S3 E6 Maija Cheung, Chief Medical Officer of Kids Operating Room

In this episode of She Leads Biotech, I’m joined by Dr. Maija Cheung, a Yale-trained surgeon and now Chief Medical Officer of Kids Operating Room, a global nonprofit bringing surgical care to children in the world’s most underserved regions.

Maija’s journey is nothing short of extraordinary. From operating rooms in Connecticut to refugee camps in Kenya, she’s traded prestige for purpose , and is now leading efforts to build pediatric ORs in over 35 countries, including Ukraine, Brazil, and Afghanistan.

She shares how she navigated gender bias in surgery, why she walked away from full-time clinical work to serve more children globally, and how she’s collaborating with NASA to bring sustainable oxygen and power solutions to low-resource settings.

📌 Chapters / Timestamps
00:00 – Meet Dr. Maija Cheung
01:30 – Childhood, languages, and a love of technical detail
04:00 – From Yale to Uganda: her path through medicine and global surgery
06:30 – Gender bias in the surgical world and how she’s changing the narrative
12:00 – Building Kids Operating Room: the first 100 ORs in 35+ countries
16:00 – A life-changing surgery: the story of one boy, one operation, and a future reclaimed
19:00 – Sustainability and strategy: building programs that outlast the charity
22:00 – Partnering with NASA for solar-powered oxygen and off-grid surgical care
24:00 – Fundraising in a difficult climate and making every gift count
28:00 – What’s next for global surgery, and how we get there
31:00 – Advice to future medical professionals: forget the mold, follow your mission

🎧 Tune in for an honest, deeply inspiring look at what’s possible when medicine meets mission and how one surgeon is helping rewrite the future of global healthcare.

#SheLeadsBiotech #MaijaCheung #KidsOR #GlobalSurgery #WomenInSTEM #PediatricSurgery #NonprofitLeadership #AuthenticLeadership #SurgicalAccess #HealthcareInnovation #CNAInternationalUSA