InterSurgeon Champions

James Johnston, Jr. MD is a pediatric neurosurgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and director of the Global Surgery Program at Children’s of Alabama. He completed his medical school, neurosurgery residency and fellowship training at Washington University in Saint Louis. His clinical interests include neuro-oncology, neuroendoscopy, vascular neurosurgery and craniofacial reconstruction.

Gail is a skull base neurosurgeon who is Clinical Professor at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Her clinical practice is with veterans, with a focus on traumatic brain injury. She is currently on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of the G4 Alliance, the major advocacy organisation for Global Surgery. In addition, she is on the Executive Committee of the the Foundation for International Education in Neurosurgery and serves as Chairman of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Society-World Health Organization (WFNS-WHO) Liaison Committee Chairman and leads International Initiatives for the ThinkFirst Head and Spine Injury Prevention Association. She has been elected to senior leadership positions in the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), Societe de Neurochirurgie de Langue Francaise (SNCLF) and the WFNS. Her interests include pituitary and cranial base surgery, microvascular compression syndromes, stereotactic radiosurgery, global surgery and diversity in surgery.

Graham is a Urological Surgeon at East Sussex Hospitals where he currently has a contract which allows him 3 months of the year to follow his passion which is promoting urological surgery in low income countries. He is a founding member of the Medi Tech Trust which is a charity funding training and a member of Urolink (a section of BAUS promoting global urology). He co-chairs an annual consensus meeting which aims to promote a concerted action plan from all nations. He sees InterSurgeon as a vital part of this process and will strive to make this a valuable tool for all those interested in joining teams visiting other nations as well as the place to go for units wanting to develop the range of procedures they offer.

Tony is an associate professor in ENT with a special interest in children with ear, nose and throat disorders and hearing problems. He has practised predominantly in London over the last 20 years both in the NHS and privately. He is past President of ENT UK and the British Society of Otology and Vice President of the Confederation of British Surgery. For 10 years, he served as an elected member of Royal College of Surgeons Council, including 5 years as the honorary treasurer and RCS Revalidation lead. He recently co-founded The Global Tracheostomy Collaborative, a global multidisciplinary collaborative of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, patients and families committed to improving care for all children and adults with tracheostomies.

James Wilson-MacDonald is an orthopaedic spinal surgeon working in Oxford. He qualified at Bristol University and undertook a higher degree (MCh) in 1990 on bone growth and remodeling. He trained in New Zealand, France, America, Switzerland and the UK. His main interests include the treatment of scoliosis in children, the management of back pain, spinal trauma, spinal infection and medico-legal issues. He is involved in the development of new treatments for scoliosis in children. He was senior editor of the Trauma section of the Oxford Textbook of Trauma and Orthopaedics. He has published widely in peer reviewed journals on a wide variety of spinal disorders, and has written a number of book chapters. He has been an assessor for the General Medical Council and the Royal College of Surgeons. He has provided orthopaedic advice to British Rowing. He has a wide experience in medico-legal reporting.

David Kulber, MD, FACS, is board certified in Hand Surgery and Plastic Surgery.  As a longtime member of Cedars-Sinai Medical Group, his practice covers the full spectrum of plastic, reconstructive, hand and aesthetic surgery.  He is the director of Hand and Upper Extremity Surgery, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Director of the Marilyn and Jefferey Katzenberg Hand Fellowship, and the Director of the Plastic Surgery Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.  He is also a full Professor of Surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and at Cedars-Sinai.  Dr. Kulber is a member of the Cedars-Sinai Orthopaedic Center, which is recognised as one of the top orthopaedic centres in the nation by U.S. News and World Report. 

Soham Bandyopadhyay is a final year medical student at the University of Oxford. He is the current chair of the Neurology And NeuroSurgery Interest Group (NANSIG) and the UK branch of the International Student Surgical Network (InciSioN). He is a council member of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) Clinical Neurosciences Section and the British Medical Association (BMA) South Central Region. His clinical and research interests are in neurosurgery, global health, and trauma.

Marilyn is a paediatric general surgeon in Portland, Oregon, USA, where she is a Professor of Surgery at Oregon Health and Science University. In an effort to coordinate the efforts of volunteer paediatric surgeons, in 2010 she founded the Global Paediatric Surgery Network, which merged in 2017 with the Global Initiative for Children’s Surgery. She has worked for many years with paediatric surgeons in Vietnam, and as Co-Chair of the Global Alliance Partnership of the Pacific Association of Pediatric Surgeons, she is committed to supporting colleagues in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr. Kathleen Casey is a surgeon who is passionate about global health and addressing disparities in surgical care. In 2004 she founded the Operation Giving Back program at the American College of Surgeons, which supports the global surgical humanitarian ecosystem and fosters collaboration and innovation to advance equity in surgical care; she served as its Director for 9 years. She is a founder and one of the architects of the G4 Alliance (the Global Alliance for Surgery, Obstetric, Trauma and Anesthesia Care) – an initiative uniting scores of global organisations in advocating for the neglected surgical patient in global health and development – where she has served as an inaugural officer and board member. Dr. Casey currently serves as Chief Medical Officer for the non-profit Physicians for Peace, and is a past President of the Alliance for Surgery and Anesthesia Presence (ASAP) and the US Chapter of the International Society of Surgery. She serves on the boards of the International Student Surgical Network (InciSioN) and InterSurgeon. She has been recognized with Humanitarian Awards from the American Medical Association and the International College of Surgeons and has published widely on global surgery.

Alasdair Kennedy is an Ophthalmic Surgeon in the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Deanery and an Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. He has spent time working in a clinical capacity in the Beni Department, Bolivia and in Sierra Leone, West Africa. His research interests include glaucoma, uveitis and ophthalmic infectious diseases in low income settings. He sees InterSurgeon as a fantastic opportunity to build partnerships and share knowledge in the field of global health and is particularly enthusiastic about the benefits of teaching, training and research that this platform will provide.

Dilraj Grewal, MD is an Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the Duke Eye Center, and a Director of Grading at the Duke Reading Center. He completed his Vitreoretinal Surgery fellowship at Duke and Uveitis fellowship training at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. Dr Grewal has authored over 110 peer-reviewed publications and over 120 presentations. He has been the recipient of the Ronald G. Michels Foundation Fellowship Award, the Heed Ophthalmic Foundation Fellowship Award, Senior Achievement Award from the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Rhett Buckler and Senior Honor Awards from American Society of Retina Specialists.

Dr Neelan Das is a Senior Consultant Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiologist at Kent and Canterbury Hospital, United Kingdom.He specialises in Vascular and Non Vascular Interventional Radiology and has spearheaded the development of the embolotherapy service (including prostate artery embolisation). Neelan also leads on research and is the local principle investigator in several cutting edge multicentre trials utilising interventional radiology techniques, medical imaging and advanced technology. He is leading on the implementation of artificial intelligence tools  within the division of imaging at East Kent Hospitals Foundation Trust and has published on the ethics of AI in radiology.

Haley Vance, DNP, CPNP-AC is a Paediatric Nurse Practitioner and Associate in the Department of Neurosurgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. For fifteen years, she has dedicated her nursing career to caring for paediatric neurosurgery patients. She is an associate member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) and Past-President of the Tennessee Nurses Association (TNA). She has spent time in Tanzania partnering with nurses on education and training in the care of patients with neurosurgical conditions.

Dominique Vervoort is a Belgian doctor and current MPH/MBA dual degree student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He completed the Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellowship at the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change at Harvard Medical School, and is Co-Founder, Immediate Past Chair, and current Trustee of InciSioN – International Student Surgical Network, the world’s largest global surgery trainee organization worldwide with over 5,000 members in over 80 countries. Dominique has introduced the concept of global cardiac surgery to literature and established the Global Cardiac Surgery Initiative to advocate for the nearly six billion people worldwide without access to cardiac surgical care.

Kaushal Tiwari is an Associate professor of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery at Kathmandu University. He was trained in Belarus and Italy and has worked in several countries, including as a humanitarian Cardiac surgeon in Sudan and Palestine. He established and headed for four years a new department of CTVS in the College of Medical Sciences, Teaching Hospital, Bharatpur, Nepal, which gave him significant experience and confidence in administrative and organizational work. He is currently working as a Senior Consultant Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgeon at ADK Hospital Pvt. Ltd., Malè, Republic of Maldives. He is actively involved in developing the new department and managing all sorts of adult cardiac and congenital heart diseases. He is particularly interested in and regularly performing Minimal Invasive Cardiac Surgery. He is also involved in treating thoracic and vascular surgery patients. Kaushal is the founding General Secretary of the National Heart and Lung Society of Nepal and was actively involved in screening and treating Rheumatic Heart disease patients in Nepal from 2014 to 2019. He also established a NGO, Heart Fund Nepal, to help with the treatment of poor patients needing cardiac surgery.

Tom is an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon in the West of Scotland. He trained in Galway, London, Bristol & Glasgow. He has undertaken fellowships in Maxillofacial Trauma, and Paediatric Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery. He has experience of global surgery in India (Cleft), Philippines (Cleft & Paediatric OMFS) & Ecuador (Ear Reconstruction). He has published widely and authored book chapters on facial clefts. He has held positions on BAOMS council, including being the Normal Rowe International Foundation Trainee Representative. He organised the first UK Global OMFS Conference at the Royal Society of Medicine in November 2019. He is keen to develop a global registry of rare facial clefts to ensure appropriate protocols.

Dr Isioma Okolo is an Obstetrics & Gynaecology senior registrar in Scotland, UK. She graduated from University of Edinburgh in 2011 and was elected to the Membership of the Royal College of Obstetrics & Gynaecology in 2018. Isioma was born in Nigeria and has worked in Nigeria, Uganda and Brazil. Her research interests include acute gynaecology, early pregnancy and advanced labour ward practice and medical education. She is focused on advancing equity through strengthening of obstetric & gynaecological care capacity for disadvantaged populations. She is currently a Paul Farmer research fellow at the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change(PGSSC), Harvard Medical School. She is also completing an MPH at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. Isioma is the recipient of the Brigham & Women’s Hospital Connors Global Women’s Health fellowship award, BEST Scholar award, RCOG Bernhard Bahron and Medical Association of Nigerians across Great Britain (MANSAG) Travelling fellowship awards. She is excited about the platform InterSurgeon can provide in facilitating equitable global surgery obstetrics and anaesthesia collaborative opportunities for training and research.