As a pediatric surgery resident at a tertiary referral center for pediatric surgery, I meet children with various background in my daily work. Some of them need surgical care, and maybe even surgical interventions. The problem is that not all of the families knows exactly what they need in terms of adequate and timely surgical care, or where to get it. Hopefully, and in most cases certainly so, will the Swedish healthcare system adjust for this knowledge gap and provide proper and safe surgical care. But even if the care, in average, is regarded very high in international comparison, it is possible that there are gradients of quality within the population. 

In my research, I focus on how access to adequate surgical care may vary within the Swedish healthcare system. The aim is to identify if the threshold to receive proper surgical care is relative, and if so, what are the determinants? How does educational, economical and social background influence the outcome of surgery among children in Sweden? Does distance to the treating hospital influence the outcome? To answer these questions, our research group (Surgery and Public Health) uses Swedish registers and epidemiological methods.