Celebrating success in Egypt

Last February, along with some of our Office Bearers and Senior Leadership Team, I visited Cairo to attend a number of strategic meetings. We hosted an engagement event for our Members and Fellows at the British Council offices. We welcomed more than 100 guests, who were entertained by President Professor Rowan Parks; Vice-President Professor Tim Graham; Dental Dean Professor Grant McIntyre; and Mark Howard, Director of the British Council in Egypt. 

It was a great way to better understand the needs of our members in Egypt so that we can help them to develop their careers and uphold the highest of standards. We always take along some ‘goodies’ to give away, and our soft-toy unicorns were very popular. I would like to thank our International Surgical and Dental Ambassadors for their support with the event. It was wonderful that we could hold the event outdoors, watched over by the many feline residents of the British Council. Egypt, as you may know, has had a long and special relationship with cats and these well-cared-for but territorial animals discouraged any stray cats from venturing in.

We have more than 1000 RCSEd Members in Egypt and have long been involved with the country through strategic partnerships, examinations, education and accreditation in Surgery, Opthalmology and Dentistry.

In between our meetings, my fellow Director Iain Forster-Smith and I scouted for possible venues for our first ever Diploma Ceremony in Egypt. We run many exams in the country to support trainees from Egypt and surrounding countries in both surgical and dental, so the list of new Members wishing to attend a Diploma Ceremony was growing. We felt it was time to bring the traditional College Diploma Ceremony to Egypt. 

We saw many wonderful venues – inside, outside, old and new – but our hearts and our heads were won over when we visited the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. The stunning building, designed by Heneghan Peng Architects, is shaped like a chamfered triangle and sits on a site 2km north west of the pyramids. The north and south walls of the building line up directly with the Great Pyramid of Khufu and the Pyramid of Menkaure. The mission of the museum is to preserve and restore cultural and historical heritage, and promote museum activities, such as the display of artefacts, and educational activities. This mission is very similar to that of our own Surgeons’ Hall Museums.

At the time of our visit and the Diploma Ceremony, the building was not yet open to the public but was available for private events. The atrium was already complete and filled with the most wonderful artefacts and statues from ancient times, which gave a sense of the grandeur of the architecture of Egypt’s past.

What a fitting place to bring our ceremony to our Members and Fellows in Egypt and the surrounding region. We welcomed more than 100 diplomates and 200 of their family and friends to the atrium of triangles. Guests walked past a colossal 3,200-year-old marble figure of Rameses II and then a pair of red-granite statues of Ptolemaic monarchs before being invited to amble up the Grand Staircase. This monumental marble structure leads visitors up to panoramic views of the Giza Pyramids. The staircase is a vertical gallery lined with statues of ancient Egyptian kings, queens and gods. It is divided into four sections, the Royal Image, depicting images of kings; the Divine Houses, showing temples, gods and kings and illustrating the relationship between mortals and deities; and then the Journey to Eternity, featuring images of the afterlife. At the top of the staircase are the windows on to the view of the Pyramids.

And so last September, we brought the spirit of our 500-year-old Diploma Ceremonies, normally held in Edinburgh in the Playfair Hall, to the modern Grand Egyptian Museum. Our Office Bearers and Council Members wore their traditional robes, crafted more than 200 years ago. They were led to the stage by our Mace Bearer carrying our 128-year-old Mace, which was presented to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh on 20 October 1897 by John Struthers, President from 1895-97. The Diploma Ceremony was a spectacular event and enjoyed by all. We entertained the younger family members with a drawing wall featuring unicorns, supervised by Amanda McIntyre, a primary school headteacher and wife of the Dental Dean. While being serenaded by a soothing saxophone, guests captured the moment on video or took selfies in front of a large display of our RCSEd letters. It was a wonderful event.

We have a very special relationship with Egypt due, in part, to the close alliances of two of our Office Bearers. While training to become a cardiothoracic surgeon, Vice-President Professor Graham spent an elective year in Alexandria and has fond memories of Egypt’s people and cities. Dental Dean Professor McIntyre, an Orthodontist, has visited Egypt 41 times which, he believes, equates to spending more than a year in the country. He has visited on behalf of the College and also as Professor of Orthodontics at the University of Dundee, when for five years he was involved in running a Masters course in Orthodontics in Cairo.

Egypt is a key international partner country for RCSEd. In addition to holding many surgical examinations – both at membership level (MRCS) and fellowship level (FRCS) – Egypt is becoming an important centre of education and examinations for the whole of the Middle East and Africa. The Faculty of Dental Surgery has been holding our Membership of the Faculty of Dental Surgery (MFDS) exam, and specialty exams in Orthodontics, Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Prosthodontics, Endodontics and Periodontics. We also held our first Dental Skills Competition there in 2024. 

Through the work of our international team in the Directorate of Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement, under the expert leadership of Mariette Naud-Betteridge, we have partnered with the Supreme Council of Universities of Egypt and the British Council (Egypt) to deliver a project that supports transnational education, research and collaboration activities in both countries. We have worked closely with Cairo University to look at and quality-assure postgraduate programmes and ensure they align with our high standards as well as other international standards. This collaborative project has created strong bonds between the College, Egyptian universities and government bodies, and has provided a blueprint for future projects in the country.

The ongoing partnership with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research underpins many of our current activities in the country. Our joint Steering Group, established at the end of last year, provides direction to our programme of activities for 2025 and beyond. Recommendations and support from the Ministry and from the Egyptian Cultural Office in London have enabled the College to make connections with many universities in the country, paving the way towards a broad programme of accreditation and assessment across key organisations. 

We hope that these partnerships and strategic engagement will
lead to even more activity in Egypt. With growing numbers of Members, we will continue to return to the country for engagement events, skills competitions, exams courses and even another Diploma Ceremony.