Seeing new smiles, with volunteer anaesthetist Essam Ali

“The smile was absolutely different”

There’s one smile that Essam Ali will never forget. Volunteering as an anaesthetist with Operation Smile, he was caring for a 9-month-old child during surgery for a cleft lip. Thankfully, everything had gone well, from the anaesthesia to the life-changing surgery itself.

“I was starting to wake him up, so he still had the breathing tube in his mouth,” Essam says. “Suddenly he just smiled as he was waking up – and that smile was absolutely different. A complete smile, with his cleft lip repaired. That moment has always stuck in my head.”

A win-win situation

Moments like this can feel a world away from Essam’s day job, as a specialist doctor in anaesthetics and intensive care at Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust. As a relatively small district hospital, Essam explains, they see different patients for a range of surgeries, but there’s no plastic surgery function and children are usually treated at larger hospitals. He therefore finds his volunteer and NHS roles complement each other well.

“Volunteering with Operation Smile is a great way to keep up my paediatric anaesthesia skills, just in case of an emergency,” says Essam. “That’s why I’m keen to join at least one surgical programme a year. It also means my department are very supportive of me maintaining those skills. Like all our medical volunteers, Essam is able to give his time, care and skill thanks to support from his UK colleagues and managers.

“They support in any way they can, such as giving time off or getting cover for on-call activity,” he says. “I think it’s a win-win situation for anyone thinking of volunteering.”

Getting hooked: the journey with Operation Smile

It was as a final-year medical student in Egypt that Essam first heard about Operation Smile, when a programme coordinator approached him to help with translation.

“They had an international team and needed people to interpret conversations with parents, between English and Arabic,” he says. “That’s what got me hooked.”

After graduating in Egypt, Essam had a few options for where his career could take him next.

“You can join training straight away, or maybe do a period as a GP and then decide on a speciality,” he explains. “Anaesthesia was one of those specialities and I enjoyed it. I liked the idea of interacting with people and meeting lots of different patients through short-term cases.”

Bringing smiles through high-quality care

Since volunteering with Operation Smile on more than 10 surgical programmes, Essam’s found it has broadened both his professional and personal horizons – and he encourages his colleagues to consider doing the same.

“Operation Smile’s care standards are the same high quality around the world, but you do gain experience of different health systems and speak with different medical teams, so professionally it’s very rewarding,” he says. “Seeing different systems – even the IT! – gives you an insight into how we might develop in one area, or what the NHS is already doing well in another.”

Personally, Essam values the chance to travel and discover new countries, encountering people and places he would never visit as a tourist.

“And at the same time, you have this reward of bringing smiles to the faces of children,” he adds.

A new family tradition

Essam has just returned from a surgical programme in Monterrey in Mexico, where he was welcomed into a new team straight away. Together they screened almost 200 patients, delivering 92 surgeries and 15 dental procedures.

Closer to home, there are young lives he’s influencing too.

“I didn’t see my children when I arrived home from travelling last night, but I picked them up from school today,” he says. “And on the way home, my older son asked me, ‘When I’m bigger, like in high school, can I join you on one of these programmes?’”

Essam’s proud response?

“I said yes, of course.”