Breaking down limitations in girls’s healthcare stays a important problem in fashionable drugs, significantly in underserved communities. Whereas city centres typically have a number of healthcare choices, rural areas nonetheless want to enhance their entry to specialised medical care, particularly in obstetrics and ladies’s well being.
The Alberta School of Household Physicians lately highlighted achievements in creating sustainable healthcare options with their Recognition of Excellence award, emphasizing the significance of efficient approaches in bridging these healthcare gaps.
Dr. Stephanie Efua Sobotie, recipient of this recognition, brings distinctive expertise in creating healthcare options throughout various settings. From responding to important wants in Ghana’s Kuntanase Authorities Hospital, the place she established a blood financial institution after personally donating blood to save lots of a affected person’s life, to serving to develop the obstetric program in Kindersley, Saskatchewan, her work demonstrates the impression of focused healthcare initiatives.
Now, as a household doctor with a Certificates of Added Competence in obstetric surgical abilities at Bow Path Medical Clinic in Calgary and a medical lecturer on the Cumming Faculty of Medication, she continues to deal with healthcare accessibility challenges. We sat down with Dr. Sobotie to discover what it takes to create compelling healthcare options and the way connecting rural and concrete healthcare experiences can enhance medical care supply.
Picture Courtesy of Dr. Stephanie Efua Sobotie
Dr. Sobotie, as the primary feminine doctor in your loved ones, what does ‘redefining girls’s healthcare’ imply to you?
Once I take into account redefining girls’s healthcare, I envision creating a really accessible system that addresses distinctive medical wants which were traditionally ignored. This imaginative and prescient was sparked early in my life after I seen I may very well be the primary lady doctor in my household.
At Bow Path Medical Clinic in Calgary, we have constructed a girls’s clinic that goes past main care to deal with complete well being issues all through each life stage. However significant change requires reaching underserved communities, too. In Ghana’s Kuntanase Authorities Hospital, we established a program that efficiently lowered maternal mortality charges within the Ashanti area. This work continued in Canada, the place we have targeted on bringing important providers to areas with restricted healthcare entry.
Redefining healthcare additionally means making ready future generations of medical professionals. By my position on the Cumming Faculty of Medication, I work to make sure that tomorrow’s healthcare suppliers perceive the significance of advocating for ladies’s well being wants and creating sustainable, accessible care programs.
From Ghana to Canada, you’ve got seen varied challenges in drugs. In your opinion, what obstacles nonetheless exist for ladies in healthcare – each for medical doctors and sufferers?
Primarily based on my expertise working throughout totally different healthcare programs, I’ve noticed that entry to specialised care stays a major problem, significantly in rural and underserved areas. This grew to become evident throughout my time at Kuntanase Authorities Hospital, the place we confronted important useful resource limitations – like not having a blood financial institution, which might have devastating penalties for ladies requiring emergency care.
There are nonetheless limitations for ladies physicians in particular specialised fields. Whereas I initially needed to concentrate on Trauma and orthopaedic surgical procedure, my journey led me to household drugs, the place I might take advantage of important impression. Nonetheless, I obtained extra {qualifications}, like my Certificates of Added Competence in obstetric surgical abilities, to offer complete care, particularly in underserved areas.
From my present perspective on the girls’s clinic in Calgary, I see how these challenges manifest otherwise however persist even in well-resourced settings. Psychological well being assist accessibility, for example, stays a important concern.
I’ve witnessed firsthand how delays in accessing psychological well being providers can have extreme penalties for sufferers. These experiences have formed my method to creating extra inclusive and complete healthcare packages that handle instant medical wants and long-term wellness assist.
As a part of Bow Path Medical Clinic, you’ve got helped set up a specialised girls’s well being division. What distinctive healthcare challenges are you aiming to deal with by this initiative?
By our girls’s clinic in Calgary, we’re addressing a number of important wants I’ve recognized all through my profession. Working as a main care doctor in rural and concrete settings, I’ve seen how essential it’s to offer complete girls’s healthcare past important medical providers.
Our clinic focuses on offering steady care all through a lady’s life journey. Hospital privileges permit me to supply full obstetric care, together with surgical deliveries when vital. This complete method is important given my expertise establishing obstetric packages from Ghana to Saskatchewan, the place I’ve seen how built-in care can considerably enhance outcomes.
Moreover, based mostly on my expertise as a household doctor with obstetric surgical abilities, I acknowledged the necessity for specialised providers that bridge the hole between main care and specialised obstetrics. That is particularly necessary as we intention to scale back limitations to accessing high quality healthcare. We’re making a mannequin the place girls can obtain coordinated care, from routine check-ups to extra advanced procedures, all inside a well-known and supportive surroundings.”
You acquired the Recognition of Excellence from the Alberta School of Household Physicians for contributing to household drugs. How does this expertise show you how to create a extra inclusive healthcare surroundings?
Recognition of Excellence strengthened my dedication to constructing inclusive healthcare programs. This recognition displays our success in implementing complete care approaches that I’ve developed all through my profession. As a Household Observe Assessor for the School of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, I work to make sure excessive requirements of care throughout various medical environments.
This expertise, mixed with my medical educating on the Cumming Faculty of Medication, helps me promote inclusive practices among the many subsequent era of physicians.
You have created sustainable medical options in several settings, from establishing a blood financial institution in Kuntanase Hospital to creating the obstetric program in Kindersley. How do these tasks assist overcome systemic limitations to healthcare entry?
Every venture emerged from actual, pressing wants I witnessed firsthand. I will always remember that important second in Kuntanase after I needed to donate my blood to save lots of a affected person with a ruptured ectopic being pregnant. That have wasn’t nearly saving one life – it revealed a systemic hole that wanted addressing.
Establishing the blood financial institution wasn’t nearly making a facility; it was about making certain that no different lady would face that very same life-threatening state of affairs on account of an absence of sources.
In Kindersley, Saskatchewan, we confronted totally different challenges however comparable underlying problems with entry to care. Growing the obstetric program there wasn’t nearly including providers – it was about creating pathways for household physicians to realize superior obstetric abilities, making certain sustainable care in rural communities.
I’ve realized from working in these various settings that sustainable options should develop from native wants whereas sustaining constant high quality requirements.
These experiences taught me that overcoming healthcare limitations is not nearly constructing services or packages – it is about understanding group wants, coaching healthcare suppliers, and creating programs that may proceed serving folks lengthy after preliminary implementation. Whether or not in Ghana or Canada, the rules stay the identical:
Hearken to the group.
Determine the important gaps.
Construct options that may stand the check of time.
Your latest article in WJARR and upcoming publications in Arjonline discover important elements of ladies’s well being. How does your analysis contribute to altering approaches in girls’s healthcare?
This analysis grew straight from my expertise working with sufferers and seeing how bodily Trauma throughout childbirth can have lasting results on each psychological and bodily well-being. By publishing these findings, we’re serving to to focus on the interconnected nature of ladies’s well being points.
That is significantly necessary for healthcare suppliers in city and rural settings, the place understanding these connections can result in higher affected person care. The analysis additionally helps what I’ve applied in follow – the significance of contemplating each instant medical wants and long-term well-being in girls’s healthcare.
These publications contribute to a rising physique of proof supporting extra built-in approaches to girls’s healthcare. These approaches transfer past treating remoted signs to understanding and addressing the complete spectrum of ladies’s well being wants.
What healthcare limitations for ladies do you intend to beat shortly?
I need to assist individuals who beforehand didn’t have entry to high-quality drugs. Primarily based on my expertise from Ghana to Canada, I intention to proceed creating sustainable healthcare packages in underserved communities, specializing in integrating psychological well being assist with main care providers.
By my educating roles on the Cumming Faculty of Medication and medical follow, I am dedicated to coaching the following era of healthcare suppliers to grasp and handle the distinctive challenges girls face in accessing complete healthcare.
Imagining drugs 10 years from now, what ought to a really inclusive and sustainable healthcare system appear to be?
A really inclusive and sustainable healthcare system ought to mix the most effective components I’ve seen work in several settings – from rural Ghana to city Canada. It ought to make sure that each lady can entry complete care, no matter location.
This implies integrating main care with specialised providers, significantly in underserved areas, whereas sustaining sturdy connections between group clinics and bigger medical centres. Psychological well being assist ought to be available, and healthcare suppliers ought to be educated to ship culturally competent care. Most significantly, it ought to be a system that grows and adapts with its communities, making certain long-term sustainability.
