KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

Kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Dr Am­i­na Khan is an ad­vo­cate for bet­ter health­care.

She us­es her so­cial me­dia plat­forms to share knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ences in the field of gy­nae­col­o­gy. Dr Khan ob­tained her MBBS de­gree from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Trinidad. She lat­er earned her post­grad­u­ate de­gree in Eng­land and has been a Fel­low of the Roy­al Col­lege of Ob­ste­tri­cians and Gy­nae­col­o­gists since 2018.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 25 years ago, dur­ing her fifth year of med­ical school, she ob­served there were few fe­male con­sul­tants in the field.

“This fact in­spired my dream of be­com­ing an OB-GYN and pro­pelled me in­to pur­su­ing this spe­cial­i­ty,” she said.

“I want­ed to of­fer all women the op­por­tu­ni­ty to feel com­fort­able, and my ob­jec­tive was to of­fer com­pe­tent, com­pas­sion­ate care as a woman, un­der­stand­ing that this spe­cial­i­ty is such an in­ti­mate, per­son­al area of med­i­cine.”

Dr Khan has been in med­i­cine for al­most 25 years and has been spe­cial­is­ing for ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 of those years.

“It is ex­treme­ly im­por­tant to ed­u­cate women be­cause knowl­edge and ed­u­ca­tion en­hance one’s abil­i­ty to make bet­ter choic­es re­gard­ing seek­ing med­ical care,” she said.

“This ed­u­ca­tion em­pow­ers women to un­der­stand their bod­ies bet­ter, in­creas­es aware­ness of med­ical con­di­tions and by seek­ing ap­pro­pri­ate med­ical care, they can be hope­ful­ly di­ag­nosed ear­li­er, get time­ly treat­ment when nec­es­sary and have a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life, with im­proved well-be­ing and out­comes.”

Dr Khan’s so­cial me­dia posts cov­er var­i­ous top­ics from child­birth to cer­vi­cal can­cer to uter­ine fi­broids.

“It’s an av­enue that many per­sons utilise, there­fore an ex­cel­lent fo­rum to reach more women,” she said.

“Knowl­edge is pow­er, and it is a form of ser­vice to mankind. Ed­u­ca­tion in this for­mat is ben­e­fi­cial even to men, as they are al­so on so­cial me­dia. They too have part­ners, moth­ers, sis­ters, daugh­ters, col­leagues, and friends who are women. Even though I do not med­ical­ly see men, they can re­fer their women. I do, how­ev­er, see cou­ples dur­ing fer­til­i­ty coun­selling and con­sul­ta­tions, as in­fer­til­i­ty is a cou­ple’s is­sue. I al­so en­cour­age cou­ples to at­tend all con­sul­ta­tions as a form of sup­port to each oth­er.”

Dur­ing the month of March, Dr Khan will be ed­u­cat­ing peo­ple on en­dometrio­sis.

“March is En­dometrio­sis Aware­ness Month, it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to high­light this ex­ceed­ing­ly im­por­tant, de­bil­i­tat­ing chron­ic, in­flam­ma­to­ry dis­or­der which af­fects one in ten women world­wide,” she said.

“We as health­care providers have to do more to en­sure women are di­ag­nosed ear­li­er, and ap­pro­pri­ate ear­ly treat­ment sought to pre­vent com­pli­ca­tions of the dis­ease, such as chron­ic pelvic pain, fer­til­i­ty prob­lems and lifestyle dis­abil­i­ties.”

Her work does not de­ter her from her fast dur­ing the month of Ra­madan. But some days are more chal­leng­ing than oth­ers, “de­pend­ing on the du­ra­tion/length of the work­day,” she said.

“As I am on­ly in pri­vate prac­tice, I re­arrange my sched­ule ac­cord­ing­ly dur­ing this month to bal­ance work and home time. Of course, ob­stet­rics is an un­pre­dictable spe­cial­i­ty where emer­gen­cies, in­clud­ing labour­ing pa­tients, can oc­cur at any time of the day or night. I am cur­rent­ly ex­pect­ing a few pa­tients.”

Her ad­vice to Mus­lim preg­nant women dur­ing the month of Ra­madan is to seek the ad­vice of their OB-GYN be­fore em­bark­ing on fast­ing.

“Ide­al­ly, the OB-GYN should have ap­pro­pri­ate knowl­edge of the Is­lam­ic fast­ing/ con­di­tions which give con­ces­sions and the re­quire­ments to ful­fil that,” she said.

“The guide­lines are de­rived from the Qur’an and the teach­ings of the Prophet, up­on whom be peace. A preg­nant woman is al­lowed to de­fer her fasts to oth­er days if she fears harm or any detri­ment to her or her un­born ba­by’s health.

“For ex­am­ple, if she is in her first trimester and has ex­ces­sive vom­it­ing in preg­nan­cy, she may be­come se­vere­ly de­hy­drat­ed. If she has any med­ical con­di­tions, such as di­a­betes in preg­nan­cy, twin preg­nan­cy, hy­per­ten­sion or the ba­by is not grow­ing well, a con­di­tion called in­trauter­ine growth re­stric­tion, then she should not fast.

“Oth­er­wise, I usu­al­ly ad­vise that she can fast on al­ter­nate days, bear­ing in mind that she can break the fast if she or her ba­by be­comes un­well. It is al­so very im­por­tant to not skip the predawn meal/suhoor and have healthy, nu­tri­tious if­tar meals. This in­cludes con­sum­ing at least two to two-and-a-half litres of flu­id, eat­ing foods high in pro­tein, and healthy fats, and re­duc­ing in­take of re­fined sug­ars, or ex­ces­sive car­bo­hy­drates which will on­ly re­sult in too much weight gain in preg­nan­cy.”

Dr Khan usu­al­ly takes the last ten days away from work to spend ad­di­tion­al time in prayer, recita­tion of the Qur’an and to at­tend if­tars.

“With­in the last ten nights, is a spe­cial “night of pow­er” which Mus­lims seek out every Ra­mad­han with the hope of at­tain­ing the re­wards of wor­ship worth more than one thou­sand months,” she said.

Mixed emo­tions are felt at the end–spir­i­tu­al re­ju­ve­na­tion, more fo­cused men­tal­ly but sad­ness that the month has end­ed. The re­ward for her is cel­e­brat­ing Eid-ul-Fitr with her fam­i­ly and friends.