Dr Mohamed Gamal Sayed Mahmoud
May 2009
Dr Mahmoud is a veterinary surgeon from Cairo, Egypt. He graduated in 2005 and has been voluntarily offering his services to the Egyptian Society of Animal Friends; an organisation which is specifically trying to improve animal welfare work in his country. Their aim is to educate the local welfare groups on enhanced sterilisation techniques.
Mohamed commented on the animal welfare problem in Egypt:
"We have wanted to make big changes to the way that animal welfare is viewed in our country. For too long companion animal welfare has been disregarded as unimportant in comparison to the welfare of equines and working animals and this needs to be changed. This can only occur through programmes like yours which encourage greater skill levels and higher competency as a veterinary surgeon. I believe that this scheme will give me the understanding to take this situation further and make a real difference upon my return."
During the three weeks which he spent here in May he was able to learn about the use of gas anaesthesia, intubation and more efficient sterilisation techniques. Although competent in dog castration techniques it was clear that he would benefit greatly from the expertise of our staff when performing cat spays.
Ursula Goetz, Chief Veterinary Officer, commented on his visit:
"Dr. Mahmoud was an excellent participant for the International Veterinary Training Programme. He was very competent and eager to learn a variety of new techniques. Most importantly he was attentive and took on board all of the ideas that we tried to impresss upon him. We are confident that he is now competent in flank spay techniques which, with luck, he can encourage others to learn back in Egypt. Overall he had a good basic level of training which he has now developed upon."
Dr. Mahmoud gave the following feedback at the conclusion of the course:
"The programme has taught me so many things and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to further improve my surgical skills in such a wonderful environment. The shelter at The Mayhew Animal Home is one of the best in the world that I have ever seen and really makes a huge difference to the animals of London. My dream is that we will be able to perform a similar function in Cairo and start to offer a fantastic service to the people of Egypt. I am so grateful for this chance and thank you all very much.
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Upon his return to Egypt, Dr. Mahmoud intends to put much of what he has learnt here in London into practise. His aims are to use the highest levels of sterility in his surgery and clinic focussing on pre-operation, during surgery and in post-operative care (which was not performed before). He is now confident in using an endotracheal tube, which before his visit he admitted to being poorly trained upon. Most importantly, he now is very confident in performing cat spay operations via the flank method, which he had never been trained on. The use of the flank approach is widely recognised as being safer when dealing with community animals.
He also indicated that he feels much happier now with applying different suturing patterns and containing disease. He will also look to set up a clinical waste disposal system in his clinic and also a more efficient administrative system for dealing with clients more efficiently. He was also surprised about the level of post-operative advice that we give to the owners of the animals and he will now look to carry this on upon his return, advising on infectious diseases and appropriate levels of welfare.
In total during his time here he managed to perform 26 operations supervised by our veterinary staff, of which 9 were cat spays via the flank approach.
We will continue to work closely with Dr. Mahmoud to ensure that our wish to improve welfare standards in Egypt occurs.