Breaking down obstacles in girls’s healthcare stays a essential 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 girls’s well being.
The Alberta School of Household Physicians just 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 numerous settings. From responding to essential wants in Ghana’s Kuntanase Authorities Hospital, the place she established a blood financial institution after personally donating blood to avoid wasting 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 scientific lecturer on the Cumming Faculty of Drugs, 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 missed. This imaginative and prescient was sparked early in my life after I seen I might be the primary girl 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 diminished maternal mortality charges within the Ashanti area. This work continued in Canada, the place we have centered on bringing important providers to areas with restricted healthcare entry.
Redefining healthcare additionally means getting ready future generations of medical professionals. By my function on the Cumming Faculty of Drugs, 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 methods.
From Ghana to Canada, you’ve got seen numerous challenges in medication. 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 methods, 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 essential useful resource limitations – like not having a blood financial institution, which might have devastating penalties for ladies requiring emergency care.
There are nonetheless obstacles for ladies physicians in particular specialised fields. Whereas I initially wished to specialise in Trauma and orthopaedic surgical procedure, my journey led me to household medication, the place I might take advantage of important impression. Nevertheless, I obtained further {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 in a different way however persist even in well-resourced settings. Psychological well being help accessibility, for example, stays a essential 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 deal with 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 by means of this initiative?
By our girls’s clinic in Calgary, we’re addressing a number of essential 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 permit me to supply full obstetric care, together with surgical deliveries when obligatory. This complete strategy is essential given my expertise establishing obstetric applications from Ghana to Saskatchewan, the place I’ve seen how built-in care can considerably enhance outcomes.
Moreover, primarily based on my expertise as a household doctor with obstetric surgical abilities, I acknowledged the necessity for specialised providers that bridge the hole between major care and specialised obstetrics. That is particularly vital as we purpose to cut 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 obtained the Recognition of Excellence from the Alberta School of Household Physicians for contributing to household medication. How does this expertise allow you to create a extra inclusive healthcare atmosphere?
Recognition of Excellence strengthened my dedication to constructing inclusive healthcare methods. This recognition displays our success in implementing complete care approaches that I’ve developed all through my profession. As a Household Follow Assessor for the School of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta, I work to make sure excessive requirements of care throughout numerous medical environments.
This expertise, mixed with my scientific instructing on the Cumming Faculty of Drugs, helps me promote inclusive practices among the many subsequent technology 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 initiatives assist overcome systemic obstacles to healthcare entry?
Every undertaking emerged from actual, pressing wants I witnessed firsthand. I will always remember that essential second in Kuntanase after I needed to donate my blood to avoid wasting 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 girl would face that very same life-threatening scenario as a consequence of a scarcity of assets.
In Kindersley, Saskatchewan, we confronted totally 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 realize superior obstetric abilities, making certain sustainable care in rural communities.
I’ve discovered from working in these numerous 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 methods that may proceed serving individuals lengthy after preliminary implementation. Whether or not in Ghana or Canada, the rules stay the identical:
Take heed to the neighborhood.
Establish the essential gaps.
Construct options that may stand the take a look at of time.
Your current article in WJARR and upcoming publications in Arjonline discover important points of girls’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 girls’s well being points.
That is notably vital 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 observe – 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 total spectrum of girls’s well being wants.
What healthcare obstacles for ladies do you propose to beat shortly?
I need to assist individuals who beforehand didn’t have entry to high-quality medication. Primarily based on my expertise from Ghana to Canada, I purpose to proceed creating sustainable healthcare applications in underserved communities, specializing in integrating psychological well being help with major care providers.
By my instructing roles on the Cumming Faculty of Drugs and scientific observe, I am dedicated to coaching the subsequent technology of healthcare suppliers to grasp and deal with 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 seem like?
A very inclusive and sustainable healthcare system ought to mix one of the best components I’ve seen work in several settings – from rural Ghana to city Canada. It ought to be certain that each girl can entry complete care, no matter location.
This implies integrating major care with specialised providers, notably in underserved areas, whereas sustaining sturdy connections between neighborhood clinics and bigger medical centres. Psychological well being help 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.
