Dr. Christos Christou

Dr. Christos Christou commenced his role as International President of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in the first week of September 2019. Before this, he held a number of roles in the field with MSF,and it’s affiliated associations. Dr. Christou joined MSF in 2002, where his first assignment was in Greece as a field doctor, working with migrants and refugees, after which he moved onto working as a doctor in a Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndromes project in Zambia in 2004 and 2005. Following a break from field missions for several years while he trained as a surgeon, in 2013, he rejoined MSF missions in a number of conflict zones, including South Sudan, Iraq and, most recently, Cameroon, as an emergency and trauma surgeon. Born in Trikala, a small town in central Greece, Dr. Christou graduated from Aristotle University’s medical school in Thessaloniki, Greece, and has a PhD in Surgery from the Kapodestrian University of Athens. He holds a masters in International Health – Health Crisis Management from the University of Athens and is a member of its faculty. Dr. Christou later specialized in general and emergency surgery in the Surgical and Transplant Unit of Evangelismos Hospital in Athens. In 2013, he moved to London, working as a Senior Clinical Fellow in Colorectal Surgery at King’s College Hospital, and in 2018, became a Consultant of Colorectal and Emergency Surgery at North Middlesex University Hospital. In 2018, he was awarded Fellow of the European Board of Surgery in Coloproctology. Dr. Christou was first General Secretary, then Vice-President, and finally President of MSF Greece Board of Directors from 2005 until his election as International President in June 2019. In 2022, Dr. Christou was re-elected as International President for another three-year mandate, which will end in mid-2025.