New year, new episode! After a brief pause, we are excited to be back to share with you more about the amazing initiatives happening around the world and major concepts within the field of global surgery. The episode today is focused on a topic relevant to every listener because we all have one – mothers! Women’s health is at the very core of medicine with the unique overlap of the creation of life with also the prevention of death. Our guest host specializes in several unique aspects of this cornerstone of healthcare, namely support for access and dissemination of contraceptive postpartum (the PPIUD project) as well as advocacy and education about the practice and effects of female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C). Working to create safe, culturally competent change around this practice is extremely charged – politically, culturally, and even religiously. With more than 200 million women subjected to FGM/C worldwide, there is a great need for education on harm reduction, teaching about women’s health/menstrual health, and so much more. Join us as we speak with Dr Anita Makins about advocacy at all levels with bidirectional teaching and education for the prevention of harm.
Dr Anita Makins: Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Honorary Senior Lecturer in Global Women’s Health, and Director FIGO PPIUD Initiative
United Kingdom
“Tackling Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting and Improving Access to Post-Partum Contraception Internationally”
Dr Anita Makins is a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists and has a Masters in Public Health in Developing Countries. She is a Consultant at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Global Women’s Health at the Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health at Oxford University.
She has extensive experience in Sub-Saharan Africa and was previously Director of the PPIUD Initiative at FIGO (the International Federation of Obstetricians & Gynecologists), a multimillion dollar project running for six years across six countries in Africa and South East Asia.