Background The principles of global surgery should be taught as a part of the core curriculum in medical schools. The need for medical students to be familiar with the topic is increasing in acceptance. There is, however, a paucity of data on how medical students are exposed to global surgery. This study aims to evaluate exposure of medical students to global surgery, awareness of the key messages of the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery, global surgery career aspirations and barriers to said aspirations. Methods ISOMERS was a multi-centre, online, cross-sectional survey of final year medical students globally. The questionnaire utilised a combination of Likert-scale, multiple-choice, and free text questions. Results In this study, 1593 final year medical students from 144 medical schools in 20 countries participated. The majority (n = 869/1496, 58.1%) believed global surgery to be relevant, despite 17.7% (n = 271/1535) having any exposure to global surgery. Most participants (n = 1187/1476, 80.4%) wanted additional resources on global surgery. Difficulty in providing appropriate care for patients living abroad (n = 854/1242, 68.8%) was the most common perceived barrier to a career in global surgery. Conclusions Participants believed global surgery was a relevant topic for medical students and wanted additional resources that they could access on global surgery. It is critical for medical students to become aware that global surgery is a field that aims to address inequity in surgical care not just internationally, but nationally and locally as well.

Objective Delay in the diagnosis of head and neck cancer can result in significant excess morbidity and mortality. How the pandemic has affected patient presentation in Scotland is unknown. Method This retrospective cohort study compared all presentations of head and neck cancer between June and October of 2019 with the same period following the peak of the pandemic in 2020 in West Scotland, a region populated by 2.5 million people. Results A total of 528 patients met our inclusion criteria. Compared with 2019, patients in 2020 were more likely to present with a higher American Joint Committee on Cancer stage (odds ratio, 1.67 (95 per cent confidence interval = 1.20 to 2.31); p = 0.002), a longer preceding symptom duration (odds ratio, 2.03 (95 per cent confidence interval = 1.44 to 2.87; p < 0.001) and to have an emergency presentation (odds ratio, 2.53, (95 per cent confidence interval = 1.15 to 5.55; p = 0.017). Conclusion Patients are presenting later with more advanced head and neck cancer following the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

Introduction The pandemic has highlighted health inequalities in the UK, with Black and Asian ethnic groups experiencing higher mortality than White ethnic groups. Alongside this, a wider recognition of societal inequalities has lead to a drive for increased racial representation in medical school curricula. This is especially relevant to dermatology, where skin colour has clear effects on the presentation of important conditions. It has been hypothesised that delayed diagnosis and consequent worse outcomes may result from physicians’ unfamiliarity with the appearance of dermatologic presentations on skin-of-colour (SoC). We propose a national, cross-sectional, mixed-methods study using student collaboration aiming to understand how SoC representation in undergraduate dermatology teaching influences medical students’ clinical experiences. Methods The study will involve three phases, delivered in part by student collaborator at each institution: first, a national online survey of final year students from 34 UK medical schools to investigate their recollections of SoC representation in their dermatology teaching. Second, a survey of faculty members at each medical school to investigate how SoC representation is incorporated into the broader design of their institution's dermatology teaching. Finally, a series of online focus groups to explore students’ ideas about the influence of SoC representation in dermatology education on their clinical experiences with patients of varied skin tones. Proposed Impact Our findings may help inform the timely and effective provision of diverse SoC representation in undergraduate medical education and, more broadly, demonstrate the usefulness of collaboratively-acquired, student-generated data in guiding the future development of medical school curricula.