Global Governance Council
The Lifebox Global Governance Council brings together decades of clinical, research, and resource management experience to govern Lifebox’s global team and safer surgery vision
Pauline Philip, DBE, – Lifebox Chair
Pauline is a nurse by background with an international track record in patient safety. Pauline was Director for Patient Safety at the World Health Organization (WHO) where she led the WHO’s efforts to develop global guidelines on hand hygiene and surgical safety, including the development of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist as part of its ‘Safe Surgery Saves Lives’ program. Pauline currently serves as National Director for Emergency and Elective Care for NHS England, where she has been in post since 2015. Prior to this she was Chief Executive of Luton and Dunstable University Hospital Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom. Pauline previously served as Vice-Chair of Lifebox’s Global Governance Council and was made an Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 Special Honours list. |
 Susana del Carmen Abrego Tobar, MD is a pediatric anesthesiologist and Head of Anesthesia at the Benjamin Bloom’s Children Hospital in San Salvador, El Salvador’s leading children’s hospital and Professor of Anesthesiology at the National University of El Salvador. Dr. Abrego serves as President of El Salvador’s Anesthesia Society – the Asociación de Médicos Anestesiólogos de El Salvador (AMAES) – which is a member of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists. Dr. Abrego is also an active member of the Confederación Latinoamericana de Sociedades de Anestesia (CLASA), the network of Latin American anesthesia societies.
Dr. Abrego has served as Lifebox regional lead in Central America for the last four years, developing and implementing Lifebox programs across the region including pulse oximetry and the Surgical Safety Checklist. She is also a lead trainer for the Lifebox Surgical Safety Checklist workshop and the COVID-19 Surgical Patient Checklist Train-the Trainer workshop. |
 William Berry MD, MPA, MPH serves as the Strategic Advisor to the Chief Medical Officer and as Associate Director of Ariadne Labs. In 2012, together with Dr. Atul Gawande, he co-founded Ariadne Labs and served as Chief Medical Officer for its first five years. He also created the Lab’s Implementation Platform and served as its director. He began working with Dr. Gawande in 2005 and initially served as the Boston Project Director of the WHO Safe Surgery Saves Lives Program. Dr. Berry is a retired cardiothoracic surgeon with interests in patient safety and implementation in healthcare. |
 Professor Miliard Derbew, MD, is Chief Executive Officer of King Faisal Hospital, Kigali – Rwanda’s largest referral hospital and Professor of Pediatric Surgery at the College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University. He is also a principal investigator for Medical Education Partnership Initiative Junior Faculty project for Ethiopia, MEPI-JF. He has also served as President of the College of Surgeons of East Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) and the Surgical Society of Ethiopia. He was the principal investigator of Medical Education Partnership (MEPI) project, a five years project which was a consortium of four medical schools in Ethiopia and five universities in the United States, focused on building institutional capacity.
Professor Derbew has served as Chief Executive Director (with a rank of Vice President) in the College of Health Sciences, Addis Ababa University (2010- 2011) and was the Dean of the School of Medicine from 2007- 2010. Professor Derbew has published more than 50 peer reviewed scientific articles on reputable journals and has made more than 25 presentations at different international conferences. He graduated from medical school and specialized in surgery from the School of Medicine, Addis Ababa University and served his Fellowship in Pediatric Surgery at Tel Aviv University and University of Toronto Sickkids Hospital. He is also a Founding Fellow of the COSECSA and Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. |
 Faye Evans, MD, is an anesthesiologist in the Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care & Pain Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital and an Assistant Professor in Anesthesia, Harvard Medical School.
Dr Evans earned her MD from the Emory University School of Medicine in 1998 and completed her anesthesia residency at Emory University in 2004 where she also finished a combined Fellowship in Pediatric and Pediatric Cardiac Anesthesia in 2008. She is the current Chair for the SPA-Global Committee for the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia, a member WFSA’s Education Committee, the Vice-Chair for the ASA’s Global Humanitarian Outreach Committee and is on the Medical Advisory Board for Smile Train. Her global health work currently focuses on improving the quality and safety of anesthesia in the low-resource setting through education and advocacy. She has been involved with a variety of educational initiatives including participating with the CASIEF teaching program in Rwanda, the University of Nairobi Pediatric Anesthesia fellowship in Kenya, the Safer Anaesthesia from Education (SAFE) Paediatric Course, and is currently helping Smile Train to become an International American Heart Association training center. |
 Alexander Hannenberg, MD, was president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) in 2010 and also served ASA as its inaugural Chief Quality Officer in 2017-2019. He practiced anesthesiology in suburban Boston and is Founder, Past President and a Trustee of the ASA Charitable Foundation. He is a member of the Faculty at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and has served on the Board of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation. He led the effort to establish the Anesthesia Quality Institute, anesthesiology’s national clinical registry. He is now a Faculty member in the Safe Surgery program at Ariadne Labs.
He has been honored for his work with the ASA’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Award, and was elected an honorary member of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain & Ireland. |
 Alex Haynes, MD, MPH, is a practicing surgical oncologist with a focus on melanoma and soft tissue sarcoma and a member of the U.S. Lifebox Board. He was a part of the original team that worked with the WHO to develop the Surgical Safety Checklist, helping to lead the pilot study in eight countries which first established its effectiveness. In 2009, he authored the landmark New England Journal of Medicine article which showed that the Checklist reduced morbidity and mortality rates where it was introduced. He has been involved in efforts of Checklist implementation and adaptation in settings as varied as South Carolina, Scotland, Rwanda, and Moldova.
Dr. Haynes is also the Inaugural Associate Chair of Investigation and Discovery and an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery and Perioperative Care at Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin. He is charged with developing the research strategy for the department. Prior to joining Lifebox and Dell Med, Dr. Haynes was an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital, and served as the Director of the Safe Surgery Program at Ariadne Labs, a center for health care delivery innovation at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. |
 Deborah Lotterman sets the creative direction for precisioneffect overseeing creative, clinical and operations across the agency. Her creativity and strategic thinking has led the agency in translating technological innovations into powerful campaigns that speak emotionally to clinicians and consumers. Clients depend on Deborah to bring energy and novel thinking to workshops, presentations and strategic discussions. Her unique understanding of clients’ needs stems from over 20 years in healthcare marketing.
Deborah earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Towson University, a Master of Art in Professional Writing from Emerson College, and also holds a degree in culinary arts. |
 Rob McDougall MBBS, FANZCA, Grad. Cert Health Prof. Education, GAICD is a specialist pediatric anesthesiologist and Deputy Director of the Department of Pediatric Anesthesia and Pain Management at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne. He is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, University of Melbourne. He completed an eight-year term on the Council of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) in 2016. Dr. McDougall is currently Senior Editor, Global Health Section of Anesthesia & Analgesia and an external examiner for the Fiji National University. Dr. McDougall has extensive experience in education in anesthesia and resuscitation in Asia and Australasia and is a former trustee of the Primary Trauma Care Foundation. He has been involved with Lifebox as a volunteer since its inception and is an active member of Lifebox Australia – New Zealand (Lifebox ANZ) where he has helped to raise funds through the Australian anesthesia network to supply pulse oximeters and training and COVID-19 response throughout the Pacific – Asia region. |
 Alan Merry, MB, ChB is a Professor in the Department of Anaesthesiology at the University of Auckland. He has recently retired from clinical practice. His previous roles include Deputy Dean, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland and Chair of the Board of the NZ Health Quality and Safety Commission. His books, book chapters and papers in peer-reviewed journals reflect interests in human factors, patient safety, global health and simulation. He is an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit and a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. |
 Professor Nobhojit Roy, MD, MPH, trained as a General and Trauma surgeon in Mumbai, India and the U.K. and is currently a Health systems adviser to the Government. He also holds a MPH from John Hopkins University and a PhD from the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden with a focus on trauma surgical outcomes and delivering healthcare in resource-poor settings.
Formerly, he was the National Advisor, Public Health Planning and Evidence at the think-tank of the Indian Ministry of Health & Family Welfare at New Delhi. For two decades, he has served as the Professor & Chief of Surgical services for an Universal Health Care scheme covering 100,000 people in suburban Mumbai, India. His Surgical department at the BARC Hospital (Government of India) is the SEARO region’s WHO Collaborating Centre for research on Surgical care delivery in Low and Middle-Income countries (LMICs). He has been one of the Lancet commissioners for Global Surgery (2013-2015) and currently, is a Lancet commissioner for NCD and Injuries in the poorest billion. |
 Susannah Schaefer is Executive Vice Chair, President and CEO of Smile Train, the world’s largest cleft lip and palate organization. Susannah joined Smile Train in February 2013, after serving as a member of the organization’s Board for over ten years. In her role as CEO, she leads Smile Train’s vision to expand access to healthcare and increase local capacity in countries in which Smile Train helps children. During her time as CEO, Susannah led an organizational rebrand, seeded funding for hundreds of thousands of new smiles, expanded cleft surgical training and education programs throughout the world and helped to establish organizational partnerships in Haiti and Rwanda.
Susannah is also a Trustee of Smile Train UK and a Director on the Board of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. |
| Jason Yeung is a Managing Director and Portfolio Manager leading the healthcare investing effort on the Morgan Stanley Growth Team Mutual Funds which have a franchise in investing in innovative public & private companies. Jasonserves on the Board of Ariadne Labs, a non-profit joint venture between the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham & Women’s Hospital focused on health system innovation. Jason graduated from Johns Hopkins University, Phi Beta Kappa, with a BA in Pre-Med/International Relations and holds a M.Phil. in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. |
| Co-founder and Immediate Past Chair
Prior to this role, Dr. Gawande was Chair of Lifebox since its founding in 2011 after leading the work of the WHO to develop the Surgical Safety Checklist. He also served as the Inaugural Global Ambassador of the Smile Train-Lifebox Safe Surgery and Anesthesia Initiative. Dr. Gawande was also a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Gawande was also a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine since 1998 and has written four New York Times best selling books: Complications, Better, The Checklist Manifesto, and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. He is the winner of two National Magazine Awards, AcademyHealth’s Impact Award for highest research impact on healthcare, a MacArthur Fellowship, and the Lewis Thomas Award for writing about science. |
Atul Gawande, MD, MPH, is a surgeon, writer, and public health leader currently serving as Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Global Health, United States Agency for International Development (USAID).| Emeritus Trustee
Dr Enright served as the CAS President in 1994-95. In 2000, she was appointed Chair of the Education Committee of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) and in 2008 was elected as President for a four-year term. In 2011, Dr Enright became heavily involved with the global pulse oximetry project of the World Health Organization in developing educational and training materials and facilitating the formation of Lifebox to purchase and distribute oximeters. Through CAS, Dr Enright has also been very active in CAS IEF, including working with the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the National University of Rwanda to develop a training program in anesthesia for physicians.
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 Dr. Isabeau Walker worked as a Consultant Paediatric Anaesthetist at Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in London with special interests in cardiac anaesthesia, patient safety, and anaesthesia and surgery in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). She has been involved in international work for many years and currently chairs the AAGBI /WFSA ‘Safer Anaesthesia From Education’ (SAFE) steering committee. She led the development of the SAFE Operating Room course, a multidisciplinary training course for surgeons, obstetricians, nurses and anaesthetists.
Dr. Walker has written widely on a range of anaesthesia topics, and has a number of peer reviewed papers, as well as book chapters and reviews. She is an editor of the book ‘Core Topics in Paediatric Anaesthesia’ and has held a number of grants to support training and education of anaesthetists in LMICs, and to develop the Lifebox oximeter for use in children under 5 years in LMICs. |
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Dr. Iain Wilson was a Consultant Anaesthetist and Past President of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI). He was a member of the Council of the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists in 2004-16. In 2011 he was one of the founding Trustees of Lifebox, an NGO set up to improve the use of pulse oximeters in low and middle countries in combination with training focussed on the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist. During his training he worked in the Royal Air Force and also as a lecturer in anaesthesia at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia 1986-8. He has published on a number of subjects including anaesthesia in LMIC, anaesthesia safety issues and was a commissioner in the recent Lancet Commission on Global Surgery. He is an editor of the Oxford Handbook of Anaesthesia – a best selling textbook and when working with the WFSA, initiated the popular Anaesthesia Tutorial of the Week and the WFSA Update in Anaesthesia. |
Angela Enright, MB, is a Clinical Professor of Anesthesia at the University of British Columbia and an anesthesiologist for the Vancouver Island Health Authority and is a member of the U.K. Lifebox Board. Well known both nationally and internationally, Dr Enright has been widely recognized for her significant humanitarian efforts and contributions to the profession. She received the Officer of the Order of Canada in 2010 and was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.
