In honour of International Women’s Day (8th March), we’re celebrating women not just on one day, but all year round. We are lucky to have so many incredible, highly skilled NHS and international doctors, nurses and surgeons on our team, and wanted to take this opportunity to spotlight a few of the wonderful women making positive change in the world through medicine.
This editorial series will highlight some of our most inspirational women working on humanitarian responses with us, and their powerful stories of courage and compassion. This week, meet Dr. Anna Joseph, an Anaesthetist and Intensivist with over 20 years experience in the field, who has just returned from Gaza.
Here’s what we learned from speaking to her.
What do you do?
As an anaesthetist and intensivist, Dr. Anna Joseph plays a critical role in patient care, “anaesthetis[ing] patients to facilitate their surgery, resuscitate and stabilise critically ill patients and monitor them during their recovery in intensive care.” Her work usually involves adult patients, but in Gaza, she adapted to care for children too as the need was so high, highlighting the critical value of agility and the broad scope of her expertise in this field.
Why and how did you get into this career and specifically working with UK-Med?
Fueled by a desire to make a significant impact beyond conventional settings, Dr. Joseph was drawn to our mission after seeing UK-Med’s work in disaster response. “I thought how interesting their work was,” she says, leading her to embark on training with us and then joining the register for deployments. Her diverse experiences in medicine, from air ambulance work and retrieval medicine to critical roles during the Covid-19 pandemic, have shaped her approach to healthcare, steering her towards the global “humanitarian side of medicine because I’ve always wanted to try and use what I know to do other things”.
What’s your experience deploying with UK-Med been like and what are you most proud of?
On the ground in Gaza, Dr. Joseph faced the intense realities of emergency medicine during conflict. She recounts, “the day of heaviest aerial bombardment was my birthday” where she focused on providing urgent, critical medical care amidst chaos—saving lives and limbs in real time.
“There’s one thing I am very proud of,” she explains, caring for an 11-year-old boy in Gaza with severe brain injuries from shrapnel, who was initially non-responsive and in critical condition. She took a bold step to anaesthetise and intubate him to suction his lungs, leading to an unexpected improvement. This intervention marked a significant moment in her mission, symbolising a glimmer of hope and the potential for recovery amidst the dire conditions of conflict. She tells us, “he slowly started to get a little bit better…and I thought, he might actually survive.”
What’s one piece of advice you’d tell your younger self or someone wanting to go into this professional space?
“What I’d tell someone wanting to go into humanitarian work—be prepared for it to change you and not necessarily for the better. You have to accept that you can’t fix everything,” she candidly advises, highlighting the emotional and ethical complexities of the field. Despite these challenges, she offers a silver lining of hope and inspiration, adding “but [humanitarian work] makes you remember that your skills can stop someone dying, and even if they can’t, you can give them comfort and you can give their family comfort. And that’s why we do it.” This profound and very real impact on people’s lives in times of extreme struggle emphasises the inherent hopeful and positive change possible through humanitarian medical work.
Dr. Anna Joseph’s story is a testament to the sheer strength, compassion and dedication of medics in the humanitarian sector, particularly in challenging environments like Gaza. “It’s made me more aware of the world and what healthcare globally can be” she says, adding “you realise how much piffle there is in our world that doesn’t really matter. It certainly has reminded me why I do what I do.” Her insights not only illuminate the realities of urgent medical aid work, but also inspire continued commitment to helping those in dire need. An exemplary figure in celebrating women in medicine today and beyond.
We want to thank Dr. Anna Joseph for sharing her story and experiences with UK-Med, as well as her courageous and compassionate efforts in her career and out in the field.
UK-Med teams have now treated over 5,300 people in Gaza using mobile clinics, our field hospital and surgical support. To continue offering life and limb-saving medical aid, we need your support too.
