Breaking down boundaries in girls’s healthcare stays a important problem in fashionable 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 Faculty of Household Physicians lately highlighted achievements in growing 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 growing healthcare options throughout numerous 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 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 expertise at Bow Path Medical Clinic in Calgary and a scientific lecturer on the Cumming Faculty of Drugs, she continues to handle 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 contemplate redefining girls’s healthcare, I envision creating a very accessible system that addresses distinctive medical wants which were traditionally neglected. This imaginative and prescient was sparked early in my life after I observed I could possibly 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 main care to handle complete well being considerations 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 getting ready future generations of medical professionals. By way of my function on the Cumming Faculty of Drugs, 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 methods.
From Ghana to Canada, you have 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 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 important useful resource limitations – like not having a blood financial institution, which may have devastating penalties for girls requiring emergency care.
There are nonetheless boundaries for girls 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 may take advantage of important impression. Nevertheless, I obtained further {qualifications}, like my Certificates of Added Competence in obstetric surgical expertise, to supply 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 important situation.
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 applications that tackle rapid medical wants and long-term wellness help.
As a part of Bow Path Medical Clinic, you have helped set up a specialised girls’s well being division. What distinctive healthcare challenges are you aiming to handle by this initiative?
By way of 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 supply 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 needed. This complete method is important 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 expertise, I acknowledged the necessity for specialised providers that bridge the hole between main care and specialised obstetrics. That is particularly vital as we intention to cut back boundaries 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 Faculty of Household Physicians for contributing to household medication. How does this expertise make it easier to create a extra inclusive healthcare surroundings?
Recognition of Excellence bolstered 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 Faculty 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 educating 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 numerous settings, from establishing a blood financial institution in Kuntanase Hospital to growing the obstetric program in Kindersley. How do these tasks assist overcome systemic boundaries to healthcare entry?
Every undertaking emerged from actual, pressing wants I witnessed firsthand. I am going to always remember that important 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 guaranteeing that no different girl would face that very same life-threatening scenario on account of an absence of assets.
In Kindersley, Saskatchewan, we confronted completely 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 achieve superior obstetric expertise, guaranteeing 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 boundaries is not nearly constructing amenities or applications – it is about understanding neighborhood wants, coaching healthcare suppliers, and creating methods that may proceed serving folks lengthy after preliminary implementation. Whether or not in Ghana or Canada, the rules stay the identical:
- Hearken to the neighborhood.
- Establish the important gaps.
- Construct options that may stand the take a look at of time.
Your latest 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 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 spotlight 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 rapid 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 boundaries for girls 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 intention to proceed growing sustainable healthcare applications in underserved communities, specializing in integrating psychological well being help with main care providers.
By way of my educating roles on the Cumming Faculty of Drugs and scientific observe, I am dedicated to coaching the following technology of healthcare suppliers to grasp and tackle the distinctive challenges girls face in accessing complete healthcare.
Imagining medication 10 years from now, what ought to a very inclusive and sustainable healthcare system appear to be?
A very inclusive and sustainable healthcare system ought to mix one of the best parts I’ve seen work in numerous 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 main care with specialised providers, notably in underserved areas, whereas sustaining robust connections between neighborhood clinics and bigger medical centres. Psychological well being help must be available, and healthcare suppliers must be skilled to ship culturally competent care. Most significantly, it must be a system that grows and adapts with its communities, guaranteeing long-term sustainability.
