Inspiring the next generation of war doctors
On Friday 21st October, David and a key member of our Training Faculty, Dr Ammar Darwish, met over 100 sixth form students at Whalley Range School in Manchester. The pair shared their experiences as frontline doctors and some of our cutting-edge teaching equipment, such as our war wound model Heston, 3D printed hearts and model blood vessels.
Earlier this year, we received a letter from Waad Fellag, a sixth form student who dreams of becoming a doctor. After reading our Co-Founder’s book, War Doctor, Waad shared: “David Nott showed me the impact he and his team have had on families, especially children. I grew to understand that the simplest and slightest words or actions make a real difference in a person’s life.
Waad asked if we would visit her school to meet the “many bright minds who are passionate about become doctors”, some of which have lived in war-torn countries such as Syria, Libya and Afghanistan.
“A medical degree gives you a passport”
Speaking to over 100 female students, David shared stories from 31 surgical missions and his time treating the wounded following two natural disasters. His first humanitarian mission to Sarajevo in 1993 will always stay with him.
Students listened intently as he reflected on operating in a makeshift hospital, nicknamed ‘The Swiss Cheese’ due to gaping holes in the walls caused by bomb blasts and artillery. Steam escaped the edges his mask as he operated in the freezing cold with no electricity.
David shared: “A Lancet article revealed that 17 million people die every year due to conditions that require surgical treatment. It’s a wonderful thing to have the skills, hands and brain to make people in need better again. A medical degree gives you a passport to help people anywhere in the world.”
Future leaders
Elly Nott, our CEO and Co-Founder, said: “David receives dozens of invitations to speak each year, but Waad’s message, with her desire to inspire her fellow students to become humanitarian doctors, struck a chord with us. Encouraging the next generation of humanitarian doctors, in particular those attending state schools and young women, is an important and valued arm of our work.
I was also pleased to share with students that there are many different ways to lead a humanitarian life. Your contribution may not be medical but is just as valued no matters its form, be that legal, administrative, operational or diplomatic. It was an incredibly uplifting and inspiring afternoon for our team.”
After David’s stories, Faculty Trainer, Dr Ammar Darwish, talked the group through our one-of-a-kind war wound model, Heston. Students gasped as he used Heston to illustrate the damage caused by penetrating head injuries, the benefits of using skin flaps to encourage wound healing, and how to stop severe bleeding in the heart and lungs.
Scrubbed Up
Dr Darwish was followed by Scrubbed Up, an outstanding student-led organisation that supports prospective and current medical students, offering guidance on every career step from university applications to exam preparations.
Miss Toyin Bakare, Assistant Head Teacher at Whalley Range School, said: “We are grateful to David Nott, Scrubbed Up and the team for going above and beyond the request made by one of our incredible students, Waad, to visit our school.
It was a demonstration of the power of the written word, which can sow seeds, nurture ideas, and empower others to make a meaningful impact in their spheres of influence.”
What can you do?
We were in awe of each and every student’s enthusiasm, vibrancy and determination to make a difference in the world in their own way. In Waad’s words, “I ask you all – what can you do to help those who need us the most?”
Overcoming hurdles to train doctors in Palestine
In collaboration with Juzoor for Health and Social Development and the Palestine Medical Council, we trained 34 surgeons in Ramallah, Palestine, in July. Despite logistical challenges, our faculty delivered a course that met the urgent needs of Palestinian doctors.
At the David Nott Foundation, we have a strong connection with Palestine and the dedicated healthcare workers serving their communities in acutely challenging circumstances. We first delivered our HEST course in Ramallah in March 2017 and, as part of our commitment to sustainability, also trained a dozen Palestinian surgeons on our UK course. It was a joy to return to Ramallah, seeing several familiar faces among very welcome new ones.
Daily challenges
Providing healthcare in Palestine is complicated by the realities of displacement and occupation. Since 2002, the construction of a separation wall cutting into Palestinian territory has severely inhibited freedom of movement across the West Bank.
The wall is a barrier to Palestinians seeking to exercise their fundamental human rights, including their right to healthcare. The movement of ambulances, healthcare workers and resources is impeded by military checkpoints and arbitrary closures.
During our latest mission in Ramallah, our Co-Founder and Chief Executive Elly Nott visited the Augusta Victoria and Al-Makassed Hospitals in East Jerusalem and heard about the challenges they face in providing care. Travel from the West Bank and Gaza to these hospitals requires a permit. Applications – and therefore treatment - is often delayed or denied.
Describing the city of Ramallah, Dr Salwa Najjab, Co-Founder and Chairwoman at Juzoor, said:
“I love Ramallah. But we don’t have control of our borders, we are living in a big prison. Our people should be exposed to the world. We are very happy and thankful to the David Nott Foundation, to come and see what we are doing, to understand our situation and see it in their eyes.”
Adapt and overcome
We were honoured to train 34 surgeons working in a number of Palestinian cities and towns, such as Ramallah, Jenin, Hebron and Jericho. Due to delays caused by the shipping company and customs, much of the course had to be taught with a fraction of our usual cutting-edge teaching equipment. However, the energy and enthusiasm of our faculty, led by Course Director Dr Rebekka Troller, ensured it was an engaging and successful course.
Our team, Juzoor, and the Palestine Medical Council worked together to recreate practical parts of the training. Until our simulation model arrived, we used soft silicone hearts, prosthetic blood vessels, and sponges to mimic lung repairs. Animal organs were also donated to allow attendees to practice kidney repairs.
Dr Morgan McMonagle, consultant trauma and vascular surgeon, and member of our teaching faculty, said:
“It’s always challenging holding a training course, even in the UK. When you train overseas, the hurdles are both different and magnified, but we rose to the challenge in Palestine.
Hospitals in conflict zones are often faced with reduced resources. Like any good doctor in an austere environment, we adapted to what was in front of us and were still able to deliver an excellent course for our attendees.”
An ongoing partnership
Addressing the doctors, Elly Nott, our Co-Founder and Chief Executive, said: “The goal of our training is the same wherever we go. To empower local surgeons and share our knowledge with them, in the hope that it will save more lives.
We see this course as the start of an ongoing journey with Juzoor and Palestine - training which we hope will strengthen doctors’ surgical education.”
The Palestinian surgeons we trained, and our partner Juzoor, will be remembered for their warmth, generosity and optimism.
"The skin is alive - it's all because of you."
“Here – you do it.” These were the words of our Co-Founder David, as he handed a skin grafting instrument to Ivan, a junior doctor in eastern Ukraine attending our surgical training course.
During a Russian shelling, a woman suffered catastrophic leg injuries. Working to repair her wound during a mission in Ukraine, David used the surgery as an opportunity to train local doctors.
He showed them how to perform a skin graft to treat the injury – and that wrapping the graft in fluffy gauze can help with healing. This technique differs to standard wound treatment, which often involves the application of antiseptic spirits and bandages.
David and Ivan have kept in touch since his returned to the UK – a common story for David and our trainers. We are proud to have created a supportive community of war doctors that can ask questions or share cases with us at any time, from anywhere.
When Ivan looked at his patient’s wound in recovery, he was overwhelmed with joy to see that it was healing. During a phone call, he shared with David:
“The skin is alive! It’s all because of you.
I’ve started a little revolution in my hospital. I’ve started to do what you do - using the fluffy gauze for skin grafts. The patient’s granulation (tissue that is an important component of wound healing) is awesome. We haven’t needed to use any antibiotics.
It was one of the best moments of my life doing this operation. I can only say thank you for your knowledge.”
Ivan, a junior doctor facing the horrors of his country’s war, is now armed with a skill that can be used to treat devastating injuries. He plans to teach this technique to his peers – and potentially even senior doctors who typically use other methods.
Although unusual for a junior doctor to teach senior consultants, in war, titles are stripped away. All that matters is the sharing of knowledge and saving of lives.
To carry out the next phase of the patient’s skin graft surgery, David offered his help over Skype. Ivan and his father, a Chief of Surgery based in Kharkiv, will work together with David to rebuild the woman’s leg and remove as many traces of the evidence of war as possible.
Surgery over Skype isn’t new to our Co-Founder. During the historic siege in Aleppo, David guided surgeons online as they reconstructed a man’s shattered jaw. The Syrian surgeons, Dr Assaf and Dr Baydak, successfully carried out the operation and put the man’s face back together again.
The stark similarities between Syrian and Ukrainian conflict do not go unnoticed. As witnessed in Aleppo, healthcare workers in Ukraine are in urgent need of our support. As the war continues to wage on, we are more driven than ever to train doctors and help them prevent needless deaths.
“You have given me new breath in surgery,” shared Ivan. “You were not scared to come here and share knowledge. Thank you.”
More on our training in Ukraine
We’re back from training frontline doctors in two Ukrainian cities
An experienced team of trainers have just returned from delivering two HEST courses in Dnipro and Kharkiv. Here, consultant neurosurgeon and faculty member Pete Mathew shares his experience of teaching frontline doctors in Ukraine and what makes a course successful.
After David volunteered in Ukraine in April, it became clear there was an urgent need to return and deliver our war surgery training course to doctors in the country.
We decided it was best to send a small but experienced team, consisting of David, myself and Ammar Darwish. The three of us have worked in a number of war zones over the past decade – and Ammar and I have been part of the Foundation’s teaching faculty for years.
Reaching as many doctors as possible
To have a bigger impact, we decided to deliver two courses in Ukraine. We held one three-day course in Dnipro and another in Kharkiv – two cities that have faced significant attacks over the past few weeks.
To enter the country and support us on our mission, we worked with UOSSM International. Together, we travelled from Poland and made our way to our first training destination – what appeared to be a teaching facility in Dnipro.
On the walls, there were pictures of students happy and smiling, a stark difference to Ukraine’s present reality.
Training overseas is always a leap into the unknown. We never quite know where the teaching location will be. We don’t always know what sort of doctors will arrive. But it always comes together.
Once we got our bearings, we set our equipment up before the doctors arrived – from Heston our war wound model to David’s comprehensive training videos on a projector. Heston is an excellent teaching aid for describing injuries or techniques.
Making an impact in Dnipro
In Dnipro we had over 30 attendees of varying seniority and specialties - junior doctors, consultants, emergency doctors and an anaesthetist. We had a fantastic Ukrainian translator with us, which was amazing. Different doctors arrived on different days, which is quite normal in an emergency, resource-poor setting. They need to return to treating patients on the frontline.
Sometimes it can take a little time to gain the trust of attendees. We need to prove our worth – which is absolutely understandable.
Creating a community
Some of the surgeries are quite simple, but the hurdle is finding the confidence to do them under challenging, high-stress circumstances. We want doctors to feel empowered - sometimes all that’s needed is confidence. We want doctors to feel inspired to learn and try the techniques they’ve seen on our course.
We hear from those we train that we offer a morale boost, but perhaps more importantly we provide a forum for surgeons with different levels of experience to have discussions and raise questions – a safe space for doctors to debate views.
Speaking with the doctors we met in Dnipro, it was clear they were resigned to the inevitability of returning to the frontline after our course ended. They are solemnly grinding away. Some of the very junior doctors were more anxious about returning to work.
The road to Kharkiv
After three days, we packed up and travelled up to Kharkiv to deliver our second course. The group – 28 doctors - were very happy to see us.
Back-to-back courses can be very tiring, but we are always happy to do it. It’s always very tempting to do two in a row, to reach more people.
There was a marked change in behaviour from the beginning to the end of our courses. Being an effective teacher requires getting your message across with enthusiasm. If you don’t feel drained after a course, or you don’t see excitement in your audience, you haven’t given it everything.
You also need to be able to adapt to the needs of your attendees. It’s important to be flexible and go off-script – to deliver the course in a way that best suits those in front of you.
Standing in solidarity
When training in active war zones like Ukraine, an experienced team, support from the Foundation and partners like UOSSM International are important.
I hope our training has boosted Ukrainian doctors. As long as this war wages on, we will continue to offer whatever support we can.
Surgery on the frontline in Ukraine: David Nott in conversation with Bridget Kendall
We are delighted to announce that The BEARR Trust is hosting an event with our Co-Founder David, to discuss his work providing emergency surgical care and training local doctors in Ukraine.
David will be in conversation with award-winning journalist and BEARR patron, Bridget Kendall, to share his stories of working in crisis and catastrophe zones for over 25 years - including the delivery of two HEST courses in Ukraine. The online event will take place at 18:30 BST on Monday 27 June via Zoom.
About Bridget Kendall
Bridget Kendall worked for the BBC for over 30 years, specialising in Soviet and Russian affairs after graduating from Oxford and Harvard universities. From 1989 to 1995, Bridget was the BBC’s Moscow correspondent, covering the final years of the USSR and the first years of post-Soviet Russia.
As the BBC’s Diplomatic correspondent from 1998 to 2016, she covered conflicts in Chechnya, Georgia, Tajikistan and Ukraine, among others, and in 2001 and 2006 she conducted two interviews with Vladimir Putin, both broadcast live to the world from inside the Kremlin.
In 2016, Bridget was elected Master of Peterhouse Cambridge. She is also a patron of The BEARR Trust.
Register to attend this special event today
From underground hospitals in Syria to training in Gaziantep
For the first time, we delivered two surgical training courses over a four-week period in different countries. Our latest course was for Syrian doctors in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, some of whom had worked together in hospitals in Aleppo between 2011 and 2016.
After a memorable course at Edna Adan Hospital in Somaliland, we partnered with Syria Relief to train 26 healthcare professionals in Gaziantep.
A Turkish city near the border with Syria, Gaziantep is home to a number of doctors who know the destruction of war all too well. Many were forcibly displaced from Syria by conflict and some had operated with David in underground hospitals when eastern Aleppo faced military bombardment and siege.
Unbreakable bonds
When the Syrian government, with Russian air support, began targeting medical workers and healthcare facilities, doctors started treating patients in secret hospitals with extremely limited resources. David travelled to Aleppo to help the doctors manage complex injuries and save lives. His sharing of surgical knowledge often led to life-long bonds with those he taught.
Dr Mahmoud Hariri from Aleppo shares: “I first met David in 2013. He came to us in Aleppo, and we learned many things. We learned to be multi-tasking surgeons. I can now do surgery on the kidney, heart, vessels. This is the notion of the multi-tasking doctor. A lot of lives have been saved.”
Dr Hariri and 25 others joined our Gaziantep course with the help of our Course Director Dr Ammar Darwish and the Syrian Board of Medical Specialties (SBOMS), an organisation dedicated to helping Syrian medics work as specialised doctors in northern regions of Syria.
Trainees becoming trainers
The course was taught by accomplished Faculty - some who had learned from David in Syria or during a previous HEST course - and were now excellent surgical teachers.
Helping trainees become trainers is what we are here for. We want to empower doctors within countries affected by conflict and catastrophe to be surgical and health system leaders, serving their own communities.
The group learned how to manage and treat complex war wounds, such as blast injuries, gaping holes in the body, or deep burns. They also learned what to prioritise when faced with multiple wounds, the majority of which they will never have seen during standard medical training.
New skills in practice
Others on the course had also worked with David in conflict. Dr Ehab Baydak, a maxillofacial surgeon from Idlib, Syria, saved a man’s life with David’s help over skype. Since then, Dr Baydak has put his skills to practice in his community.
“During the siege of Aleppo, I was working in an underground hospital and received a patient whose face was severely injured from a bombing. We hadn’t seen this type of injury before and didn’t know how to deal with this,” Dr Baydak shares.
“Due to the siege, we couldn’t transfer patients outside of the city. Dr Murhaf Assaf and I contacted David who talked us through how to do the operation over Skype.
After the Syrian regime took control of Aleppo, I moved back to Idlib to be with my family. There, I came across the same injury, and I was able to do the surgical procedure alone – all because of my experience with David.”
Our courses teach healthcare professionals how to perform procedures just like this – operations that David has undertaken in war zones over 30 years of voluntary humanitarian work. We were honoured to contribute to the surgical education of 26 doctors in Gaziantep, giving them the skills needed to save lives and limbs against the odds.
Mosul to Manchester: Our war surgery training in practice
Dr Moez Zeiton is one of our surgical trainers. As a humanitarian surgeon, Moez has witnessed the realities of war, but never expected to see similar horrors on British ground. Here, Moez shares his journey to joining our teaching faculty and how he’s used his surgical skills around the world.
Moez’s first exposure to medicine was through his father training as a general surgeon and specialising in oncoplastic breast surgery.
“I sort of drifted into medicine myself. I loved biology at school, but my love for the sciences and in particular, my inspirational high school Biology teacher shaped my decision to study it. When I started the course at the University of Leeds, I remember loving the anatomy and dissection work and knew surgery and acute trauma were fields I was interested in,” Moez shares.
A fork in the road
“My entry into humanitarian work started by accident. I always felt a connection to the Middle East through my family and having regularly travelled there as a child to visit extended family and friends.
So, when the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011 arose, I got involved with charitable initiatives sending medical aid and worked on advocacy, opinion pieces and articles. I knew I wanted to be there on the ground, so I negotiated a one-year sabbatical from my surgical training. At the age of 25, I left for Libya to do my part.”
Moez worked with non-government organisations and local Libyan doctors, opening him up to the world of humanitarian health. This led to him taking on a voluntary role as National NGO Coordinator for six months. He also attended courses on analysing disrupted health systems with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Taking part in our training
After his sabbatical, Moez continued his surgical training in the UK and fed his interest in humanitarian surgery with research. He was part of The Lancet’s series on health in the Arab world and commission on global cancer surgery. He also attended the Scholars in Health and Research Programme at the American University of Beirut.
Working at a major trauma centre in the UK, Moez worked alongside some of our senior faculty and was introduced to our Surgical Training in Austere Environment (STAE) course. He was one of the first doctors to benefit from our scholarship programme, attending our STAE course in 2017.
“On the final day of the course at the Royal College of Surgeons, I met people from WHO and Aspen Medical International who were looking for doctors to help with trauma victims in Mosul, Iraq, following ISIS invasion. Two months later, I found myself there, with a group of expat and Iraqi doctors.
Immediately, I was able to put my new war surgery knowledge to practice - damage control and how to save lives and limbs.”
War wounds in Manchester
Two weeks after returning from Mosul, Moez was unexpectedly faced with war injuries in Manchester – blast wounds following the Manchester Arena bombings.
“The injuries I saw were very similar to what I’d seen in Iraq and had been teaching on the Foundation’s courses - blast injuries from shrapnel and metalwork. I was able to use what I’d learnt but now in my home country.
Although it was shocking and very stressful, things worked seamlessly in our hospital and the camaraderie, hard work and collaboration I saw across 7 or 8 local hospitals that received injured patients was unlike anything I had seen before. I truly saw the NHS at its best.”
Becoming a trainer
“After my return from Mosul, I was invited to join the Foundation’s orthopaedic faculty. Being part of the Foundation’s faculty for the past 5 years, teaching the skills I learned on that STAE course in 2017, is incredibly special.”
For the first time, Moez led the orthopaedic section of our recent course in Gaziantep.
“Although I had been teaching on the STAE course in London for some time, the oversea HEST course required a slightly different approach. I needed to prepare and familiarise myself with the course material. Attending the Train the Trainers course which was put on by the Foundation really helped with this.
The 26 Syrian surgeons we trained shared incredible stories and the cases they faced during conflict with limited resources. Rather than teaching, I facilitated discussions around patient cases, learning from shared experiences and taking things back to fundamental principles. I learned just as much from the inspiring candidates as they learned from me!
This was also the first time that I had delivered an all-day comprehensive professional course in Arabic. It was extremely challenging considering I’ve only practiced medicine in English. However, the feedback and appreciation that I received from attendees is certainly one of the best achievements in my career.”
Leaving a legacy
Looking to the future, Moez wants to continue serving those in need in the UK and around the globe.
“I feel passionately about my humanitarian work and want to continue this in tandem with my NHS role, ideally doing one or two missions a year.
The NHS is such a huge organisation and has a vast resource of skills, knowledge and cultural experiences that can be tapped into. The world is incredibly connected. No matter how far away they may seem, conflict and disasters that happen in other countries continue to affect us directly or indirectly through human migration, security and the economy. We should be using our training and unique cultural experiences to help others around the world.”
Help us train more war doctors
David reflects on his latest mission in Ukraine
Our Co-Founder David Nott recently travelled to Ukraine with UOSSM International, performing life-changing surgeries and offering guidance to doctors across the country. Here, David shares his reflections on what will remain a memorable and emotional mission.
My latest mission to Ukraine was an incredibly important one for me. I travelled everywhere, north, south, east and west.
I initially started in one hospital. When they knew what I could do, I was asked to go to more hospitals, and it started to snowball from there. I began by treating a number of old war injuries, people that had holes in their legs and arms, loss of shoulders and big fragmentation wounds.
It was clear that Ukrainian surgeons wanted support with plastic surgery. Many didn’t know how to rotate flaps, some had never seen one before. Many had never done war surgery at all. So, I spent my first week just operating and operating - doing all I could.
At one point, I had 14 or 15 people in an operating theatre all bent over watching what I was doing. It's a great way to teach - I stood back and told them where to make the incisions. They were delighted to learn.
I reconstructed a patient’s shoulder that had been blown off and other serious blast wounds. When I went back the next day to see one of the blast patients, they gave me a thank you plaque which was incredibly kind. They were desperate to have somebody show them what to do – someone there to help them.
I travelled all over the country to regions that have now been heavily bombed. I saw how refugees in Lviv are gathering in a railway station, and the fantastic work that NGOs are doing there. There are thousands of people, all being fed and sheltered with the help of outstanding charities.
Now having seen the devastation, it feels like the exact same tactics as in Syria. When I was in Aleppo in 2016, the whole region was completely and utterly destroyed. What we’re seeing in cities like Mariupol – the destruction - feels very similar to what I witnessed in Aleppo.
Teaching has carried on here in the UK. I taught a doctor called Oleksandr who contacted me when I was back home. He watched me repair a serious leg wound in Ukraine and had seen the condensed training videos we made for surgeons there, but Oleksandr was now the lead surgeon faced with a similar blast injury.
I guided him through his surgery remotely, as he took a flap of skin from behind the knee to repair and close the wound.
"I was quite nervous, but it went well thanks to David Nott. He showed us ordinary doctors how to fight on the medical frontline." - Oleksandr
Oleksandr and his colleagues are treating awful injuries that no-one should ever experience. But the injuries will keep coming, so it’s my hope that they will pass on what they’ve learned. By sharing my knowledge and 30 years of war surgery experience, a lasting legacy is created.
There’s a huge amount of work to do. I think surgeons and healthcare professionals in Ukraine will be faced with war wound reconstructions for many years. Plastic surgery will be incredibly important as the conflict continues – and far into the future too. The Foundation will do all we can to help doctors navigate this war and its aftermath.
Training in Somaliland with 'A Woman of Firsts'
In March 2022, we were honoured to train 34 healthcare workers in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Here, our CEO Elly Nott shares how this HEST course came to fruition and how it marks the beginning of a special relationship with a very special hospital.
Over Christmas, I came across a book. ‘A Woman of Firsts’ is Edna Adan Ismail’s inspiring story of how she became a pioneering political and global health leader and campaigner for women’s rights. The respect and affection in which she is held in her home country, Somaliland, is truly remarkable and witnessed wherever one goes with her.
Building an empire
In 1998, she began building a hospital on an empty patch of land in the capital of Somaliland, Hargeisa. Through her will and determination, the foundations Edna established became a maternity hospital, which has since diversified into a major referral institution.
The Edna Adan Hospital treats obstetric, paediatric, surgical and medical cases from across the Horn of Africa. The Edna Adan University provides skilled healthcare workers to work in the hospital and other institutions in Somaliland, consistently occupying the top of the teaching league tables.
When I contacted Edna and asked if she would be interested in us running a HEST course at her hospital, she welcomed the idea straight away.
From the moment we arrived in Somaliland, we felt the warmth of Edna’s hospitality and all the inspirational healthcare workers who had travelled from across the country to participate in our training. Our outstanding faculty enjoyed sharing knowledge and techniques that would make a real difference to the participants’ management of traumatic injuries.
A need for well-trained surgeons
There is a real need for our partnership. A 2020 paper for the Lancet written by Dr Shukri Dahir et al, concluded that ‘the surgical system in Somaliland did not reach any of the target indicator goals as defined by LCoGS’ [Lancet Commission on Global Surgery]. The greatest need was for protection against catastrophic expenditure for low-income families on medical care and access to well-trained surgeons, anaesthetists and obstetricians.
The HEST course was just the start of our collaboration. In the coming months, we will welcome the doctors we met to the UK for our next Train the Trainers course. This time, they will teach alongside our UK-based faculty. We will also continue to work with the dedicated healthcare workers of Somaliland to support their training and ensure local people have access to safe, skilled surgical care.
By chance, our course coincided with International Women’s Day (IWD). A solid third of the participants in this HEST course were women and we were delighted to have the opportunity to contribute to their surgical careers. To spend IWD 2022 in the company of Edna, and the healthcare workers she has inspired and mentored, was truly an honour.
More on our HEST course in Somaliland