Dr. Samuel Glay

Dr. Samuel Glay is a senior general surgeon at Redemption Hospital in Monrovia's New Kru Town neighbourhood — a large government facility that serves as the primary surgical referral centre for the city's densely populated west and northwest areas. With 18 years of surgical experience, Dr. Glay is one of Liberia's most capable and versatile general surgeons, having built his practice through the challenges of post-civil war Liberia, the Ebola epidemic, and the ongoing task of reconstructing a surgical system with minimal equipment and irregular supply chains. His surgical practice covers the full range of abdominal and trauma surgery procedures that are essential in a high-burden environment where road traffic accidents, penetrating trauma, and delayed-presentation surgical emergencies are common. Patients with ruptured appendices, strangulated hernias, perforated ulcers, and blunt abdominal trauma rely on Dr. Glay's skills and speed in Redemption Hospital's operating theatre. He is bilingual in English and Kpelle — one of Liberia's largest indigenous languages — enabling him to communicate directly with patients from Nimba County and other Kpelle-speaking communities. Dr. Glay is also involved in COSECSA's regional surgical training programme, contributing to the development of surgical capacity across East and West Africa.

Dr. Glay completed his MD at the A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine at the University of Liberia. Recognising that surgical specialist training was unavailable in Liberia, he pursued his surgical residency through the College of Surgeons of East, Central and Southern Africa (COSECSA) — an internationally recognised pathway for African surgical training — completing his programme at Mulago National Referral Hospital in Kampala, Uganda. He earned his Fellowship of COSECSA (FCS) in General Surgery and holds a Certificate in Trauma Surgery. He has participated in advanced surgical skills workshops through the Pan African Academy of Christian Surgeons (PAACS) and the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland's global health programme.

Dr. Glay's surgical expertise is centred on high-volume abdominal and trauma surgery in a resource-limited environment. He performs emergency appendicectomy, open and laparoscopic hernia repair, bowel resection with anastomosis, and splenectomy for trauma. His trauma surgery experience includes exploratory laparotomy for penetrating abdominal injuries, damage control surgery for haemodynamically unstable patients, and management of liver and splenic lacerations. He performs colostomy formation and reversal for bowel obstruction and perforation, thyroid surgery for endemic goitre, and extensive wound debridement and skin grafting for necrotising soft tissue infections — a condition that is encountered with concerning frequency in Liberia's under-vaccinated population. He works within Redemption Hospital's constrained anaesthetic and blood bank capacity, adapting his surgical approach accordingly.

Dr. Glay contributed to a COSECSA-supported surgical needs assessment for Liberia that evaluated the burden of surgical disease and estimated the proportion of conditions requiring specialist surgical intervention. He has shared surgical audit data at the LMDA annual scientific conference and contributed to a case series on management of abdominal trauma at Redemption Hospital. He is an advocate within COSECSA's network for increasing the surgical workforce in Liberia and sub-Saharan Africa more broadly.

Dr. Glay conducts consultations in English and Kpelle and is experienced in assessing and managing international patients requiring surgical care in Monrovia. He advises humanitarian workers, NGO staff, and UN personnel on surgical emergencies and elective procedures available at Redemption Hospital and JFK Memorial Hospital. For patients requiring elective or complex surgical procedures beyond Liberia's current infrastructure — including laparoscopic surgery, cancer surgery, or major hepatobiliary procedures — he facilitates referrals to surgical centres in Ghana, Senegal, or South Africa and provides pre-operative documentation for continuity of surgical care abroad.

Dr. Glay was recognised by COSECSA for his contributions to advancing surgical training in West Africa and for his role in advocating for Liberia's inclusion in the COSECSA training network. He received a commendation from the Liberian Ministry of Health for his surgical service during the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak and for maintaining surgical services at Redemption Hospital under exceptionally difficult circumstances during the epidemic.