Today I’m heading to Kigali, Rwanda, the put bigger than 400 main international lecturers, policymakers, and healthcare consultants will win at the Pan-African Surgical Convention to address a important international health discipline: bringing secure right of entry to to comprehensive surgical care nearer to patients’ properties.
This important gathering has me reflecting on a time out I took with my husband, plastic surgeon Bill Magee, bigger than 40 years ago to the Philippines to aid younger of us in want of existence-altering surgeries. We dreamed of the utilization of our healthcare abilities to bring contemporary smiles to younger of us who important cleft lip and palate surgeries. We operated on 40 younger of us but had to pull away 300 more. The need modified into once overwhelming—not appropriate for cleft care, but all surgical procedures within the Philippines and dozens of diversified international locations worldwide.
We also realized that in various locations, there modified into once a lack of professional physicians, nurses, equipment, and infrastructure, not appropriate for cleft care but for safe surgeries of all kinds. What started with a dinky one with a cleft situation led us to a neighborhood, which showed us the necessity for a circulate. That moment sparked Operation Smile, which modified into once founded on the assumption that if you come all over a want, you lift action toward addressing that want.
Today, we now maintain got helped over 400,000 patients worldwide with surgical care, while supporting thousands more who got free comprehensive care products and companies. What started in a village within the Philippines has develop into a international organization that works permanently in 37 international locations.
But the necessity is aloof so mountainous. Worldwide over 5 billion of us—bigger than two-thirds of the realm’s inhabitants—lack secure right of entry to to safe, life like surgery.
Proper trade happens when care is local. That’s why we now maintain got developed our strategy to focal point on coaching and equipping in-country surgeons and medical groups to deliver existence-saving procedures in their communities.
We work carefully with local medical leaders, health ministries, universities, accrediting institutions, NGOs, and international organizations. We listen to our in-country professionals, strengthen them, and learn from them to force influence.
In Africa we operate in 12 international locations, working with top surgical and anesthesiology institutions to form a sustainable physique of workers. Our work in Africa started in Kenya in 1987, and in 2025, we’re expanding to Tanzania. Our key partners—COSECSA, CANECSA, the American Heart Affiliation, and the World Federation Society of Anesthesia—aid us put together and equip Africa’s next know-how of surgeons and anesthesiologists.
In Rwanda, a nation of 13 million, there had been appropriate two plastic surgeons when our work there began. Households searching for cleft surgery traveled hundreds of miles—very best to be turned away. To trade this, we partnered with the Rwandan government, introducing a hub-and-spoke mannequin that trains medical professionals domestically. Today, Rwanda is scaling this mannequin nationwide, and we’re proud to strengthen this effort alongside the Rwanda Surgical Society, the University of Rwanda, and the Rwandan Ministry of Health.
Our influence is accurate: from two plastic surgeons to practically two dozen, and from one country to a continent-wide circulate. Across Africa, 55 universities and institutions are coaching the next know-how of surgeons, decentralizing care, and chopping prices for patients.
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This work is bigger than surgery—it’s a system trade that will future-proof secure right of entry to to surgery. By strengthening local abilities, lowering reliance on out-of-country medical strengthen, and equipping governments with accurate-time health recordsdata, we’re rising a sustainable future for surgical care in Africa.
At the Pan-African Surgical Convention in Kigali, international consultants will come together to push this agenda forward. Only by bringing safe, legit surgery nearer to dwelling can we deliver hope, maintain a lasting influence, and be particular no patient is left within the abet of.
Kathy Magee is the co-founder, president, and CEO of Operation Smile and a registered nurse.
