Global Surgery – Subspecialties in Surgery Speakers

Syed Nabeel Zafar, MD, MPH

Dr. Zafar is currently a clinical fellow in complex general surgical oncology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. His clinical interest is in minimally invasive approaches to gastrointestinal cancers. His academic interest is in providing access to quality surgical care in resource poor settings, specifically cancer surgery. Dr. Zafar has been involved with multiple surgical trips in rural Pakistan. He has published on disparities in surgical care, taught courses to surgical residents on research methodology and helped developed research collaborations between academic institutions in the US and Pakistan. His recent projects have involved the use of existing data sources to study global surgery questions. Dr. Zafar completed his medical education from the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan and a then Master’s in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health as a Fulbright Scholar. He completed his general surgical residency from Howard University in Washington DC and a fellowship in Minimally Invasive Surgery from the University of Maryland.

Abier Abdelnaby, MD

Dr. Abdelnaby is currently an Associate Professor of Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She is double boarded in General Surgery as well as Colon and Rectal Surgery and has been on staff there for 12 years. She also serves as an Associate Program Director for the General Surgery Residency Training Program as well as the Program Director for the Global Health Surgical Fellowship.Her undergraduate education was completed at Cornell University followed by medical school and surgical residency training at Howard University in Washington DC. Her fellowship in Colon and Rectal Surgery was completed at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Her professional interests include surgical education domestically and abroad, diversity and inclusion and of course, global health. She has participated in many global health trips to the Middle East and Sub Saharan Africa as well as Central and South America. Her professional dream is to help establish robust surgical residencies and educational curricula in LMIC’s.

Jaymie Ang Henry, MD, MPH

Dr. Jaymie Henry is the co-founder, Senior Advisor, and founding Executive Director of the Global Alliance for Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma, and Anaesthesia Care (G4 Alliance), a network of over 300 organizations from 160 countries with a collective impact of over $1 billion in surgical service delivery worldwide. Dr. Henry provided strategic direction for the G4 Alliance from its inception, developed and oversaw relations with stakeholders and partners, and organized political and advocacy events in support of surgical care at venues such as country offices, permanent missions, the UN, and the WHO. The collective advocacy of the Alliance was instrumental in the passage of the historic WHO resolution on ‘Strengthening Emergency and Essential Surgical Care as a component of Universal Health Coverage.’ Dr. Henry is currently a founding member of Forbes Impact and founding investor at Laudato Si’ Challenge. She was the Executive Director of the International Collaboration for Essential Surgery (ICES) where she led the successful 15×15 campaign to raise the profile of Essential Surgery by 2015, hosted the first UN side event for Essential Surgery as well as the first UNGA event on surgical care as part of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). She is the Executive Producer, Director, and writer of the Global Surgery advocacy film, The Right to Heal, which has been shown in over 60 countries worldwide and has been reviewed and featured at the Lancet. Dr. Henry was one of the Bellagio Commissioners for the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery and participated in discussing strategies for improving access to surgery worldwide during the Bellagio summit sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. Prior to joining the Alliance, Dr. Henry has advocated for surgical care in international venues such as the UK parliament, Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus Social Business conference (Bangladesh), and the World Congress of Surgical, Obstetric, Trauma, and Anaesthesia (Trinidad and Tobago). Her work has been featured at Newsweek and Forbes as an Icon of Impact. She has more than 20 publications and is a sought-after speaker and lecturer in her field.She is currently completing her General Surgery residency at Florida Atlantic University and is an alumna of the University of Chicago Department of Surgery.