HEALING THE WOUNDS OF WAR Refugee surgeon Munjed Al Muderis
Refugee turned renowned surgeon Munjed Al Muderis is saving lives in his native Iraq
Munjed Al Muderis can slice deep into flesh and implant titanium rods into bone, but the sight of a barbed-wire fence still rattles him. This November will mark 20 years since Al Muderis arrived as a refugee on Christmas Island – and the ensuing 40 days he spent in solitary confinement at Curtin Detention Centre in Western Australia are seared into his memory.
“Part of it was [spent] in a suicide-watch box, which was 1.5m x 2.5m, with a mattress on the floor, no sheet, no pillow, so I don’t suffocate or hang myself, and a purple fluorescent light was on 24/7 … There was no window, and a 20-cent-sized hole in the door. I was kept inside for 22 hours a day,” the now acclaimed surgeon tells WHO. “My only companion was the book I’d brought with me from Iraq and I kept
reading it from cover to cover. It was an anatomy textbook.”
Turning the pages in his cramped cell, the young Iraqi doctor who fled his country when Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards stormed the Baghdad hospital where he worked and ordered staff to cut the ears off a group of prisoners, made the most of a horrific situation. “To be honest, I feel very grateful that I was kept in solitary confinement so I could study and read,” says Al Muderis, 46, today one of Australia’s most celebrated citizens. “When I was released I scored very high marks in anatomy.”
It’s that glass-half-full stance that sets apart the orthopaedic surgeon famed for his pioneering work in osseointegration – a life-saving technique, which involves attaching robotic limbs to rods implanted into the bones of amputee patients. Over the years, on top of his work at his Sydney practice, he has performed osseointegration on British soldiers who have lost limbs in Afghanistan, and a survivor of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. But it’s his passion for helping people in his native Iraq that is the latest remarkable twist in a stellar career.
“I do strongly believe we can make a difference,” says Al Muderis, who writes about his return at the invitation of the Iraqi government, and the courageous patients – many who’d been wounded fighting against ISIS – he encountered there in his memoir, Going Back.
The war-ravaged city of his birth was lit up “like a Christmas tree”, recalls Al Muderis, as the Qatar Airways flight prepared to land in 2017, 18 years after his escape. “I thought, ‘Holy s--t, what have I done? Am I really going back to that place that I left?’ But once the plane door opened, and I saw the reception from the officials there, all my fears disappeared.”
That proved to be the first of six visits to Iraq for Al Muderis and his
team, including his partner, physiotherapist Claudia Roberts, who all work tirelessly to fit in as many patients as possible. During his last visit in December, they treated 86 patients in a week.
Of the 422 people he’s treated in Iraq, there is “one particular story that makes me cry every time I mention it”, says the softly spoken Al Muderis, who tells of an 8-year-old girl born with one leg 18cm shorter than the other. “I was visiting her post-operatively the next day … I asked the kid, ‘ What year of school are you in?’ and her response was, ‘I don’t go to school, my parents took me out of school.’ ”
Shocked, Al Muderis turned to her mother, who explained the child’s father pulled her out because he was afraid she would get bullied because of her leg. “I normally don’t lose my temper but I blasted her,” remembers Al Muderis. “I said, ‘She will be completely ostracised by society. The only thing that you can give her to help her fend for herself is education and you’re depriving her of that.’ ” Al Muderis explained that the girl needed a second operation, which he’d only perform if she’s back at school by the time he returns in April: “I said, ‘That’s my condition, you go and tell your husband that,’ and then I walked out. So, there is a lot that we need to do to change the mentality of this society.”
Al Muderis is passionate about enabling change on a grand scale. “That time in the detention centre made me have a great deal of respect and value for life, so I try to live every single moment and enjoy it and make use of every single minute that passes, because we have a very short period of time in this world and there’s a lot to be done.” For Al Muderis, that’s a personal mission – he’s keenly aware of the clock ticking. “I try to limit my sleeping hours but biologically that’s not compatible with human beings,” he says, with a laugh.
Driving his quest for a solution to the sleep dilemma, “I have three dreams,” he shares. “I want osseointegration to be available to most people who cannot afford it in developing countries.” The second, which he says in mock outrage, “Clive Palmer has stolen,” is a fast train from Brisbane to Melbourne. And the third? “That’s impossible to achieve,” he sighs. “That we grow up and become mature enough that we treat people the way we want to be treated and have acceptance and tolerance towards each other.”
A credo of hospitality, respect and the importance of giving back, is the legacy of Al Muderis’ childhood, growing up as the only child of nationally respected scholar Abdul Razak Al Muderis, and school principal Kamila al-turk. Family members on both sides contributed generously to society and even though Al Muderis says he was “a spoilt brat with a golden spoon in my mouth,” the lessons stayed with him. Curious and bright, Al Muderis “always loved technology and innovation” and will never forget watching 1984’s The Terminator, when, as a 12-year-old, he first imagined the possibility of melding man and machine. Since then, he’s helped propel osseointegration out of the realm of science fiction and into the lives of everyday people, who are transformed thanks to the effective and permanent mobility the technology offers. Along the way, he’s met royalty (including Prince Harry, in 2015) and travelled the world to share hope and healing, dedicating three months of the year to his pro bono work.
But the relentless pace has taken a toll, concedes Al Muderis, who has four children, aged 10 to adult, with three ex-wives. Asked how he manages to spend time with loved ones, “I don’t manage, that’s a sad story,” he answers, sombrely.
“I try to live every single moment and enjoy it” —Al Muderis
“A lot of my work that I do means I’m away from my family.”
Having spent Christmas in Baghdad, Al Muderis will be back there at Easter for his seventh visit. “I’m very lucky, because my kids do understand – I mean, the little ones don’t but the older ones know the importance of what I do,” says Al Muderis, who relishes his life in the country where he was once known only as “982” (at Curtin Detention Centre). “Home is the people, and to me, home is Sydney, home is Australia. I have strong roots here, my kids are born here and this is the place that I belong,” he reflects. “There’s nothing better than the feeling of the plane touching down in Sydney.”