Maria Punchak, MD
Dr. Maria Punchak is a PGY4 in neurosurgery at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her MD at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and her Master's of Science at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She is interested in increasing access to quality neurosurgical care in low and middle incomes countries, and has previously worked in Uganda, Liberia, South Africa and Mozambique.
For many decades, non-governmental and mission organizations have focused on expanding access to specialty medical care, most often via a mission-based model. Over the last decade, especially since the publication of the Lancet Commission Report on Global Surgery in 2015, the paradigm has shifted away from drop-in interventions towards educational partnership models.1 Many have come to realize that training...
