers, pediatric anemias) each year in settings without sufficient access to blood. There is a 114-million-unit deficit of blood in low-and-middle income countries each year; every single country in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia has a deficit. But worse than scarcity, hundreds of millions in rural settings across the world live without access to any blood. We cannot improve surgical care, trauma care, obstetric care worldwide without fixing the blood problem. There are several emerging strategies to address this crisis including establishing civilian walking blood banks, optimizing processes for low-cost intraoperative autotransfusion, and drone-based blood delivery to remote settings. I am a trauma surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Fellowship Director at the Harvard Program in Global Surgery and Social Change, Co-Director of our WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Surgery and Operative Care Research and Policy, and Chair of the Blood DESERT Coalition (www.blooddesertcoalition.org). The STAB Lab is at the forefront of global surgery implementation and policy and works to advance meaningful initiatives on trauma systems and blood. We work closely with partners - including several global health icons - in Guatemala, Chile, Kenya, and India. We founded the Blood DESERT Coalition in 2024. HMS students will have the opportunity to engage in a broad range of projects that includes quantitative, qualitative, systematic review, and modeling methodologies within the content areas of (1) blood availability for surgery, (2) trauma systems in LMICs, and (3) global surgery implementation policy. We work with partners ranging from medical students to full professors of surgery in their respective countries in formal and informal roles. Join us!