Jenny Löfgren

Through my research I combine my two professional passions - global surgery and reconstructive plastic surgery! 

I have been active within the field of global surgery since 2011 when I started working on my PhD projects on groin hernia in Uganda. I defended this thesis in September 2015 which later was awarded price for best surgical thesis that year by the Swedish Society of Surgeons. Since then, the scope of the research as well as the partnerships have grown exponentially to include a variety of projects relating to surgery and it's allied disciplines in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa. I have been the project leader for "Global Surgery Stockholm" since 2016 and have had the great opportunity to receive funding from the Swedish Research Council and others for this work. 

Clinically, I am a consultant plastic surgeon at Karolinska University Hospital. Though I find that all aspects of my work as a plastic surgeon are rewarding and interesting, my main focus have turned to microvascular reconstruction, mostly after cancer and trauma. My research within plastic surgery is carried out in Sweden and relates to head and neck cancer, sarcoma, burns and transgender surgery. 

Looking forward, I hope to see the two areas of research merging and I anticipate and look forward to many new collaborations - both geographically and content wise. 

Global Surgery is a rapidly growing field of research. It's aim is to acheive
equity in health. The research is clinically oriented and designed to meet
desired features of innovations in Low and Middle Income countries: Low-cost,
high-quality, setting appropriate and sustainable solutions. The common
denominator for the research is that it often begins by measuring a problem,
typically burden of disease due to a specific condition before trials are
designed to evaluate possible solutions to the problem under study.
Currently, the research evolves around groin hernia, surgical task sharing, surgical training, breast cancer biology and genetics, sarcoma, pathological fractures, paediatric surgery and health economics.

The research related to reconstructive plastic surgery evolves around sarcoma, reconstruction after head and neck cancer and transgender surgery with several ongoing and planned projects. Some PhD students participate in projects both within the global surgery and the plastic surgery fields. 

Research project: Global Surgery [1]
[1] https://ki.se/en/mmk/global-surgery

Course organiser for the Global Surgery elective course for medical students
at Karolinska Institutet.
I have supervised 20+ degree projects for medical students at Karolinska
Institutet, Uppsala University and Umeå University.