Cycling home last night, I found myself listening to an interview Dr Edna had just shared with me, on the Wales, Africa and the World podcast, unravelling another layer into her leadership. It left me thinking about how much there still is to learn from the way she leads.

Leading the way she does is not easy. It carries challenges from within and without, and it demands constant recalibration: lots of listening, lots of learning, and a forever curious mind. After twenty ++ years working in veins and training at scale, I still have plenty to learn from her.

We are heading back to Somaliland (Horn of Africa) soon, thanks to Yasma, our local lead in Hargeisa, able to lead on her feet with real training expertise, and to the VeinTrain infrastructure and architecture already in place to support her, since improved significantly further. The aim, as it has always been, is a consistent plan, infrastructure and architecture that genuinely works for Edna Adan University Hospital, not one imported wholesale from elsewhere. So the listening becomes mine again.

The want is there, the need is there, and I cannot wait to visit in late autumn 2026.

More on this soon, including what this next chapter looks like for the partnership, and what Dr Edna's own message to the world has to teach the rest of us.