News

LION Malawi
We are looking for a registrar in Plastic Surgery (ideally with an interest in hands) to volunteer to help with the LION project in Malawi for as long as you are able to between 31^st March until early May, either part of the time or for the entirety. Please let us know if you are interested via this link. 


BFIRST mentioned at the IFSSH in Washington

Mr Wee Lam, our previous chairman, spoke about the work BFIRST does at the IFSSH in Washington, during the Global Surgery Session: What Works in Global surgery.
 

Meet the Board 

Mr Naveen Cavale - BFIRST Chair

Tell us about yourself!
I’ve been a consultant for 15 years now ,graduated and trained in London, I have an NHS practice at King’s College and Guy’s & St. Thomas’, and private practice in Battersea. I am in my 3rd year as chair of BFIRST, and I also am patron to KCL Med School’s Plastics Society - one of my passions is teaching and training - both resident and med students.

Tell us about your time with BFIRST?
Started with my involvement in Gaza, I originally went with 2 other charities (IDEALS and MAP), and we were seeing up a joint project with BFIRST, but the recent war intervened, so I have not been back since 2023. I am now involved with 2 new projects with BFIRST - Tanzania, and Guyana, these are growing nicely.

Why did you want to work with BFIRST?
BFIRST is ALL about teaching and training - we are not here to provide ’service’ ie we don’t just arrive in a country and operate on lots of people. Rather, we ‘wait to be invited’, and arrive as ‘guests’, to help local teams learn more as well as do more (capacity building). We are also not about equipment provision, as we simply do not have the funds to provide expensive kit. But we have a huge human resource in the form of UK plastic surgeons (members of BAPRAS, mainly), so we are a people charity, first and foremost!

What are your aspirations for BFIRST?
I don’t want BFIRST to be ‘just about the surgeons’ - we have focussed on consultants to date, and we have seen a great increase in involvement from trainees and med students - this is great, but we also need to involve, nurses, allied health professionals (eg therapists), as well as the other backbones of any decent healthcare system, such as administrators, managers and so forth - so I hope to involve people like this who also help run busy plastic surgery services in the UK.

What do you like to do outside of work and BFIRST?
I travel a lot - I am now a board member of ISAPS (the international aesthetics society), and this is a great way to meet interesting people, learn things that are not done at home, and make new friends. I cycle a lot at home, like fiddling with gadgetry e.g. vintage keyboards is my latest obsession. I also have a family, who are very good at tolerating me!
 

Webinars

There are no webinars lined up for March, but if you have missed any of the webinars from last year you can watch them on our website including some fantastic webinars for revision of key topics within Plastic Surgery!

 

Education

Free online surgical skills course!

Interested in developing your basic surgical skills?

Mr Hamid Tehrani, Consultant Plastic Surgeon, is collaborating with BFIRST to offer 3 different online surgical skills courses. They are fully virtual and can be completed at your own pace and will be most useful for medical students and junior surgical trainees.

If you are interested in enrolling yourself or junior colleagues in this course for free please contact BFIRST on info@bfirst.org.uk

 

Projects 

Zambia

Affiliated BFIRST Projects 

 Breast Cancer Resource for Inter-Breast Specialty Training and Education (BRITE) update

Breast cancer presents a growing and disproportionate health burden in Sub-Saharan Africa. While incidence rates are reported to be lower than in high-income countries, mortality rates are significantly higher, creating a stark and tragic disparity. Despite limited cancer registers in Sub-Saharan Africa, the incidence of breast cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa surged by 247%, with Nigeria accounting for the highest number of cases, between 1990 and 2019. Over the same period, mortality rates in the region increased by 184%, with West Africa experiencing one of the world’s highest burdens.

The existence of a well-functioning multidisciplinary team (MDT) increased the 5-year survival of breast cancer patients by nearly 20%.

Last year plastic surgeons from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, National Hospital Abuja and University College Hospital Ibadan in Nigeria and the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital Accra and Komfe Anokye Teaching Hospital Kumasi in Ghana in partnership with BFIRST and the Association of Breast Surgeons, UK held BRITE courses across both countries, with both up-to-date treatment options and how to make the MDT work well. Nigerian and Ghanaian scholars from all specialties involved in the MDT visited four units in the UK (Luton and Dunstable, East and Noth Herts, Mersey and West Lankashire, and Manchester University Hospitals). We are indebted to the breast surgeons and radiologist (Miss Ruth James, Harleen Deol, Leena Chagla and Trupti Kulkarin) and their teams who hosted them.

Here is the team from Zaria, Nigeria, from left to right: Dr Abubakar Muhammad Lawal (Plastic surgery), Dr Nafisa Bello (Radiology) , Mrs Veronica Bako (Breast Care Nurse), Dr Daniyan Muhammad (Breast surgery)  
   

The BRITE team is conducting a questionnaire survey to determine the inter-specialty competencies required by members of the MDT to work together holistically within the breast cancer care pathway.
 

Please click on the appropriate link below for consultants, residents and nurses to take part in the survey. Thank you!

Consultants                    Residents                   Nurses
 

Fellowships

BFIRST Fellows
We have selected six 2025 BFIRST fellows!
Dr Amanuel Tebikew Kebede from Ethiopia
Dr Mekonen Eshete Abebe from Ethiopia
Dr Olatunde Abdul Oyesanya from Nigeria
Dr Most Nurunnahar Begum from Bangladesh
Dr Ebere Oshinachi Ugwu from Nigeria
Dr Nangandu Amanda Malungo  from Kenya
 
We look forward to bringing you updates from the BFIRST fellows visiting in 2025.
 
Ganga Fellows

Adamtachew Geta and Tigist Zawude have completed their Ganga Fellowship in Coimbatore, India.

During our stay we have observed Management of peripheral nerve injury and  brachial plexus,brachial plexus injury including (obestetric and adult) from preoprative approach to intraoperative an post operative follow up and the significance of hand physiotherapy.

 We had also completed microsurgery course with succesfull anastomosis of rat femoral vessels as per training protocol.

In addition, it was big opportunity to observe the whole system and how it was managed to conduct smooth and coordinated services for the patients from acceptance to discharge.
We are sure that our skill will have great impact on the community for the patients suffering from hand and peripheral nerve injury.

We are grateful to Anthony and all other BFIRST team, Dr. Abrham from ALERT and Professor Raja Sabapathy sir for the opportunity. The last but not the least we are happy to work with BFlRST in our future career and volunteer for call by BFIRST at anytime and place for hand surgery.

Fundraising

This year we will be selling re-usable BFIRST surgical scrub hats! More details to follow!
Funds raised will help us educate and train surgeons in resource limited countries.
 

Other 

Open Hand Therapy Initiative   

The Open Hand Therapy Initiative aims to improve hand injury care in resource challenged settings in order to reduce disability, improve quality of life and increase chances of work for people with hand injuries and conditions.

They provide accessible, relevant and captivating learning opportunities for generalist occupational therapists and physiotherapists that motivate ongoing development for hand-injury care.

They also invite hand therapists acquainted with the challenges faced in low to middle income countries to participate in strengthening hand injury care in these settings by sharing their expertise.

For more information click here!
 

How can I help?

Volunteering

BFIRST is keen for surgeons, nurses and allied specialists to all get involved. Please do get in touch if you are interested. Reconstructive surgery is a team sport!

Also, if you have ideas for new projects that you would like to start, perhaps in new countries, or in areas we already work in, we would love to hear about these, and discuss further.