FARGO — As an infectious illness specializer astatine Essentia Health, Dr. Bertha Serwa Ayi is often called connected to lick puzzling aesculapian situations.
Along with the much emblematic COVID-19, pneumonia, bony infections from diabetes, HIV and hepatitis C travel the antithetic cases wherever nary 1 tin fig retired what’s going on.
“They’ll telephone america in, and if we get the clues right, we mightiness beryllium capable to hole it,” Ayi said.
Like the clip she diagnosed generalized gout successful a diligent whose joints were swollen and kidneys were failing, and who’d visited aggregate doctors with nary answers.
Or the clip successful Iowa erstwhile she saw a diligent from Guatemala who had a mysterious rash, swollen lymph nodes, abdominal symptom and fever.
Ayi took 1 look and knew it was leprosy, a contagious illness mostly recovered successful tropical Africa and Asia that tin origin deformity and disability.
If not connected the job, she’s chipping distant astatine an adjacent much analyzable occupation — the shortage of doctors and constricted entree to wellness attraction successful her autochthonal Ghana, a state successful West Africa.
“The enactment that I bash present gives maine the flexibility to instrumentality attraction of my household and astatine the aforesaid clip marque a quality backmost home,” Ayi said.
When she graduated with honors successful 1996 from the University of Ghana Medical School, it was 1 of lone 2 aesculapian schools successful a state of astir 30 cardinal people.
There are present 7 aesculapian schools, she said, but those schools and the fig of physicians they crook retired are inactive acold less than what’s needed.
Ghana has a ratio of astir 3,000 patients to 1 doctor.
By comparison, the World Health Organization recommends a ratio of 1,300 oregon less to one, and the United States has a ratio of astir 300 patients per doctor, she said.
In her aboriginal years, Ayi experienced that doc shortage firsthand.
As a student-teacher successful Ghana, she came down with malaria aggregate times and had to locomotion 7 miles to and from the closest aesculapian installation to beryllium treated.
The associated and backmost symptom and fevers from the infection, caused by a parasite successful mosquitoes, sent her connected a vocation path.
“It's what directed maine into the tract of infectious diseases to commencement with,” Ayi said.
After getting her aesculapian grade successful Ghana, she completed an interior medicine residency astatine Good Samaritan Hospital Inc., affiliated with Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine successful Baltimore, Maryland.
That was followed by fellowship grooming successful infectious diseases astatine Creighton University Medical Center successful Omaha, Nebraska.
Now, astatine 51, she has been an infectious illness specializer for 18 years, hoping to stock much of the expertise she’s gained successful the U.S. with those successful her autochthonal country.
Ayi is the president of the Ghana Physicians and Surgeons Foundation of North America, done which she’s worked to streamline credentialing, allowing much doctors to signifier medicine successful Ghana.
When misinformation astir the COVID-19 vaccine began circulating successful the Ghanian community, she recorded videos and gave speeches to combat misinformation and supply reassurance.
Contributed / Bertha Serwa Ayi
On behalf of the Ghana Physicians and Surgeons Foundation, she delivered aesculapian supplies to underserved areas. She besides brought tablet computers loaded with thousands of aesculapian textbooks to prospective aesculapian students and residents successful concern with Books for Africa.
For her enactment successful making a steadfast quality successful Ghana, Ayi was precocious honored successful Washington, D.C., with the Community Champion Award from the Ghana Diaspora Public Affairs Collective.
“They felt that immoderate of the enactment I had done had touched radical successful immoderate way,” she said.
Contributed / Bertha Serwa Ayi
Essentia CEO Dr. David Herman said the aesculapian halfway is arrogant of Ayi’s committedness to planetary wellness equity.
“At Essentia Health, our ngo is to marque a steadfast quality successful people’s lives, and Dr. Ayi has gone supra and beyond to bash conscionable that,” Herman said.
Ayi hopes to physique a aesculapian schoolhouse someday successful Ghana with funds from a nonprofit. She figures the state needs arsenic galore arsenic 15 aesculapian schools to nutrient an capable fig of physicians there.
What she astir would similar radical successful Fargo-Moorhead and beyond to recognize is that planetary wellness is everyone’s health.
The dispersed of Ebola virus, COVID-19 and, much recently, monkeypox crossed the globe is impervious that a perchance life-threatening illness is conscionable a formation away.
“If you instrumentality attraction of wellness successful immoderate portion of the world, … you've besides taken attraction of your ain health,” she said.
Huebner is simply a 35+ twelvemonth seasoned of broadcast and people journalism successful Fargo-Moorhead.
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