Munjed Al Muderis

Munjed Al Muderis was born under the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.[4] His father was a former judge if the Supreme Court of Iraq and had authority in the Marine Corps, while his uncle was a descendant of the second royal family and Prime Minister, back when Iraq was still a kingdom.[5] His mother was a school principal who had been demoted for refusing to join the Baath Party.

Al Muderis graduated from Baghdad College High School in 1991, where he was a classmate of Qusay Hussein. He went on to study medicine at various universities, including the Baghdad University from 1991 to 1997, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.[6]

At the beginning of the Gulf War he was a second year medical student in Basra. He fled the city in the early days of the war, returning later to see the aftermath of the Basra uprising.

In 1999, he was forced to flee Iraq when he was working as a junior surgeon at Saddam Hussein Medical Centre in Baghdad.[1] A busload of army draft evaders were brought into the hospital for the top of their ears to be amputated under Saddam Hussein's orders. The senior surgeon in the operating theatre refused the orders and was immediately interrogated and shot in front of several medical staff. Instead of complying with the orders, Al Muderis decided to flee.[7] He escaped the operating theatre and hid in the female toilets for five hours. Shortly after, he fled to Jordan before the authorities caught up with him and moved on to Kuala Lumpur. From there, he took a people-smuggling route to Christmas Island, where he was sent to the Curtin Immigration Reception and Processing Centre. He was detained there until his identity was verified, given the number 982. He was punished with solitary confinement and was repeatedly told to go back where he came from after fellow detainees who caused riots blamed him. Ten months after being sent to the detention centre, he was granted refugee status and freed.[2]

Upon release, he only landed a job at Mildura Base Hospital as an emergency unit and orthopaedic resident, after sending out more than 100 resumes. A year later, he moved to the Austin Hospital in Melbourne and travelled to many different countries, completing specialisation fellowships and attending short-term courses.[1]

Al Muderis developed the new generation of implant, osseointegration prosthetic limb (OPL), which addresses several issues previously faced by patients.[8] This led Orthopedics This Week[9] to praise Al Muderis's work as 'The Most Incredible Orthopedics You'll Ever Read About.'[10] The Osseointegration Group of Australia Team (OGAP) is made up of specialists in various fields. Women's Weekly and NEWS rank Al Muderis as one of the world's top osseointegration surgeons.[11][12]

Traditional and rigid socket based technology is now replaced with a surgery that inserts a titanium implant into the bone. Osseoperception occurs as the prosthetic is anchored directly to the bone which would transmit sensory signals, resulting in patients recovering a certain level of feeling. The implant's surface is also made of highly porous titanium, providing the user with balance and allowing for ingrowth of bone. A dual adaptor is designed with a smooth surface to minimise friction and coated with titanium niobium for antibacterial purposes. The adaptor is fixed to a control device and is connected to the exterior of the prosthetic limb. Putting on and taking off the limb can be done in less than ten seconds.[8] Osseointegration surgery aims to provide amputees with greater mobility and reduced discomfort.[13]

Al Muderis is spreading the word to make the technology available globally. Patients travel from around the world to see him for this groundbreaking surgery.[14]

Al Muderis was a first year resident[1] at Saddam Hussein Medical Centre[4] in Baghdad before he fled Iraq and his career was disrupted. In Australia, he first worked at Mildura Base Hospital as an emergency unit and orthopaedic resident.[1] He moved to Melbourne four months later and worked at Austin Repatriation Hospital as a surgical registrar, followed by a year at Canberra Hospital.[1]

In 2004, he joined the Australian Orthopaedic Training Program. In 2008, he attained his surgical fellowship, FRACS (Orth).[15] He completed the following post specialisation fellowships:

• Fellowship in Lower Limb Arthroplasty at the Sydney Adventist and Baulkham Hills Hospitals, Australia[6]
• Fellowship in Hip and Knee Arthroplasty with Prof. Dr. Med Jorg Scholz at the Emil Von Behring Hospital, Germany[6]
• Trauma Fellowship with Prof. Dr. Med. Axel Ekkernkamp at the Unfallkrankenhaus Berlin, Germany[6]
• Robotic leg surgery post-specialisation training with Dr Horst Aschoff at Lubeck, Germany[6]

Al Muderis is a supervisor of the Australian Orthopaedic Trainee Registrar at the above-mentioned medical centres, and is a supervisor of overseas trained orthopaedic surgeons (Fellows) in hip and knee pathology.[6]

In 2010, Al Muderis commenced his private practice.[1] He is an orthopaedic surgeon and treats his patients at Macquarie University, Bella Vista, Drummoyne and Sydney Adventist Hospital clinics.[1] He is also appointed as an adjunct clinical associate professor in the School of Medicine, Sydney Campus at the University of Notre Dame Australia[6] and a clinical lecturer at Macquarie University Hospital and the Australian School of Advanced Medicine.[1] He also has appointments at the Sydney Adventist Hospital and Norwest Private Hospital.[1] He is a fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and the Australian Orthopaedic Association.[6] He is also the founder of the Osseointegration Group of Australia.[6]

As an Australian orthopaedic surgeon, he specialises in hip, knee, trauma and osseointegration surgery,[1] focusing in hip arthroscopy, resurfacing, arthroplasty, knee arthroplasty and reconstruction of recurrent patellar dislocations.[1]

Al Muderis chaired the 2015 Osseointegration Conference[16] and was a guest speaker at Australian Orthotic Prosthetist Association Meeting.[17]

Al Muderis has been recognised by Queen Elizabeth II for his work with British soldier Michael Swain.[18] He was invited by Queen Elizabeth II to attend the ceremony in which Swain received his MBE medal.[19]

He also caught the attention of Prince Harry of Wales, who visited Al Muderis on 7 May 2015[20][21] to follow up on Al Muderis' work and meet some of the amputees he has helped, including a decorated British soldier who lost his legs in Afghanistan who was undergoing groundbreaking treatment to fit prosthetic legs at Macquarie University Hospital.[22]

Prince Harry was amazed by the work Al Muderis and his team are doing, and believes the life changing surgery is "the way forward for single amputees or double amputees above the knee".[23]The Prince was keen to get Al Muderis to the UK for an extended period of time to make the procedure available to British ex-servicemen injured in combat.[23]

Al Muderis is hopeful that the royal's profile will give the procedure more exposure, and that as it becomes more well known this technology will become more available to the common day to day person.[21]

Al Muderis has connected prosthetic limbs to dozens of UK soldiers.[20]

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is spending £2m on trials that were to begin in 2016 and involve 20 amputees who were to undergo Al Muderis' osseointegration procedure.[24] Al Muderis has trained five British surgeons and they were to perform the surgeries together, then monitor those 20 cases for two years. A similar project was in the works for Canada and Houston, Texas.[10]

Al Muderis has presented and published numerous research reports on osseointegration surgery for amputees, how to measure growth rate in children, limited incision plating technique in management of clavicle fracture and describing new patterns of distal clavicle fractures dislocation.[25]

He has written two books about his life and experiences, the first in 2014, called Walking Free, and later in 2019 Going Back published by Allen & Unwin.[1]

Al Muderis was named 2020 NSW Australian of the Year for his humanitarian work and contribution to medicine.

Al Muderis' clinics at Norwest Private Hospital, Macquarie University and Sydney Adventist Hospital in Sydney are known worldwide as centres of excellence, according to News.com.au.[35]

Al Muderis has two sons and two daughters from previous relationships.[36] He is now in a de-facto relationship with Claudia Roberts.

Walking Free was published in October 2014,[1] written by Al Muderis and contributed to by Patrick Weaver.[37] It was published by Allen & Unwin.[1] In his book, he shared his life and experience in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime, his journey to seek asylum in Australia and how he worked towards being a world leader in osseointegration surgery.[38] His second memoir, Going Back, was published in 2019 by Allen & Unwin.[39]

• The Under-Recognised Capitellar Lesion Associated With Radial Head Fractures. This article by Al Muderis describes the seriousness of missing to diagnose radial head fractures and properly treat them.[40]
• Current evidence of extracorporeal shock wave therapy in chronic Achilles tendinopathy. impact factor 1.53. In this paper Al Muderis and his co-authors describe the benefit of shock wave therapy in the treatment of painful achilles tendonopathy.[41]
• Minimally invasive medial patellofemoral ligament reconstruction for patellar instability using an artificial ligament: A two-year follow-up. 1.70 Impact Factor. In this paper Al Muderis describes a new technology to reconstruct the medial patellofemoral ligament in patients suffering from patellar instability using artificial ligament with a minimum of two years followup.[42]
• Osseointegrated total knee replacement connected to a lower limb prosthesis: 4 cases. 2.45 Impact Factor. This paper presents the first four cases where a combination of total knee replacement with transcutaneous osseointegration were performed for below knee amputees.[43]
• Arthroscopically assisted fixation of the lesser trochanter fracture: a case series. This paper presents the first three cases of avulsed lesser trochanter fractures in teenagers that were internally fixed utilising keyhole surgical techniques.[44]
• Percutaneous Epidural Lysis of Adhesions in Chronic Lumbar Radicular Pain: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial. 4.77 Impact Factor.[45]
• Cementless Total Hip Arthroplasty Using the Spongiosa-I Fully Coated Cancellous Metal Surface A Minimum Twenty-Year Follow-up. 4.31 Impact Factor.[46]
• Alternative Bearing Designs for Hip Resurfacing Arthroplasty.[47]
• Zebra lines of pamidronate therapy in children.4.31 Impact Factor. In this paper Al Muderis describes the ability for the first time to accurately measure growth rate in children via measuring the distance between the bisphosphonate discs and comparing that to the time interval of receiving the injections.[48]
• Primary septic arthritis of the knee due to Neisseria meningitides.[49]

Both newspaper publications and radio talk shows have shared the story of Al Muderis, from his journey of fleeing Iraq to his job as an osseointegration surgeon in Sydney, Australia.

• "Munjed Al Muderis". webpage.
• "Specialist details".