Adam Hamawy

Combat physician

Hamawy enlisted in the New Jersey National Guard and served 8 years as a reconstructive surgeon, a general surgeon, and a flight surgeon in the Medical Corps during the Iraq war, including a 9-month deployment in Baghdad at the 31st Combat Support Hospital with the U.S. Army.^[3][1][4] He operated on hundreds of service members and civilians, including future-U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, who credited him with helping save her life after her Blackhawk helicopter was shot down in 2004.^[1] Duckworth later recalled "When I was wounded, within 20 minutes, I was in front of him – and he is the doctor who not only saved my life, but was able to prevent me from becoming a triple amputee by employing a vascular procedure that he'd just learned in medical school."^[5] The Combat Support Hospital treated an average of 15 traumas a day, but during the busiest days, such as during the Second Battle of Fallujah, they treated up to 40.^[4]

When Hamawy separated from the Army he had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel.^[2]

Private medical practice

Since returning from military service, Hamawy has been a reconstructive surgeon in Princeton, New Jersey.

He has been an expert opinion in articles about plastic surgery in fashion and celebrity gossip magazines such as Life and Style and the Hollywood Reporter,^[6][7] the latter of which he criticized a plastic surgery mobile game that appeared targeted at children due to its effect on their self-esteem and body insecurity.^[8]

September 11 attacks

Hamawy treated the wounded and first responders immediately following the September 11 attacks.^[9]

Gaza

In May 2024, Hamawy joined a volunteer international mission organized by the Palestinian-American Medical Association and the World Health Organization. The original plan was to spend two weeks working as part of a 20-person medical team of physicians at the Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis. While there he performed 120 surgeries, with more than half of them on children.^[1]

During the medical mission, two of his colleagues at the hospital were killed in strikes on their homes, and he spoke to doctors who had been released from Israeli detention and described being tortured.^[10]

Israel seized and closed the Rafah border crossing shortly after his arrival, which trapped the team of physicians inside Gaza. The team was unable to leave at the end of their mission, and stayed an additional seven days.^[10][11] Senator Duckworth personally intervened to help 17 of the doctors leave by speaking to Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog and delivering a letter that Hamawy had written to President Joe Biden.^[12][9] Hamawy refused to leave until the other members of the team from Jordan, Egypt, and Australia were also able to leave, saying "When you go in as a team, you leave as a team. That’s the right thing to do, and that's what was bred into us [in the Army]."^[1][13][14]

Hamawy was quoted in the New York Times after he returned, "Children who lost limbs and could not run or play specifically said they wished they had died, and some wanted to kill themselves."^[15] In an interview to NPR he said "Many of these patients die when they arrive to the hospital. The mortality rate is 80%. In our most recent war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mortality rate was 10%."^[16] He said this was mainly due to lack of medication, personnel, and adequate resources.^[1]

U.S. Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, who represents Princeton in Congress, said then that she was "deeply relieved" when he finally returned from Gaza. The congresswoman later invited him as her guest at President Donald Trump’s 2025 State of the Union.^[1]

In June 2024, Hamawy testified to a congressional briefing to describe his experience treating patients in Gaza.^[16]

Other disasters

Over the past 30 years, Hamawy has also volunteered following the siege of Sarajevo, 2010 Haitian earthquake, and the Syrian civil war.^[17][18]