'Your newborn is fine' are her favourite words

Ghadeer Jaber, first Emirati paediatric surgeon in the country and holder of German Board in Paediatrics.

Frankly, I love my job very much, says Dr Ghadeer Jaber, the only female Emirati surgeon in the field of paediatric surgery in the UAE.
Dr Ghadeer, who has conducted nearly 4,000 paediatric surgeries along with her team in Latifa Hospital in 2015 alone, says the hospital is her second home.
"Last year, we conducted 3,972 paediatric operations, of which 1,748 were major surgeries," she adds.Latifa Hospital receives one of the highest referrals and emergency cases for paediatric surgery not only from Dubai but also from the Northern Emirates. It also offers 24-hour paediatric surgery services.
"In 2015, we received 2,282 emergency cases mostly related to congenital malformation, gastrointestinal cases, urological cases, tumours and burns." Her choice to be a surgeon was based on an old passion. "Since I was a child, I used to say that I want to become a doctor when I grow up."
In December 2014, Dr Ghadeer was featured in a four-minute long clip that was broadcast on the UAE Government YouTube Channel - www.youtube.com/uaegov
The short film is aligned with the National Innovation Strategy, which was launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai. The strategy includes a number of sectors to focus on, of which health is a prominent one and includes a number of national initiatives to encourage innovation by providing healthcare services and building national capacities in the same field.
The film shows Ghadeer as a surgeon occupied in her humanitarian duty, working for long hours, and how she spends time with her family. It also highlights moments with her colleagues, where she says: "Surgical operations may continue for 6-8 hours and maybe more. It is painstaking and requires a lot of effort. But all the troubles vanish with the smile of a mother when you tell her: Your child is fine."
"My mom is my role model.whatever I have achieved, my mom had a big role to achieve it," she says in the short film that depicts her passion to serve humanity by curing children. She says she learnt the art of using her hands skillfully from her mother. "A surgeon needs to acquire skills with their hands which I learnt from my mother who loves sewing, canvas, needles and thread works." At the hospital, operations are performed on a daily basis from any of the four clinics including a specialised burn clinic and spina-bifida clinic. Surgeries are performed for newborns, including neonates, and for children up to 13 years.
"We conduct a high number of surgeries to correct congenital abnormalities, many of them are detected during the pregnancy stage. In cases where the newborn needs immediate surgical intervention, the mother delivers her baby at Latifa Hospital," says Dr Ghadeer.
"In some cases, it is important to stabilise the baby, in other cases we need to perform the surgery within 24 or 48 hours." The reason she chose paediatric surgery as a specialty was that she believed that a large proportion of the Emirati community are children. "I saw that not a single Emirati is working in this specialty. I, therefore, felt that I should serve my country through this specialisation."
Like in any other profession, she had to balance between her family and work. "I had to travel a lot and I had a three-month old son.it was very difficult." On April 10, 2010, the German Board awarded her the title of Paediatric Surgeon.
asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com

Asma Ali Zain

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com