Breaking down obstacles in girls’s healthcare stays a crucial problem in trendy medication, notably in underserved communities. Whereas city centres usually 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 Faculty of Household Physicians not too long ago 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 crucial 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 expertise 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?
After I contemplate redefining girls’s healthcare, I envision creating a really accessible system that addresses distinctive medical wants which have been traditionally ignored. This imaginative and prescient was sparked early in my life once I seen I could possibly 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 major 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 decreased 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 getting ready future generations of medical professionals. Via my position on the Cumming Faculty of Medication, I work to make sure that tomorrow’s healthcare suppliers perceive the significance of advocating for girls’s well being wants and creating sustainable, accessible care programs.
From Ghana to Canada, you’ve got seen numerous challenges in medication. In your opinion, what obstacles nonetheless exist for girls in healthcare – each for docs and sufferers?
Primarily based on my expertise working throughout completely different healthcare programs, I’ve noticed that entry to specialised care stays a big problem, notably in rural and underserved areas. This grew to become evident throughout my time at Kuntanase Authorities Hospital, the place we confronted crucial useful resource limitations – like not having a blood financial institution, which may have devastating penalties for girls requiring emergency care.
There are nonetheless obstacles for girls physicians in particular specialised fields. Whereas I initially needed to focus on Trauma and orthopaedic surgical procedure, my journey led me to household medication, the place I may take advantage of important impression. Nonetheless, I obtained extra {qualifications}, like my Certificates of Added Competence in obstetric surgical expertise, 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 help accessibility, as an illustration, stays a crucial subject.
I’ve witnessed firsthand how delays in accessing psychological well being providers can have extreme penalties for sufferers. These experiences have formed my strategy to creating extra inclusive and complete healthcare applications that tackle quick medical wants and long-term wellness help.
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 via this initiative?
Via our girls’s clinic in Calgary, we’re addressing a number of crucial wants I’ve recognized all through my profession. Working as a major 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 enable me to supply full obstetric care, together with surgical deliveries when obligatory. This complete strategy is crucial given my expertise establishing obstetric applications 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 expertise, I acknowledged the necessity for specialised providers that bridge the hole between major care and specialised obstetrics. That is particularly necessary as we intention to scale back obstacles to accessing high quality healthcare. We’re making a mannequin the place girls can obtain coordinated care, from routine check-ups to extra complicated procedures, all inside a well-recognized and supportive atmosphere.”
You acquired the Recognition of Excellence from the Alberta Faculty of Household Physicians for contributing to household medication. How does this expertise aid you create a extra inclusive healthcare atmosphere?
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 Faculty 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 instructing on the Cumming Faculty of Medication, helps me promote inclusive practices among the many subsequent technology of physicians.
You’ve got created sustainable medical options in numerous settings, from establishing a blood financial institution in Kuntanase Hospital to creating the obstetric program in Kindersley. How do these initiatives assist overcome systemic obstacles to healthcare entry?
Every challenge emerged from actual, pressing wants I witnessed firsthand. I will always remember that crucial second in Kuntanase once 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 guaranteeing that no different lady would face that very same life-threatening state of affairs attributable to a scarcity of sources.
In Kindersley, Saskatchewan, we confronted completely different challenges however related underlying problems with entry to care. Creating the obstetric program there wasn’t nearly including providers – it was about creating pathways for household physicians to achieve superior obstetric expertise, guaranteeing sustainable care in rural communities.
I’ve discovered 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 obstacles is not nearly constructing amenities or applications – it is about understanding neighborhood 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:
- Take heed to the neighborhood.
- Establish the crucial gaps.
- Construct options that may stand the check of time.
Your latest article in WJARR and upcoming publications in Arjonline discover important points of ladies’s well being. How does your analysis contribute to altering approaches in girls’s healthcare?
This analysis grew immediately 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 notably 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 apply – the significance of contemplating each quick 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 obstacles for girls do you intend to beat shortly?
I wish to assist individuals who beforehand didn’t have entry to high-quality medication. Primarily based on my expertise from Ghana to Canada, I intention to proceed creating sustainable healthcare applications in underserved communities, specializing in integrating psychological well being help with major care providers.
Via my instructing roles on the Cumming Faculty of Medication and medical apply, I am dedicated to coaching the subsequent technology of healthcare suppliers to know and tackle the distinctive challenges girls face in accessing complete healthcare.
Imagining medication 10 years from now, what ought to a really inclusive and sustainable healthcare system appear like?
A very inclusive and sustainable healthcare system ought to mix the perfect parts I’ve seen work in numerous 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 major care with specialised providers, notably in underserved areas, whereas sustaining robust connections between neighborhood clinics and bigger medical centres. Psychological well being help needs to be available, and healthcare suppliers needs to be skilled to ship culturally competent care. Most significantly, it needs to be a system that grows and adapts with its communities, guaranteeing long-term sustainability.
