[1] After extensive fieldwork with Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), in 1998 Orbinski was elected President of the International Council.

Orbinski is also co-founder and chair of the Board of Directors of Dignitas International, a medical humanitarian organization researching and working with communities in the global south to increase access to life-saving treatment and prevention in areas overwhelmed by HIV/AIDS, and with Aboriginal communities in Canada to improve community-based care for diseases such as diabetes.

[5] In 1998, Orbinski received the Governor General's Meritorious Service Cross for his work as the MSF Head of Mission during the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

After his first mission in Peru, Orbinski served as MSF's Medical Coordinator in Baidoa during the Somali Civil War and famine of 1992–93, and in Jalalabad, Afghanistan during the winter of 1994.

Orbinski also represented MSF at the UN Security Council, in many national parliaments, to the World Health Organization, as well as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

He witnessed the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and participated in relief efforts for injured people ferried across the Hudson River.

It was noted as being "one of the most important scholarly articles that shaped scholarship in the field of global health in the post Second World War years.

Dignitas trains more than 500 Malawian health care workers a year and maintains an extensive and ongoing research platform.

Orbinski is also a founding board member of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, the Stephen Lewis Foundation and Canadian Doctors for Medicare.

Orbinski additionally serves on the advisory boards of Global Policy, Engineers Without Borders (Canada), The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal.

As of 2011, he is an honorary director of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) and sits on several global health-related advisory boards.

His citation reads: "Chief of Mission to Rwanda with Doctors Without Borders during the Civil War from April to July 1994, Dr. Orbinski provided an extraordinary service by delivering medical assistance and alleviating the suffering of victims, on both sides of the front line.

Unwavering in his efforts, Dr. Orbinski opened the Agha Khan (Kin Fayed) Hospital in Kigali, in the middle of a contested area that often became the target of mortar and machine gun fire.

Through example, he provided inspirational leadership to a multinational team of medical staff and managed to spur their flagging spirits through the bleakest days of the genocide.

"[21]In 2009, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his contributions as a physician who has worked to improve health care access and delivery in developing countries, and as an advocate for those who have been silenced by war, genocide and mass starvation".