The traditional model for International Surgical Non-profit work is for well-meaning surgeons to give up their time, along with their teams, in order to travel to areas of need and operate on their patients.

I have certainly been involved with numerous ‘surgical missions’ in the past, which did just that.

Although this does provide help to individual patients, it does not address the dependence on foreign teams to continue to travel to the same areas in order for patients to be treated for generations to come.

I was attracted to and became involved with the Committee of the British Foundation for International Reconstructive Surgery and Training (BFIRST), as I was impressed with the ethos to help less fortunate areas of the world by providing surgical training programs in lower income countries. These are tailored to their local need and empowers local surgeons and health providers to ensure continuity of their services, as well as the improvement of their patient care in general.

We have recently entered a new and exciting phase of collaboration with like-minded individuals and institutions around the world, with the aim of further improving our collective reach and impact.

If you would like to find out more about the charity, or feel you would like to get involved or make a donation, then please visit www.bfirst.org.uk.

Closer to home, my patients with Facial Palsy benefit hugely from Facial Palsy UK- a growing national charity that I am also involved with, which funds local support groups and provides a vast amount of information and guidance, to an incredibly deserving, and often forgotten group of people. To find out more- and how to help, please visit www.facialpalsy.org.uk.

Lastly, I am part of the surgical team of UK-Med, a British Charity and WHO partner that provides urgent medical care in disaster zones. To find out more- and how to donate, please visit https://www.uk-med.org