Womanity - Women in Unity Dr Amaleya Goneos-Malka Producer

This week on Womanity-Women in Unity, Dr. Amaleya Goneos-Malka talks to Dr Lusanda Bomela  who is an orthopaedic spine surgeon in private practice.



Women are underrepresented in orthopaedics, making up less than 5% of orthopaedic surgeons. Dr Bombela shares how her interest in the spine, coupled to the fact that few women take up this area of specialisation motivated her to pursue her studies in this field. One of her hopes is that she sets an example to encourage other women to take up orthopaedics and specifically spine as a specialisation.



Medicine can be a demanding career choice, but this profession does not preclude women from having a family life. Dr Bomela notes how having the right support structure in place enables her to be a spine surgeon, mother, wife, mentor and teacher. She reflects that it is not possible to be everything to everybody all the time but with a team ethos and good communication everything is doable.



Dr Bomela is passionate about learning and has a deep desire to share education with others, which is part of her maternal philosophy, she believes that if we have a skill it must be passed on or used to better someone else. We have a responsibility to empower the next generation by imparting what we know to them, both in terms of skills and enlightenment. She tells us how her grandmother used to walk her mother to school 20km away for the sake of education, and years later part of her grandmother’s legacy was establishing a school 500m from her house, so no children in the village had an excuse not to be educated.



Dr. Bomela reminds us not to give up on our dreams. The road might be rocky, there may be a few detours along the way, but hold fast to your dreams; and when you make it others will see all things are possible.



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This week on Womanity-Women in Unity, Dr. Amaleya Goneos-Malka talks to Prof. Kathryn Chu, who is a Professor of Global Surgery and is the Director of the Centre of Global Surgery at the University of Stellenbosch.



Prof. Chu specialises in colorectal procedures and is a general surgeon. Her academic journey began at Stanford University, where she earned her undergraduate degree. Following this, she pursued her medical degree and underwent residency training in general surgery at the University of California- San Francisco. She obtained a Master's degree in Public Health and Developing Countries from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She currently holds positions as an adjunct professor at the University of Botswana's Department of Surgery, serves as a Board member of the Consortium of Universities for Global Health, and leads as the inaugural director of the Centre of Global Surgery.



The need for surgery is time sensitive. Unfortunately, many people around the world don’t have access to surgical care when they need it. According to a 2015 report from the Lancet Commission for Global Surgery two thirds of the global population i.e. five billion people don’t have access to safe, affordable surgical care and the majority lived in low- and middle- income countries. Global surgery concerns developing health systems so that people can receive surgical care when they need it.



Prof. Chu discusses some interventions to make health systems more equitable, specifically surgical access. These include policy reform, developing co-ordinated surgical plans, establishing more facilities, increasing the number of qualified personnel, upskilling people to perform specific procedures, integrating with indigenous health care practitioners.



A few of Prof. Chu’s former roles include working with the health and humanitarian organisation, Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without borders), who are renowned for operating in disaster and conflict zones. She also spent two years training surgeons in Rwanda, helping to rebuild their surgical training process. Through these experiences she recognised how useful surgeons are in under resourced regions.



Prof. Chu has a passion for her field and highly recommends medicine for anyone that feels a calling. She shares the responsibility and privilege that doctors experience in caring for people, who are sometimes at their worst and being a critical part of people’s lives. She also encourages women to retain their femininity; empathy and care makes people better doctors and surgeons.



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This week on Womanity-Women in Unity, Dr. Amaleya Goneos-Malka talks to Prof Nicky Falkof, who is a cultural studies scholar based in the Media Studies department at the University of the Witwatersrand.



Media is ubiquitous and takes multiple forms, that impact how individuals perceive themselves and others, construct their identities, and navigate their social worlds. Prof Falkof shares some insights into the themes of her academic qualifications; studying a Masters in critical theory with a dissertation on race and masculinity in 1980s action films and then studying an interdisciplinary PhD at the London consortium, which was a collaboration between the Tate Modern, The Science Museum and the Architectural Association.



Her current work explores the ways in which persistent negative emotions, like anxiety and fear intersect with race, particularly in urban areas and how these emotions structure social life. Part of her driving impulse is the desire to take emotional life seriously, because there is a trend where society tends to dismiss the way that we feel, but feelings are fundamentally the things that make us act the way that we do. She unpacks the collective emotions that define communities and influence behaviors, drawing on learnings from cities like Mexico City, where positive patriotism fosters a sense of unity and hope amidst adversity.



We discuss aspects of the Me-Too Movement, emphasising there isn’t a universal expression of feminism and that countries in the Global South have had long standing feminists that have been empowering women in ways that are relevant to their social constructs. Implanting an ideology from one hemisphere of the world into another, is not necessarily a solution if it doesn’t take cultural differences and contexts into consideration.



We also reflect on organisational systems as impediments to wide scale change and maintaining the status quo. Corporate, political and social systems that were designed by men tend to be operated by people that think like the system’s architects. This is one of the reasons why gender discrimination is still pervasive, even if some organisations have women at their helm.



In closing the conversation Prof. Falkof emphasises that change doesn’t materialise unless we make it happen.



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This week on Womanity-Women in Unity, Dr. Amaleya Goneos-Malka talks to Dr Marí Thiart who is a Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgeon based at Stellenbosch University and Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. She is President of the International Orthopaedic Diversity Alliance (IODA) and founder of the South African Female Orthopaedic Surgeons' Society (SAFOSS)



In South Africa only 5% of orthopaedic surgeons are female; unfortunately this is a global trend. One of Dr Thiart’s objectives is to promote diversity and inclusivity in the field.  These ideals are advocated by IODA and SAFOSS. Industry partners are also helping to evolve the discipline by making tools and instruments more women friendly to accommodate their physiology.



Dr Thiart shares some of her passion for pursuing orthopaedics as a specialisation, noting that in this discipline she aims to treat and cure patients rather than manage a condition. She has a special interest in treating children, addressing conditions like bone and joint infections, cerebral palsy and limb reconstruction. She describes how rewarding it is to see children transition into better versions of themselves after treatment.



Dr Thiart closes the discussion with a few words of wisdom that encourages women to believe in their natural talents and develop them and to look for allies to help open doors to opportunities to help you reach your goals.



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This week on Womanity-Women in Unity, Dr. Amaleya Goneos-Malka talks to Prof Eunice Mphako-Banda from the School of Mathematics at the University of Witwatersrand.



Mathematics is instrumental to science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers. According to the Pew Research Centre, jobs in STEM occupations have grown by 79% since 1990. STEM jobs are projected to grow at a higher rate than non-STEM subjects and have higher earning potential.  Despite these statistics, women make up approximately a third of the STEM workforce, demonstrating that the STEM landscape is still male biased.



Prof Mphako-Banda shares her journey into the mathematics discipline. Starting in Malawi her first-grade teacher remarked to her father, “Your child is going to be a doctor”. The combination of her aptitude for mathematics and positive support system in her early years nurtured her self-confidence. She considers these factors to be pivotal to overcoming the misconceptions girls face in patriarchal society and gender stereotyping. She strongly advocates for girls to be empowered from an early age to believe in themselves, that they can do anything, and should be exposed to women from different fields to realise what is possible. Furthermore, we are products of our environment; people and place play an instrumental role in shaping who we become. Choose your friends wisely.



After graduating from the University of Malawi with a B.Ed. in sciences in 1992, Prof. Mphako-Banda sought to further her studies and applied to institutions in the UK. She hand wrote and posted hundreds of letters and received just as many rejections. Her perseverance paid off with a British Council Scholarship that funded her Postgraduate Diploma and MSc in Mathematics in the UK. Determined to fulfil her dream of being a doctor, after sending 101 applications for her PhD, she received three letters of acceptance and travelled to New Zealand to attain her Ph.D. in Discrete Mathematics from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Travelling and living in different countries is an invaluable learning experience.



Today, Prof Mphako-Banda’s research areas include Matroid Theory, Low-Dimension Topology-Knot Theory, Combinatorics, and Graph Theory. She shares an example of how she uses pure mathematics to help design chemical compounds to treat conditions like Alzheimer’s.



Prof Mphako-Banda has achieved significant personal goals in her career and aims to encourage and mentor women. She urges women to not compete against one another, but rather work together, celebrate each other, lift one another up and embrace opportunities in STEM.



#WomeninMaths



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This week on Womanity-Women in Unity, Dr. Amaleya Goneos-Malka talks to Professor Tharina Guse, who heads up the Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria and is a counselling psychologist.



Professor Gusa shares some of her motivations for becoming a psychologist from initial plans to pursue journalism, which stemmed from her interest in people, their experiences and stories. Studying psychology was a natural fit to really understand people through human behaviour, human thoughts and human feelings.



Her research and teaching focusses on positive psychology and well-being. Positive psychology distinguishing itself from traditional psychology by focusing on strengths, well-being, and resilience, to harness internal and external resources for personal growth as well as overcoming challenges. Positive psychology can help people become the best version of themselves.



Considering satisfaction and well-being in the workplace, research has shown that in workplaces where there are attempts or policies in place to promote gender equality, women are happier. They perform better and their well-being is higher.



She is one of the lead researchers of the International Hope Barometer Research Programme, which is an annual survey covering 13 countries that measures people's hopes and expectations for the coming year, but also how much their hopes were fulfilled in the prior year. Interestingly, African countries have high levels of hope, which seems to stem from a trust in resources in the community and the people around us as well as faith-based trust.



Reflecting on her leadership role, Professor Gusa highlights the significance of creating supportive and collaborative environments, echoing her belief in the power of compassion and understanding. She acknowledges the challenges of balancing work and personal life, emphasizing the importance of setting boundaries, seeking support, and embracing imperfection. Professor Gusa remarks on some of her strong female role models, including her academic mentor and her grandmother, who’s ABBA inspired words instilled in her the belief that "There is something good in everything."



In closing, Professor Gusa shares a message of hope, emphasizing its transformative power in navigating life's complexities. Her story serves as a testament to the resilience and strength of women



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