Our vision: Universal access to safe anaesthesia. Our mission: Uniting and empowering anaesthesiologists around the world to improve patient care. We deliver our mission in partnership with national anaesthesiology societies and other organisations that share our objectives. This includes the World Health Organization (WHO), governments, other standard setters, surgical organisations, NGOs, hospitals and training centres. We welcome partnership with all organisations that support safe surgery with safe anaesthesia as an essential element. Anaesthesiology is the practice of medicine dedicated to the total care of the patient - before, during and after surgery. Anaesthesiologists are also experts in resuscitation, pain management and intensive care. With a network of hundreds of thousands of anaesthesiologists in over 140 countries, we facilitate learning and promote the highest standards of patient care around the world. 11% of the global burden of disease could be treated by surgery and 85% of children in lower income countries are lively to have required surgical treatment by the time they are 15 years old. Around 5 billion people worldwide lack access to affordable surgical and anaesthetic care when they need it, most of these are in lower income countries. With more than 230 million major surgeries occurring annually around the world, the stakes are high.