Women in Surgery and Hijab: Careers, Mentorship and Change

A woman who wears hijab may be interested in surgery for the same wide range of reasons as any other aspiring clinician: the science, the practical work, a particular speciality, research or the prospect of helping patients through difficult decisions. She may also wonder whether the profession has room for her religious practice, and whether the people responsible for her training will take that question seriously.

There are substantial careers and concrete changes to learn from. Consultant colorectal surgeon Nuha Yassin has combined clinical practice with research and professional leadership. Farah Roslan helped bring a headwear proposal into a hospital's theatres. Azra Khatun developed a campaign around access to surgical training. Their experiences deserve more attention than a photograph accompanied by a vague description of inspiration.

This guide follows documented British examples, with a separate look at recent American research. It explores what these women have done, how support has worked and what an interested student or colleague can learn. The practical suggestions concern career exploration and learning opportunities; clinical decisions, approved clothing and training requirements belong with the relevant professional bodies and workplace teams.

Begin with the surgeon's work and the stage of her career

“Surgeon hijab” is a search phrase rather than a professional qualification. A head covering does not identify someone's speciality, seniority or responsibilities. A medical student attending theatre, a doctor undertaking surgical training and a consultant may appear in similar photographs while having very different roles.

The Royal College of Surgeons of England explains how qualifications and registration are checked in its guide to surgeons' qualifications. The General Medical Council's registers are the appropriate starting point for checking a doctor's registration and specialist status. A social-media biography or a description of religious identity cannot establish those credentials.

When reading a profile, look for the work as well as the person. Which clinical field does she practise in? Does the account describe teaching, research, service development or a leadership appointment? What date does it concern? A title attached to an old interview may accurately describe that moment without being her current job.

This approach also protects the individual from becoming a symbol with no professional detail. Asking about a surgeon's research interests or the training she found valuable allows a fuller conversation than asking only how she manages to work in a headscarf.

Nuha Yassin: a career spanning colorectal surgery, research and leadership

The College's biographical record for Nuha Yassin describes a consultant colorectal surgeon at University Hospitals Birmingham. She graduated in medicine from Manchester in 2003, trained in several English regions and completed doctoral research through Imperial College London while working at St Mark's Hospital. The record also describes her work establishing robotic colorectal surgery and her role in training other surgeons in that field.

Those details show a career built through several kinds of learning. A medical degree, regional training, research and later technical leadership are distinct achievements. None should disappear behind a broad claim that her clothing made her successful. Her visible identity and her professional expertise can both be acknowledged without making one a substitute for the other.

In Kent and Medway Medical School's account of her March 2025 lecture, Yassin describes childhood curiosity about disease and the influence of her mother, a doctor. She also credits people from different backgrounds who helped shape her career. The event included discussion with students, and a Sudanese student aspiring to surgery described the significance of seeing Yassin's work in robotics.

The encounter offers a useful picture of representation. A student can recognise something of her own background in a speaker while learning about an area of surgery she might otherwise have known little about. The connection makes the professional possibilities easier to imagine; it does not remove the training, selection or support that pursuing them requires.

Leadership can involve changing how other people learn

In May 2026, the College announced Yassin's election as a vice-president, with the term beginning that July. Her accompanying statement discusses learning and assessment, mentoring, representation and access to robotic and digital surgery. These are specific areas of professional responsibility, beyond being present in an institution's publicity.

For someone reading about her career, a productive question is which part of that work interests them. Clinical practice, laboratory or clinical research, teaching and professional leadership involve different activities. A role model can open up several questions rather than set a single destination that everyone else must reach.

You might admire an established surgeon's technical work while choosing another speciality, or appreciate her public leadership without wanting a comparable office yourself. Learning from a career does not require reproducing its exact sequence.

Farah Roslan: a student's concern became an institutional project

In December 2019, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton reported the introduction of disposable sterile headscarves for theatre staff, crediting former Royal Derby Hospital medical student Farah Roslan. At the time of the announcement she was a foundation doctor. The Trust said it believed it was the first in the UK to introduce that provision; that is the institution's dated description, rather than a claim about every hospital.

The same account names colorectal surgeon Miss Tierney as Roslan's mentor and the person who introduced her to surgery. Roslan explicitly credited that support. The story therefore includes both an individual raising an issue and a senior professional helping her develop within the field.

It is tempting to turn an example like this into a simple instruction to be more confident. That would overlook the institutional part of the achievement. A student can identify a difficulty, but a hospital has to decide how a proposed solution is assessed, supplied and put into use. Support becomes meaningful when it reaches those responsibilities.

For a learner, the useful question is who can help move a concern to the right people. For a mentor, it is whether encouragement is accompanied by access, introductions and a realistic route for considering the problem. Neither person needs to promise that one hospital's arrangement will automatically apply elsewhere.

The College's description of its discussion with hijab-wearing women in surgery identified Roslan as a paediatric registrar, alongside Yassin, Khatun and vascular registrar Nina Al-Saadi. Keeping the accounts distinct makes the chronology clearer: the 2019 announcement records a contribution at an early career stage, while the later description gives her subsequent medical role.

Azra Khatun: connecting a policy with the opportunity to train

The Healthcare Leadership Academy's account of the Surgical Scarf Project credits scholars Azra Khatun and Suga Roy with developing and implementing the project at the Isle of Wight NHS Trust. It describes a gap between national guidance and what Khatun encountered during a surgical rotation. Working with the Trust's Race Equality Staff Network, the project obtained a supply of surgical scarves in October 2021 and supported an update to the local uniform policy.

This is a particularly useful example because it identifies practical organisational work: recognising a gap, researching it, involving colleagues, obtaining supplies and changing a document. The existence of guidance and the ability to use an arrangement during a real placement were separate questions.

A subsequent Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust report from December 2024 gives Khatun's account of feeling discouraged when she saw few people like herself in surgery. It also records that, as a foundation doctor, she had been told she could not enter theatre because of her scarf. Describing a later rotation at Portsmouth, she said the Trust had updated its policy before she arrived, allowing her to concentrate on patient care without the same uncertainty about headwear.

The significance lies in the difference between repeatedly negotiating entry and arriving to an arrangement already understood. A learner's time and attention can then be directed towards the clinical education for which she is there.

What this project teaches about making a change usable

If a department is considering a comparable access issue, it can use the example to frame its own investigation. What exactly is preventing participation? Is the difficulty an absent instruction, a supply problem, inconsistent communication or something else? The answer determines who needs to be involved.

For example, imagine an approved item is available in one store cupboard, but rotating students are never told how to obtain it. Buying more stock would not by itself resolve the information gap. Equally, circulating a welcoming message would not help if the item could not be obtained before a scheduled learning session. These are hypothetical organisational examples, not accounts of the hospitals above.

A useful project should identify who owns each unfinished task and when the people affected will hear the result. It also needs a way to find out whether the arrangement actually works when a new rotation begins. A named contact, clear induction information and a reliable route for raising a problem can make the change less dependent on one enthusiastic person being on duty.

The assessment of any clinical item remains with the responsible teams. An access project creates a route for proper assessment and implementation; it does not give a trainee permission to improvise around a safety requirement.

Nina Al-Saadi: making experiences visible through research

Nina Al-Saadi and colleagues published Cut from the same cloth? in the College's Bulletin in 2022. The authors' publicly available abstract describes surveys distributed in 2019 and 2021, with 35 and 55 responses respectively. Participants reported anxiety about wearing hijab in theatre, and some had been asked to remove it. The study examined access and experience within surgical environments.

Those are specific respondents' accounts. Two relatively small survey rounds cannot establish the experience of every Muslim woman in the NHS or prove that a policy caused a national change. Their value is in making difficulties visible and giving institutions questions to investigate, rather than replacing one sweeping generalisation with another.

Al-Saadi's work also extends beyond this topic. A 2021 clinical case report lists her as a co-author and credits her illustration of the operative findings. That publication is an example of clinical scholarship, not a claim about the outcome of her entire practice. It helps restore the professional breadth often lost when a woman is discussed only in relation to religious dress.

Students can learn from both forms of work: a clinician may contribute to understanding a clinical problem and also examine the conditions in which colleagues train. There is no requirement to choose one as the only legitimate subject of interest.

Read the research on barriers with its limits attached

An earlier British study published in BMJ Open in 2019 surveyed 84 female Muslim medical healthcare professionals at a British Islamic Medical Association conference. Respondents described problems associated with headscarves in theatre and uncertainty around dress rules. The sample included different professional circumstances; it was not a national census of surgeons.

The accompanying research poster makes one denominator particularly clear: 34 of the 66 people who answered the question reported difficulty wearing a headscarf in theatre. Eighteen of the overall 84 participants did not answer that question. Retaining the denominator matters when explaining what a percentage actually represents.

A report of a barrier should be taken seriously without being stretched beyond the evidence. A survey can establish what its respondents reported. It does not, by itself, measure every hospital's current policy, identify the cause of each career decision or demonstrate that a particular garment improves patient outcomes.

For a reader considering surgery, the research is a reason to ask informed questions about an actual training environment. It is not a prediction of your own career. For an institution, it is a reason to examine access and listen to local trainees, including people who may already have stopped attending an activity.

Also notice whose experiences are missing. An event survey may miss people outside that network. Someone who left a pathway may be harder to contact than someone still participating. Consider those gaps when interpreting the evidence, while taking the accounts that were collected seriously.

Recent American accounts show why location still matters

A 2026 study by Dayana Shariff, Fareha Moulana Zada and Rosanna Wustrack explored hijab-wearing trainees' experiences in American surgical settings through an exploratory survey and six in-depth interviews. The published abstract describes anxiety, heightened scrutiny and accounts of avoiding theatre. It provides insight into the participants' experiences, rather than a prevalence estimate for all American medical students.

In a separate 2026 professional commentary, orthopaedic trainee Reem Daboul writes from her own experience about how ambiguity around theatre attire can affect belonging and access to training. Her account is valuable as an identified practitioner's perspective. It should remain attributed to her, rather than being retold as something all trainees experience.

British and American examples can help readers recognise related questions, but their training systems, employment arrangements and institutional policies are different. An NHS document does not settle the requirements of an American medical school, and an American account should not be presented as a description of every British theatre.

If you are moving between countries, separate the career question from the clothing question. Establish the recognised training and registration route through the appropriate authorities, then ask the particular institution about its arrangements. Another woman's experience can suggest questions to investigate; it cannot provide your individual eligibility or workplace approval.

Faith can be personally meaningful without becoming a claim about clinical ability

In her 2022 reflection on Ramadan, Yassin connects her religious observance with responsibilities towards herself, colleagues and patients. She discusses communication with the team and the practical limits on changing shifts. She also makes clear that she does not expect colleagues to stop eating or drinking around her.

This is a personal professional account, not a universal prescription for every Muslim clinician. Its useful feature is the combination of an openly expressed identity with attention to other people and the realities of the working environment.

Readers should resist assigning clinical qualities to a scarf. A head covering cannot establish that someone is more compassionate, more skilled or better able to communicate with a particular patient. Nor does its absence establish the opposite. Those claims require attention to the individual and her professional practice.

The same restraint applies to motivation. A woman may want to talk about faith as part of her career; she may prefer to discuss a research question, a technical interest or the kind of team she hopes to join. Let her choose the emphasis. Respect includes allowing professional ambition to be ordinary, complicated and personal.

Explore the speciality before deciding what your future must look like

If these careers have made you curious about surgery, begin with the work you want to understand. “I am interested in surgery” is a starting point. It becomes more useful when you can identify whether you are drawn to a particular clinical area, practical problem-solving, research, teaching or the combination of activities in a surgeon's week.

The College's student resources introduce surgical specialities, the undergraduate curriculum and career exploration. Its career-path information distinguishes stages of training and alternative professional routes. Use the current requirements for your own country, career stage and intended application; an individual biography is not an admissions checklist.

For a school student, a reasonable first project is to compare two specialities through official career information and a supervised careers event. What kinds of problems do the teams address? Which parts of their work happen outside the operating theatre? What education is required before you could enter that pathway? Write down the questions that remain rather than buying a course simply because a successful surgeon once attended it.

For a medical student, use authorised learning opportunities to investigate your interest. You could ask your educational contact about observing a relevant clinic or attending a suitable teaching session. Explain what you hope to learn and check the arrangements before attending. Access to a hospital area is not an informal invitation that can be obtained by contacting a stranger online.

After an opportunity, distinguish the work from the atmosphere. You might enjoy understanding the speciality while finding one teaching encounter unhelpful. Conversely, a welcoming team may make a day enjoyable even if the clinical subject does not particularly interest you. Both observations are useful when deciding what to explore next.

Try to avoid making a major career judgement from one photograph, one difficult encounter or one celebrated success. Seek a fuller view across more than one conversation or setting where feasible. You can remain curious without deciding immediately that this must be your lifelong path.

Ask for mentorship that addresses a real decision

Mentorship becomes easier to use when the question is specific. Instead of asking someone to explain how to succeed in surgery, identify the decision in front of you. Perhaps you are comparing two specialities, considering a research opportunity or trying to understand the demands of a particular training stage.

Prepare a short introduction: your current stage, what you have already explored and what you would like help thinking through. A request such as “Could we discuss what I should learn about vascular surgery before choosing an elective?” gives a prospective mentor a manageable subject. It also lets them say whether they are the right person to help.

You may value speaking with a woman who wears hijab because part of your question concerns a shared experience. That is understandable. It does not mean every useful mentor must share your religion, ethnicity or gender. Roslan's account of Tierney's support and Yassin's acknowledgement of people from varied backgrounds both suggest the importance of looking at what a person can contribute.

Consider the different kinds of support you need:

• A speciality conversation: someone who can explain the work, training decisions and questions worth exploring next.
• A project adviser: someone with the relevant expertise and time to help you define a research or improvement task.
• A near-peer contact: someone recently through the stage you are approaching, who can describe their experience while distinguishing it from official requirements.
• A trusted listener: someone who helps you think clearly about a difficult experience without claiming to decide matters outside their role.

One person may fulfil more than one role, but do not assume a mentor is also your assessor, employment adviser or clinical supervisor. Clarify what the relationship covers. A professional who is excellent for a research discussion may not be the person who can resolve a local training dispute.

Make the first conversation useful for both people

Bring two or three questions and the background needed to answer them. For example, if you are considering a project, say what time you can realistically commit, which skills you already have and what you hope to learn. Avoid promising a level of availability that will disappear when examinations or placements begin.

Ask what a sensible next step would look like. It could be reading a particular kind of paper, speaking to the placement organiser or narrowing a proposed question. Agree whether another conversation would be useful and who will initiate it. The aim is a workable relationship rather than a prestigious name on a list.

Afterwards, record the advice in your own words and separate suggestions from requirements. If a mentor describes how they applied several years ago, check the current recruitment information before acting. A helpful personal account may still concern a pathway that has since changed.

If the match is not useful, acknowledge the time given and look for a different source of support. You do not need to turn a brief conversation into a long commitment, and the other person should not be expected to provide unlimited access because you share an identity.

Turn an interest in research into a manageable contribution

The research discussed above may prompt you to investigate a question yourself. Begin by understanding an existing piece of work before proposing a new survey. Ask what the researchers wanted to know, who could take part, how they gathered information and what their findings leave unanswered. A careful reading can reveal a more useful question than simply repeating a widely shared percentage.

Bring that question to an appropriate academic or educational supervisor. Explain whether your interest is in clinical research, education or access to training. Those are different subjects, and the person who can guide one may not have the expertise or approvals needed for another.

Before agreeing to help with a project, establish the actual task. Will you review published literature, help organise approved material or contribute to a defined part of an existing study? Ask who will supervise your work, what training you need, how much time is expected and how contributions will be acknowledged. A clear small responsibility is more useful than an impressive project title with no agreed role.

Keep permission separate from enthusiasm. Do not collect colleagues' personal experiences, contact patients or take information from clinical systems simply because the topic feels worthwhile. Work through the institution's research or educational arrangements and the person responsible for the project. If you are unsure what is authorised, resolve that before gathering material.

At an agreed review point, discuss what you have learned and what remains unfinished. A project can develop reading, organisation and critical thinking as well as produce a final output. Describe your own contribution accurately when discussing it later; participation is not the same as leading the study or proving its conclusions.

Use professional networks with their actual eligibility in mind

The College's Women in Surgery network offers a way to learn about events and connect with people at different career stages. Its history dates to Women in Surgical Training, formed in 1991; the broader Women in Surgery name followed in 2007. The network describes joining as free.

That network should be distinguished from the College's mentoring platform. The platform's published eligibility, checked in October 2026, concerns UK-based College members, with mentee roles beginning at foundation doctor or dentist level. Do not assume that joining a free network automatically grants access to every separate mentoring programme. Check the live criteria before applying.

For students, an institution's own surgical society or educational team may be another route to appropriate events and introductions. Before committing time or money, establish what an activity actually provides. Is it an introductory talk, a supervised educational session, a networking event or an assessed course? Does it suit your current stage?

A useful event does not have to produce a mentor immediately. You might leave with a clearer understanding of a speciality, one reliable resource and a question to discuss with your own educational adviser. That is a concrete outcome, even if it is less dramatic than meeting a famous surgeon.

When following up with someone you met, mention the relevant conversation and make a proportionate request. Avoid sending personal clinical information or an extensive account of a dispute to a person who has only agreed to answer a careers question.

Support access without making the student responsible for fixing the department

The Medical Women's Federation's named theatre-hat project describes standard, hijab and Afro or large-hair options for eligible medical students. It identifies support from the Royal College's Grassroots scheme and the Centre for Perioperative Care. The project page sets application conditions and explains that provision depends on eligibility and available resources; it is not an unconditional offer to everyone.

The broader lesson is that practical inclusion can be organised collectively. A student's access should not depend entirely on whether she has the confidence, time or contacts to create a campaign. An institution can take responsibility for identifying needs, making information available and ensuring that approved arrangements reach the people who use them.

For a teaching team, consider the sequence from invitation to participation. Has the learner been told whom to meet? Does the relevant team know she is expected? Are any required preparations communicated early enough? If an obstacle arises, who is responsible for helping resolve it? These questions apply to organising a learning opportunity; specialist clothing decisions still need the appropriate clinical review.

Pay attention to what happens after an encouraging conversation. If a student was unable to join a planned activity, who checks whether another appropriate opportunity was arranged? If several learners raise the same issue, does anyone review the shared cause rather than treating each enquiry as unrelated?

A department can also ask for feedback without turning the affected student into its unpaid spokesperson. Offer a private route, explain who will see the information and respect a decision not to contribute to publicity. Someone may want an access problem solved while keeping her personal experience out of a newsletter or campaign.

For colleagues, useful support can be ordinary: make an appropriate introduction, include the learner in a relevant teaching conversation and give feedback on the work she is learning. Avoid directing every discussion towards hijab when she has asked about a clinical or academic interest.

Keep professional recognition specific

If you are writing about, introducing or inviting a surgeon who wears hijab, begin with her actual contribution. Name the speciality, project or research that is relevant to the occasion. Ask how she would like her professional title and name presented. A description that would be inadequate for another surgeon does not become sufficient because it praises diversity.

For a student society, this could mean inviting a speaker to discuss how a research question developed, what introducing a service involved or which decisions shaped her training. Leave space for identity and experience if she wishes to address them, without assuming she has agreed to deliver a personal account of discrimination.

Do not invent achievements to make a profile more impressive. Distinguish an author's stated ambition from an outcome, an early project from a national policy and a local introduction from a verified first. Where a hospital says it believes an initiative was the first of its kind, retain that attribution and date.

Also be careful with claims about patients. It is possible to value a diverse profession without asserting that every patient trusts a hijab-wearing clinician more, or that a particular faith automatically improves care. The individuals discussed here deserve recognition for documented work, without having to carry claims that their sources do not establish.

Sharing a profile can help a young person discover a career possibility. The most useful follow-through is to make reliable learning routes visible too: official careers information, an appropriate educational contact and opportunities suited to the person's stage. Admiration becomes more usable when it leads to a question that can be answered.

A practical starting point for three different readers

If you are a student wondering whether surgery is for you

Choose one speciality to investigate through official information and an appropriate educational opportunity. Write down what interests you and what you still need to understand. Arrange a focused careers conversation, and direct any placement-access question to the person responsible for that setting. Keep your interest in the work visible alongside the practical questions about participation.

If you are a family member trying to be supportive

Ask what kind of help would be useful now. The answer might be time to study, someone to discuss an event with or practical help attending an approved opportunity. Avoid presenting another woman's achievements as a timetable your relative must match. Interest can develop gradually, and an informed choice of a different career is not a failure of faith or ambition.

If you teach or work alongside trainees

Look at access to learning, the clarity of introductions and the quality of feedback. Ask whether a practical difficulty has actually been resolved, while allowing the trainee to develop interests beyond inclusion work. Recognition should include the ordinary academic and clinical contributions she makes, not only her willingness to discuss personal barriers.

Where clothing and workplace questions fit

For the separate details of approved headwear, protective equipment and clinical clothing, see Amani's guide to hijab in healthcare and the current instructions for the actual workplace. For a discrimination concern in Great Britain, the workplace discrimination guide explains the need for appropriate advice and timely action. A careers article cannot determine an individual clinical arrangement or employment dispute.

The documented careers here offer several ways of contributing: clinical expertise, research, mentoring, professional leadership and organisational change. A woman who wears hijab can be interested in any of them, in several at once, or in a different direction entirely. She deserves the information, training and professional relationships through which that interest can be explored seriously.