In an operating room within South Africa’s Tygerberg Hospital, Health Sciences major Emily Sexton ’27 assists Karusha Knipe, M.D., with a total hysterectomy. As the procedure unfolds, Sexton finds herself thinking beyond the surgery to what the patient had experienced before arriving in the operating room.
“Multiple doctors expressed that patients wait until the very last second to seek care for themselves or wait until multiple issues are at hand,” she explains, noting that accessibility, affordability, and stigma often act as barriers for seeking help in the region.
Sexton was one of 25 undergrads who traveled to South Africa in late-May as part of the university’s “Global Health Challenges” course. In the classroom at Bryant, students examined the country’s health complexities before spending two-and-a-half weeks exploring Cape Town in-person. There, they spoke with healthcare professionals about common conditions, visited local museums to deepen their understanding of apartheid and its continuing impact on society and access to care, and more than half of the group shadowed a doctor for a day or assisted during surgery.
Hearing from medical professionals, students learn that some hospital units operate with ratios of 40 patients to one nurse. Additionally, bedside surgeries are common when operating rooms are full. Through these anecdotes and others, undergrads observe how resource constraints fuel the providers’ ability to think creatively. Expectant mothers, for example, may not have access to an ultrasound of their baby, which is why physician and women’s health advocate Chanell Marthinussen, M.D., who students had the opportunity to meet, developed a portable ultrasound machine.
Before visiting South Africa, undergrads discussed topics such as the prevalence of tuberculosis to hospital supply shortages. But Health Sciences major Celina Pimentel ’27 notes that the data points became real people once students immersed themselves within the local community.
“The experience reinforced the idea that improving health requires addressing the social, economic, and environmental conditions that affect people’s lives,” she says, expressing gratitude for the trip led by Biological and Biomedical Sciences Senior Lecturer Stephanie Mott and Assistant Professor of Political Science Tristan Hightower, Ph.D.
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Whether they were visiting the Heart of Cape Town Museum, where the world’s first open-heart surgery took place, or listening to a University of Cape Town lecture on the history of HIV/AIDS and promising clinical trials of drug interventions, Biology major Jonathan Turano ’27 says one doctor’s passion for helping his patients has stayed with him long after his time abroad. Turano remembers Roland Kroukamp, M.D., who works at Mitchells Plain Hospital, explaining how doctors should see themselves as public servants who are fulfilling a public duty. It’s a mentality that Turano plans to apply to his future career in medicine.
“Keeping that mindset will make sure I treat every patient to the best of my ability, and for their benefit,” he says.