Bethune Round Table 2025

Prof. Nobhojit Roy trained as a General and Trauma surgeon in Mumbai, India and the U.K. He holds a MPH from John Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA and a PhD from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden with a focus on Health systems outcomes and delivering healthcare in resource-poor settings.

His academic, clinical and research career for two decades, was as the Professor & Chief of Surgical services at the BARC Hospital, HBNI University in Mumbai.

He served as Lead of the Program in Global Surgery & Trauma at The George Institute of Global Health, India. He served as Technical Officer for Surgery & Anaesthesia, Clinical Services & Systems unit, Integrated Health Services department at WHO Headquarters, Geneva. At the regional level, he was the Southeast Asia Health Hub lead at Oxford Policy Management (UK). At the National level, Roy has been the National Advisor, Public Health Planning and Evidence at NHSRC - Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) and at the state-level, the Director of Health Systems Strengthening and Knowledge partnerships at CARE-India, Bihar.

Internationally, he has been the Lancet commissioner for Global Surgery (2015) and for NCDs and Injuries in the poorest billion (2020). Currently he is serving as Chair of the Center for Leadership at the University for Global Health Equity in Kigali, Rwanda.

Prof. Olusegun Alatise has been a Professor of Surgery at the Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Health Sciences at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU). He is a consultant general surgeon at the OAU Teaching Hospital. His area of interest is in Surgical Oncology and Gastroenterology. He had his Surgical Oncology training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA. He has also had other training fellowships in Endoscopy and Colorectal Surgery sponsored by the World Gastroenterology Organization, African Middle East Association of Gastroenterology and Endoscopy, and the International Council of Coloproctology.

He co-founded the African Research Group for Oncology (ARGO) in 2013. The group run a clinical database and biobank for breast and colorectal cancer. He is a leader and a trainer in Oncology and Gastroenterology in Nigeria. He is the Secretary General of the Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Nigeria (SOGHIN). He also facilitated the establishment of routine ERCP in Nigeria. He is a member of the Lancet Oncology Commission on Global Cancer Surgery. He is also a Co-PI on multiple prospective studies on colorectal and breast cancer in Nigeria, including a UG3/UH3 NIH grant (awarded in 2017) and Cancer Prevent grant 2020. He has trained numerous general surgeons interested in surgical oncology who have now taken faculty positions across Nigeria. He has over 110 publications in peer-reviewed journals and 4 chapters.

Prof. Coleen Sabatini obtained her MD and MPH from Harvard University. She completed her orthopedic residency program at Harvard University and her fellowship training in pediatric orthopedic surgery at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. She joined the faculty of California San Francisco (UCSF) at Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland (BCHO) in 2010 as a pediatric orthopedic surgeon. She is now Professor and Vice Chair of Orthopaedic Surgery at UCSF.

Dr. Sabatini's clinical focus includes a wide range of pediatric orthopaedic conditions, with interests in pediatric trauma/fractures, clubfoot and other pediatric foot and limb deformities. She is the Director of the BCHO Clubfoot Program and is the Medical Director of the Dance Medicine Program. Dr. Sabatini's research focuses on health equity/disparities, global health, pediatric trauma prevention and treatment, clinical outcomes, and improving access to, and quality of, care for children with musculoskeletal conditions, particularly for those in low-resource environments.

Dr. Sabatini focuses much of her time in Uganda where she heads a pediatric orthopaedic research program and serves as the Principal Investigator on multiple projects. Dr. Sabatini and other colleagues have set up a pediatric orthopaedic fellowship in Uganda. She is also an Associate Director of the UCSF Center for Health Equity in Surgery and Anesthesia (CHESA) and the Co-Director of UCSF's Institute for Global Orthopaedics and Traumatology. She is currently the Chair of the International Committee of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Dr. Pippa Letchworth works as a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at Imperial College NHS Trust. Beyond her clinical practice, she specializes in global maternal health, education and simulation.

Dr. Letchworth has worked with Médecins Sans Frontières in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Sierra Leone and northern Nigeria. Currently, she holds the position of Obstetrics Faculty Lead at the David Nott Foundation, an NGO dedicated to training health care providers in and for war zones.

Her academic accomplishments include a fellowship in health professions education, global health, and obstetric fistula. She has created educational videos and teaching materials for practicing clinicians. She has been instrumental in delivering the STAE and HEST courses through the David Nott Foundation in diverse locations including

Since 2012, her collaboration with the David Nott Foundation has been instrumental, in delivering the STAE (Surgical Training for Austere Environments) course and HEST / HEST-OG (Hostile Environment Surgical Training) course in numerous countries across the world.

Prof. Dhananjaya Sharma is the former Head of the Department of Surgery, Government Medical College and Allied Hospitals, affiliated to Madhya Pradesh Medical Sciences University, Jabalpur (MP), India. He has worked with the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Surgical Care Society’s Global Surgery Initiative and Outreach Program.

For many years, he has been developing and working with a team to develop low-cost surgical solutions to achieve health equity for underserved populations. He leads the Center for Global Surgical Innovations and Low-Cost Solutions that is affiliated with the Surgery Department at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Government Medical College in Jabalpur India. He and his team at the Center for Global Surgical Innovations and Low-Cost Solutions have published more than 100 articles on low-cost surgical solutions and more broadly, he has published more than 250 articles.