The beat heard around the world: Making the case for global cardiac surgery

Global Cardiac surgery is a multidisciplinary academic field that seeks to achieve equitable access to safe, timely, and affordable cardiac care in all countries. Although research in Global Cardiac surgery often focuses on low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs), the investigations are predominantly led by expert researchers from high‐income countries (HIC), with publications by LMIC researchers remaining relatively scarce. Therefore, as the field grows in popularity, efforts should be made towards achieving equitable representation in contemporary literature by authors from LIMC to foster a more responsible, accountable, and ethical framework. Despite being a crucial aspect of global cardiac surgery, several barriers have been identified to accountability, including but not limited to poor infrastructure, lack of collaborative partnerships, and lack of patient health literacy. Moreover, other potential barriers exist, including limited system oversight in LIMC and lack of engagement with stakeholders to address systemic barriers. The recently published National Surgical Obstetrics and Anesthesia manual has strongly reinforced appealing with patients to advance various surgical systems. In this commentary, we highlight the need for community‐level contributions to research in Global Cardiac surgery.