1. Tell us about your work and what a typical day in the hospital looks like for you.
I work as a resident doctor in obstetrics and gynecology in an environment where patients are seen everyday but in different settings. Today, my team could be operating in the theatre, tomorrow, it could be clinic duty where we attend to out-patients (who typically present with complaints that are not an emergency or life-threatening). The next day, we’re in charge of emergencies. So it spans across different roles but ultimately is aimed at patient care within the specialty of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
I clock in by before 8:00am, then we have morning review, which is a meeting where we discuss cases managed on call and critique the decisions of the team on duty. In a way, it’s like an accountability meeting. By 9am, we begin ward rounds (for patients on admission) or surgeries (if it’s theatre day). A typical ward round includes the Consultant(s), the Senior Registrar(s), the Registrar(s), House Officer(s), the medical student(s) (if any), a Nurse on duty, nursing students and so on.
Each day’s activity robs off on me in a different sort of way. Today, I may find myself teaching a 15-year-old mother how to breastfeed her newborn. Another day, I could be the assistant surgeon for a fibroid removal surgery or taking an antenatal session. Whatever it is, I find pockets of fulfillment each day that remind me that I was meant to be here. It feels like home.
2. What have you noticed about women through your clinical experience?
I find that younger women have more of answers (or responses) while the older women have more of questions. At first presentation, a typical young lady tries to gauge if she can trust you, especially to know how much private information to share. You can tell from her stare. In my experience, you can break the ice by looking up from the monitor, asking a genuine question and waiting for the response. Sometimes, it’s as simple as a friendly “What brings you to the hospital today?” More often than not, she’ll go on to tell you what’s bothering her, what she thinks the issue is, what she thinks the solution is. Sometimes, you can tell that she has googled her symptoms and is trying to let you know that she is informed. In such situation, I applaud her proactiveness and fill in the gaps in knowledge. Because being informed isn’t a threat. If anything, it tells me how anxious she is about her symptoms. And the least I can do for her is confirm that she’s on the right path to getting a solution.
Now, older women are quite different. They have been through some things and experiences so they’ve learnt a lot. Whatever brings them to the hospital must be something beyond their control or first-aid capabilities. So they usually have more of questions and as expected, they’re more attentive to what you have to say. I find myself calculating my responses because unlike the younger generation, they’re not impressed by vibes and big grammar. They want practical advice that would make a difference. Because a lot of times, they’ve been to different hospitals with the same complaint and they’re waiting to see if you’ll say something new. My focus when a woman searches my expression for even the mirage of an answer, is to be honest with her about her prognosis, but most importantly, to point her towards hope to wake up and embrace the next day irrespective of how bad her prognosis is.
I try to be honest with my patients that Physicians don’t have all the answers. But if anything, I try my best to leave each woman with her hope and dignity intact, or restored.
3. When did you begin thinking seriously about women’s empowerment beyond medicine?
The last quarter of 2025 felt heavy, not only because of the diagnoses I documented at the end of each clinical report, but because I started thinking about how to transform healthcare for women from a 15–30 minutes clinical encounter to a lifelong system of protection and support, as opposed to women sitting at the receiving end and wishing for the best outcome.
I’ve met young girls who were assaulted. Early last month, an 8 year old girl who was raped was brought to the hospital in need of reconstructive surgery due to the severity of the assault. I’ve met women dealing with a pregnancy loss or struggling with infertility, even after multiple IVF sessions, women pale from fibroid-related bleeding, women dealing with cancers and mothers at different stages of pregnancy, from their first booking visit to delivery phase. Every consultation reminds me that behind every treatment plan is a woman whose outcome is shaped not only by medicine, but by the systems surrounding her.
This is why I began expanding my work beyond the walls of the hospital into advocacy, education, awareness, support systems and conversations around the laws and policies that protect women, as well as safe spaces where women can tell the truth about their struggles without shame. This is my way of bridging the gap between medicine, policy and social impact.
4. What does empowerment mean to you personally?
There will always be the vulnerable in the society. People who fall into that category are children, pregnant women, invalids, the disabled, illiterate. These groups of people are usually at the mercy of others for survival, basic needs. Unfortunately very few people have the character to maintain dignity and power simultaneously. They will try to flex their authority to maintain success, position, power, influence and when your needs conflict with their desires, they will choose themselves. We already know how the human mind is wired. So instead of hoping that a human being will act and behave as should be, it taking responsibility into our own hands to put them as far from a vulnerable position as possible. For instance, Instead of structuring a woman’s survival around another person’s character, its proposing from the get-go that every woman, single or marriage is financially independent and can fend for herself. It’s equipping girls with education so they can think for themselves and make better life choices. It’s putting policies in place to refrain predators from preying on them.
Interestingly, women empowerment seems to be a double edged sword. One moment, it’s used as an empowering agenda. Another moment, it’s being framed as rebellion. It’s really just a tool and as any other tool, the result is highly dependent on the motive and technique of the handler. When empowerment uses highly confrontational language, when it frames all systems as enemies, it is seen as opposition rather than contribution. And once something is perceived as opposition, resistance naturally follows.
I had a patient whose husband wouldn’t give her money for antibiotics. She had candidiasis and she pleaded with me to speak with her husband to prove that she needed the medication. According to him, she was sleeping around and spending money on unnecessary things so he left her with no money, no bank account either. I took the phone and explained the necessity of the drugs. He obliged.
Unfortunately, this kind of scenario occurs more often than you’d guess. For medico-legal reasons, there’s very little we can do to help these women beyond their medical treatment unless there are clear cut indications of abuse. So as infuriating as it is bargaining with their husbands, what actually helps and produces result is speaking to the necessities of the situation without sentiment, emotions or taking sides.
Women empowerment is not and should never be about condemning or competing with men. Men and women are equal in value but different in function and capabilities. When we turn empowerment into comparison and competition between the sexes, we widen the divide between us, and end up distracting ourselves from our objectives.
I desire empowerment that teaches women how to be faithful wives and mothers, one that supports the woman who chooses to have a family as well as the one who chooses not to. I desire women empowerment that teaches women to be accountable for their actions and live with character. One that equips women with Education, economic stability, emotional intelligence, the discernment to choose wisely, the courage to walk away from what diminishes them. One that enables women to be whole and contribute meaningfully to society. That is the kind of empowerment that sustains generations. And that’s the kind that is sustainable.
5. What does sustainable empowerment look like in 20 years?
For anything to be sustainable, it has to be bigger than the passion of a few people. For women empowerment to create ripple effect, we need all hands on deck. Men and women. This is why it’s not in our best interest when we frame conversations as “men vs women” and create unnecessary arguments and comparisons of our strengths. The ideal should be pooling our efforts to so that we can in synergy achieve greater results. Focus on tangible outcomes: education, maternal health, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, leadership development.
We need people to move past online advocacy to implementation. Be vocal about your support but put down your phone and look out for the woman in need of help beside you.
The truth is those who need advocacy the most mostly live in remote places, far from the microphone and advantages of digital platforms, far from policy tables and the conversations that shape their lives. Many are unaware of just how dire their circumstances are. They stranded, with few options and often no chance to tell their own side of the story.
Advocacy must reach these places where their voices are faint and where suffering is normalised. It must meet women not only in emergencies, but in their everyday realities. Real change begins when the most invisible lives gain access to their basic rights and amenities. It also begins very close to home, by simply looking out for the women and girls around us. If you and I can do that, we are already solving more of the problem than we realise.
6. You’ve had a front row seat to the results of a failing healthcare system. Where do you think the healthcare system fails women the most?
To be very candid, many of the challenges within the healthcare system are tied to governmental lapses. When you consider what healthcare professionals are able to currently accomplish with limited resources, it is honestly remarkable. Now imagine what outcomes would look like with adequate funding, infrastructure, and policy support.
When resources are stretched across a high patient volume, delays become inevitable. And in medicine, delay can be the difference between life and death.
I remember during my early clinical training, we admitted a critically ill patient overnight. At some point, the hospital experienced a power outage. We relied on our personal devices for light while continuing care. By morning, the patient had passed away. There are circumstances where clinical skill alone cannot compensate for infrastructural deficiency. And for women, these systemic gaps are particularly costly.
Maternal health depends on timely intervention. A delay in accessing theatre for an emergency cesarean section, a shortage of blood products for hemorrhage, inadequate neonatal support, these are structural issues. Yet the woman bears the outcome.
Another major issue is workforce depletion. A system that relies on the sacrifice of workers will eventually collapse under the weight of its own neglect. Fewer hands on deck means longer waiting times and increased risk of oversight and errors. It also reduces the time available for counseling, education, and emotional support, which are crucial aspects of women’s healthcare.
Beyond infrastructure and staffing, I believe the system also fails women in preventive education. Many women present late with conditions that could have been detected earlier if there were stronger community-based health education systems. Reproductive health literacy is not where it should be. By the time many women arrive at the hospital, they are already in crisis mode.
So where does the system fail women the most?
It fails them in prevention, in timely access, and in infrastructure.
7. What is one policy change that could significantly improve women’s health outcomes?
If I had to identify one policy change that could significantly improve women’s health outcomes, it would be the implementation and strict enforcement of comprehensive, government-funded preventive women’s health programs — beginning in adolescence and continuing through reproductive and menopausal years.
Most of the cases we manage in the hospital are reactive. We see complications. We see late presentations. We see conditions that could have been detected earlier with routine screening, structured health education, and accessible primary care. By the time many women arrive at tertiary facilities, the window for simple intervention has closed.
A strong preventive framework would include:
- Mandatory reproductive health education in schools
- Subsidized annual gynecological screenings
- Accessible cervical and breast cancer screening programs
- Structured preconception counseling
- Maternal care that is affordable and geographically accessible
- Mental health screening integrated into antenatal and postnatal care
Prevention is not as dramatic as emergency intervention, but it is far more powerful.
When women understand their bodies early, when screening is affordable, when rural and urban facilities are equally equipped, and when maternal care is not financially burdensome, outcomes shift dramatically.
Policy must move women’s health from crisis management to lifecycle management.
Because a healthcare system that primarily responds to emergencies will always be overwhelmed. But a system that prioritizes prevention reduces the number of emergencies in the first place.
Improving women’s health outcomes is not only about building more tertiary centers. It is about building systems that meet women long before they become critical patients.
And that begins with prevention embedded in policy — not left to personal awareness alone.
8. If you could speak to every young girl today, what would you tell her about protecting her future?
I would tell her that protecting her future is about preparation.
I would tell her to pursue education seriously, not just for certificates, but for competence. Education gives a woman options. And options reduce vulnerability. The more informed you are, the less likely you are to depend on guesswork, pressure, or desperation when making life-changing decisions.
I would also tell her to understand her body early. Learn how it works. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Reproductive health is not something to think about only when marriage or pregnancy enters the picture.
I would tell her to develop the ability to generate income and manage it wisely. Financial literacy is a form of protection. It ensures that your survival is not tied to someone else’s mood, character, or generosity.
I would also tell her to guard her mind. The world will offer many narratives about what empowerment looks like, some rooted in wisdom, others in comparison. She must learn to think critically, to separate noise from truth, and to build her identity before the world tries to tell her who she is.
Character is protection too. Integrity, discipline, emotional intelligence, and discernment may not trend on social media, but they preserve futures. The choices you make in your twenties often echo into your forties.
And finally, I would tell her this: choose your environments carefully. The people you allow close to you, friends, mentors, partners, will either multiply your potential or dampen it.
