The VPs of Internal Affairs play a major role in facilitating local involvement in global surgery and collaboration on a national scale between the chapters. They lead all national and regional chapter leader meetings, supervise the Regional Representatives, and are involved in the planning of all major global surgery events across the country. They play a big role in GSSA’s annual national symposium, starting from choosing the hosting school to organizing planning meetings to ensuring the overall success of the event. The VPs of Internal Affairs contribute significantly to the GSSA national network and this role will give you an opportunity to interact with student leaders across the country in meaningful ways.

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The VPs of Advocacy play a significant role in establishing GSSA’s reach across the country and around the world. This includes managing the Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other social media outlets. The VPs of Advocacy not only support the national team’s projects/efforts, but also share extensively about the events & work being done at the local level by our chapters. They often meet with chapter leaders to strategize ways to increase the scope of local events and ensure broad awareness. The VPs of Advocacy also get involved with international global surgery campaigns through a broad range of global surgery organizations worldwide. This role involves connecting with other organizations and working to effectively disseminate information on global surgery in the public sphere, with the goal of mobilizing more people to engage in the field.

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The major focus of this role is to develop avenues by which to help increase students’ knowledge, awareness, and engagement in global surgery as a field. Responsibilities for this position include aiding in the development of GSSA’s global surgery curriculum, creating a policy platform to encourage global surgery education at the medical school and trainee level, facilitating GSSA’s webinar series, and more. The VPs of Education also identify current gaps and challenges in global surgery education and spearhead initiatives to address these issues at an individual and systemic level. This role has a lot of flexibility, as we are in the process of completing several projects. We look forward to having new ideas brought to this team! We also have an Education Committee that works closely with the VPs of Education. Committee appointments are for one year and allow participants to focus narrowly on specific GSSA projects. All applicants for the VP of Education position will also be considered for the Education Committee.

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GSSA is a nonprofit, which is a status maintained by the VPs of finances both financially and legally. This role includes careful monitoring of our budget, as well as financial planning to see what we could use the money for, how much is being used, and more. A very important task is completing the annual tax documents with the state and federal government. The VPs of Finances are also extensively involved with securing funds from sponsors, grants, and other sources, as well as leading fundraising campaigns so that GSSA can meet its goals. They are crucial to GSSA’s future and ability to act on our plans for expanding student efforts within global surgery.

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The VPs of Research focus on searching for research opportunities, projects, and programs in global surgery that are available around the country for students. This includes reaching out to surgical departments at medical schools, contacting the different GSSA chapters, and other unique avenues to see if there are opportunities that can be shared nationwide. The VPs of Research also identify potential projects that either the GSSA National Team or different GSSA chapters could take on. This includes partnerships with other research groups as well as the creation of our own study that involves contributions and authorship for all GSSA chapters. We also have a Research Committee that works closely with the VPs of Research. Committee appointments are for one year and allow participants to focus narrowly on specific GSSA projects. All applicants for the VP of Research position will also be considered for the Research Committee.

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This role entails connecting residents to GSSA and identifying/developing the areas where residents have strengths to contribute to global surgery efforts. It also entails mentorship and guidance of GSSA’s overall national projects. Current goals for this team are to develop resources to encourage and facilitate residents involvement in global surgery; however, there is a lot of opportunity to establish new goals & start more projects in this role. The VPs of Residents/Trainees also act as liaisons between the work being done by medical students across the country and that being done by residents, integrating the two and helping to align perspectives.

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The regional representatives serve as liaisons between the national team and local chapters in their regions. Their role includes regular outreach to chapters in their region to receive updates on chapter activities, coordination of events and conferences within the region to encourage collaboration and networking between nearby chapters, and updating the national team on such inter-chapter activities in their region. This is a great opportunity for a chapter leader to broaden the scope of their involvement in GSSA and learn about opportunities at neighboring institutions and at the national level.  Available regional positions include:

• Northeast Region Lead - NY, NJ, MA, RI, CT, VT, NH, ME

• Central Region Lead - ND, MN, WI, MI, SD, IA, IL, IN, OH, NE, KS, MO, KY

• West Region Lead - OR, WA, CA, ID, NV, MT, CO, UT, WY, AZ, NM, AK, HI

• South Region Lead - TX, OK, LA, AK, FL, GA, AL, MS

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The Dental Leads work to connect dental students, including students pursuing careers in oral and maxillofacial surgery, and dental schools to global surgery education, training, advocacy, and research through the planning of events, coordination of dental-focused activities, meetings, and assistance in chapter development.

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The Undergraduate Lead works to connect undergraduate students who are interested in exploring medicine and global surgery through the planning of events, coordination of undergraduate-focused activities, meetings, and assistance in chapter development.

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