Dr Saladin Sawan, Consultant Surgeon in Gynaecological Oncology and one of our faculty trainers, recently returned from a surgical mission in Idlib, Syria, upskilling 41 surgical residents and specialists to screen for and treat women with cervical cancer. Here, Dr Sawan shares his hopes for healthcare and future training in northwest Syria. Syria remains engulfed […]
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Our action in response to the Israel-Gaza war. As a humanitarian organisation delivering surgical training to doctors in regions affected by conflict and catastrophe, we have been devastated by the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East. We have been in contact with our partners, including Juzoor and Action for Humanity, local faculty of trainers, and those […]
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A major stone sculpture honouring all serving and veteran members of the British Armed Forces with the asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma, has been unveiled. The memorial sculpture was installed at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire on 16 October 2023, joining more than 400 memorials dedicated to members of the Armed Forces, Emergency Services and civilian […]
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Our new Chief Operating Officer, Tim Law, recently returned from his first mission. Tim supported our trainers to deliver two surgical training courses in Kyiv. With logistical support from our partner World Health Organisation (WHO), 80 surgeons and anaesthetists from frontline cities learned how to treat mass trauma injuries using world-leading surgical teaching models. To […]
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We are now rowing the first few miles of our 3000 mile voyage across the Indian ocean from the west coast of Australia to Mauritius, and quite a lot of things concern me. Not least of my worries is how we are going to scrape off barnacles off the hull of our boat every week […]
As-salamu alaykum! (“May peace be upon you” in Arabic). This is the common greeting heard here in Bokoro, a town about 300 km east of N’Djamena, the capital of Chad. Bokoro is in central Chad, in the southernmost part of the Sahal belt of Africa, so it is an extremely hot, dry, desert climate with […]
Conor Kenny is a doctor who has recently returned from Greece. He began his assignment working at Idomeni, a transit camp for refugees on the Greek border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. After residents of the Idomeni camp were evicted, Conor moved to Lesbos to work providing healthcare in specialised camps designated for […]
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Landmines are a deadly legacy of many past and present conflicts and still kill around 15-20,000 people around the world every year and maim many more. Most casualties suffer traumatic lower limb injuries caused by the blast although facial injuries and hand amputations are also common. Last month, we held the first successful meeting of trauma surgeons from […]
‘When it comes to safety for patients in the operating theatre, it’s not always the ‘big spends’ that make the biggest difference. For instance, the World Health Organization has developed a one-page safety checklist for surgical teams which maximises the chances of a good outcome – regardless of the geographic or economic setting. This Surgical Safety […]
I have just returned from my first mission with Medicins Sans Frontieres in the Yemen and I can definitely say it was a life-changing experience. I was working in the emergency department of a hospital in the north for three and a half months. The biggest difference between working in an A&E in an NHS hospital in Manchester and […]