Board of Directors

 Medhat Allam, MD, FACS, Chairman of the Board of Directors

Medhat Allam is a board certified general and bariatric surgeon at Southampton, NY. He is the Chairman and a co-founder of Operation International. Dr. Allam has traveled to numerous countries in Africa, Asia and South and Central America and operated on hundreds of patients worldwide.  He was born in Egypt where he obtained his medical degree before immigrating to the United States. Dr. Allam has published extensively in the field of general and advanced laparoscopic surgery.

Ravi Kothuru, MD, FACS

Ravi Kothuru is the President and a co-founder  of Operation International.  He is a Fellow of American College of Surgeons and Board Certified in General and Cardiothoracic Surgery. He graduated from Guntur Medical College, Andhra Pradesh, India in 1992. He completed his General Surgery residency from Brookdale Hospital, Brooklyn, NY in 2000 and his Cardio-thoracic Surgery fellowship from SUNY Downstate, Brooklyn, NY in 2002. He is currently Chief of Division of Thoracic Surgery and General Surgery Residency Program Director at Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY and an attending physician in Thoracic surgery at Jamaica Hospital, Queens and  Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY. He specializes in Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery including Laparoscopic Foregut surgery.

Robert Mineo, CRNA

Robert Mineo is a co-founder and a Vice President of Operation International.  He received his BS from SUNY Stony Brook and his MS from NY Medical College in 1986, and has been a Nurse Anesthetist at Southampton Hospital in New York since 1996.  He enjoys living on Eastern Long Island with his wife, two sons, and four Labrador retrievers.  He enjoys outdoor activities and Martial Arts.

Christopher Torres, CRNA

Christopher Torres is the president of Team NY.  He has been a Certified Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) since 2006. He received his RN at Catholic Medical Center of Brooklyn and Queens in 1996. Over the next 10 years he worked in the ICU, PACU and Operating Room. In 2002 he joined ISMS and went on his first mission to Vietnam.  He completed his training in 2006 as a CRNA and has worked in multiple specialties, including Cardiac, Neurosurgical, Obstetrics and Pediatric surgeries. He currently lives in Danville, Pennsylvania with his wife and three children.

Colleen Brennan MPH, BSN

Ms. Brennan is a graduate of New York Medical College, School of Public Health. Ms. Brennan has also practiced as a Pediatric Oncology and PICU nurse at Hackensack University Medical Center. 

Ms. Brennan is member of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) a division of UN Women. 

Ms. Brennan has served on various charitable boards such as The Bergen Volunteer Center, The Tomorrows Children Fund and the Peter Ojiambo Foundation. 

Ms. Brennan is passionate about gender equality and empowerment of girls, since 2016, Ms Brennan has supported girls from the Kibera School for Girls in Kenya buy hosting them in her home during their summer academic camps in the US. 

Sanjay Lalla, MD, FACS

Dr Sanjay Lalla is a board certified plastic surgeon and an active member of American Society of Plastic surgeons as well as Nj and Ny societies of plastic surgery.  He has been on over 35 medical missions over his 22 year surgical career and had been closely involved in the planning and success of these trips . He is often accompanied by his nurse Practioner wife Gina and his two teen boys.   He completed his 7 years of training in general surgery and plastic surgery after graduating from accelerated combined 6 year BA/MD program at Boston University.  He is currently in private practice in New Jersey when not organizing his charitable mission trips . 

Shawn Ciecko, MD, FACS

Dr. Shawn C. Ciecko is the President of the Team ENT.  He graduated from the University of Rochester and attended the University at Buffalo School of Medicine. He completed his internship in General Surgery and residency in Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at the Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Ciecko spent two years as the Duke Chief Resident in Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery. He has received several honors during his career including Duke Hospital’s consultant of the year in 2006. He was elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha National Medical Honor Society and is currently a member of the American Academy of Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery and the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Ciecko is Board Certified by the American Board of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and has a special interest in Thyroid Surgery. He performs Ultrasound guided biopsies for thyroid nodules in the office and was Co-director of the 2010 Long Island College Hospital’s Head and Neck Symposium on Thyroid disease. Dr. Ciecko’s interests are in adult and pediatric ear, nose & throat, advanced endoscopic sinus surgery, head and neck cancer surgery, thyroid and parathyroid surgery, obstructive sleep apnea, and facial plastic and reconstructive surgery for trauma. He is currently a clinical instructor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn and operates at Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island.

Rajesh Patel, MD

Born in India, grew up in Zambia, Africa before returning to India for education, Rajesh Patel attended Dr. BR Ambedkar Medical College in Bangalore, India in 1987. 

He moved to the United States and completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Fellowship at the Catholic Medical Center in New York followed by a Fellowship in Surgical Critical Care at Mount Sinai Hospital in NYC. 

He is currently in private practice in Riverhead and is the Associate Director of the ICU and Chairman of the Pharmacy & Therapeutics Committee at Peconic Bay Medical Center.

Rajesh is on the Board of Directors of Operation International, East End Hospice, the Rotary Club of Riverhead and the Indian Network of Eastern Long Island. 

Mehul Mehta, MD

Dr. Mehul Mehta is the president of Team MI. Dr. Mehta was raised in Kenya. He went to school in London, England, and finished his residency in General Surgery, Plastic Surgery, and Hand Surgery in the United States. He is currently practicing Plastic Surgery and Hand Surgery in the suburbs of Detroit and is on the faculty at Wayne State University and Oakland University. He has performed 20 missions around the world with various organizations but, since 2009, has been exclusively with Operation International's New York Team. In 2013, he started a new chapter of International Operation International, the Michigan Chapter, along with his wife, Claire. He now does two missions every year with Team New York and his Michigan Team. His interests include traveling, playing squash, skiing, and flying.

Nilesh Patel, DDS

Dr. Nilesh Patel is the President of our Dental Team. He is a General Dentist practicing in Portchester, NY in Westchester County. He graduated from New York University College of Dentistry in 1992 and has been in private practice since then.

He has gone on several voluntary trips to Haiti providing much needed dental care in some of the most underserved and under privileged areas of the world.

Vito Alamia, Jr, MD, FACOG

Vito Alamia went on his first trip with Operation International in 2003 to Brazil and has been an active member since. He did his medical training at SUNY Stony Brook as well as his Ob/Gyn residence. He is board certified in Ob/Gyn. He moved to Southampton in 2000 and joined Hamptons Gynecology & Obstetrics where he has practiced since. He is a Founding Partner and Board Member of Women’s Health Professional since 2005. He is currently Chairman of Ob/Gyn at Southampton Hospital and has an interest in high risk obstetrics, incontinence and minimally invasive surgery. He is married with four great children.

Michael Garabedian, esq, SECRETARY

Michael received his Bachelor of Arts degree at New York University, and received his Juris Doctor from Union University, Albany Law School. He is a partner in the law firm of Egan & Golden, LLP, and is actively involved in the litigating civil cases in federal and state court.

In addition to practicing law, Michael is the President of the Board of Directors of Hopscotch Adoptions, Inc., a Hague Convention accredited, not-for-profit international adoption provider dedicated to orphan relief and adoptive placement of children with families in the U.S. and abroad.

Michael is also a former President of the Board of Trustees of the John Jermain Memorial Library where he currently is serving as Vice President. Michael also was on the Board of the New York Armenian Home, a not-for-profit senior assisted living facility in Flushing, New York, and served as President.

Sala Abdalla BSc MBBS FRCS (Gen Surg)

Sala Abdalla is a UK-based General Surgeon and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. She is passionate about global surgery and has previously worked as a volunteer Surgeon on a Humanitarian mission to Ghana with Operation Hernia in 2017. She has been invited back to lead an Operation Hernia team in 2020. She is group lead for Operation International team UK 2019. Sala is a trustee and chairperson of Operation International UK and a member of the board of directors of Operation International limited.  

Alexander Barash, M.D.

Dr. Barash is a New York Eye and Ear trained vitreoretinal surgeon. He was born in Ukraine and raised in Brooklyn, NY. His father is an electrical engineer, and his mother was a computer programmer for the financial industry in New York. 

Dr. Barash completed Cornell University Magna Cum Laude with a distinction in research and went on to medical school at Mount Sinai in New York City. At Mount Sinai, he was awarded a prestigious year-long Doris Duke clinical research fellowship during which he studied corneal stem cells’ ability to cure blindness. He went on to study Ophthalmology in Stony Brook, Long Island, before his vitreoretinal fellowship at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. 

Dr. Barash has been on six surgical missions to Mongolia and has also traveled to Peru, where he was director of eye clinic services for a surgical mission. In medical school, he was the clinic manager for a student-run eye clinic providing free eye care to residents of East Harlem. He also enjoys research and has been published in numerous medical journals and book chapters. He has given presentations at medical meetings around the USA and won several awards for these presentations.  He is fluent in Russian and English, and proficient in Spanish and Italian.

Jack Van De Wetering

Jack Van de Wetering founded Ivy Acres on Long Island with his brother Peter in the early 1960s. In the beginning, the company focused on growing tomatoes and other vegetables. Several years later, Jack switched to growing bedding plants then added another location in Baiting Hollow in the mid-1980s and a plug production facility after that.

In 1998, Ivy Acres added a third production facility in Vineland, N.J., to better service its customers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Jack has been an active Rotarian for most of his life on the North Fork of Long Island where he supported many local and international projects. Jack joined Operation International Board after years of backing the charity both personally and as a Rotarian.