A Nurse First

Out of determination

• Sigma Nursing • Season 4 • Episode 4

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Facing challenges and limited funding, Jerry John Nutor's determination and passion for improving healthcare led him to create the Africa Interdisciplinary Health Conference—a platform for healthcare professionals to come together, share ideas, and address the complex health problems facing his continent. 

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After high school in Ghana, I decided to go into nursing because I just saw a newsletter that there will be a shortage of nursing educators in Ghana. So I said, "Okay, I'm going to join the nursing to become a nursing educator." I wanted to be, be a nursing educator and a researcher from that very moment that I decided to join nursing. So I came to the US in 2013 for a master's program and then after that I did a PhD also at Drexel University before moving to do a postdoc in global health and health policy. So at the time I was living in Ghana, there wasn't any conference in Ghana at a moment that all health professionals can come together to share ideas and network. Welcome to A Nurse First. This is Jerry John Nutor telling his own A Nurse First story. I was on the way to Sigma Theta Tau conference in Dublin. And I was like, wow, this conference happened all over the world. And why can't I start this in Sub-Saharan Africa? I saw the need of bringing all healthcare professionals under one umbrella so they can network and also think about how to solve the health problems that we have. As we know, the health problems of our patients continue to be very complex, and we need these complex ideas to address them. And also, in addition to that, I realized that conferences that were happening outside Sub-Saharan Africa in the global north, we may call them, actually deny most people coming from Africa and other developing countries have issues with visa to attend these conferences. For example, just the The International AIDS Society conference that happened last year in Montreal, a lot of Africans were denied visa to attend that conference. And let's talk about this. HIV in this world, the most affected region in the world is Sub-Saharan Africa. And if conferences or countries where conferences about HIV is being held are denying African visas to attend this conference, then what are we doing? Are we really interested in solving the problem where the problems are? That's a question we have to ask ourselves. And most of the research that are presented in those conferences happen in Sub-Saharan Africa. So who is benefiting from those knowledge that we are generating and those findings? And that is where there is a need for us in Africa to have a conference where we can come together as people, share our ideas, share the findings that we are getting from the research that we are conducting to improve science and healthcare delivery on the continent. When I got to Dublin, I called a few friends and I said, this is what we are going to do and this is how I want us to do it. Jerry's friends were more than intrigued by his idea to develop an interdisciplinary health conference in Africa. But several big questions loomed. Most notably, where could they even begin without funding? Jerry didn't have all the answers. But he wasn't going to let that beat down his idea. before he got a chance to breathe life into it. But I was so determined. I was finishing my PhD in 2018. So I said, you know, after that year, the conference is going to happen. I spoke with Drexel at the time. They said, "Okay, we can fund your going. We can give you money to go to Ghana and do the conference. But there wasn't money to support the conference itself. So I was so determined and I contacted a few friends in Ghana and said, "Okay, we can write letters to some organizations in Ghana to support us since we wanted to do the first one in Ghana." I picked my own money. I had a friend in Ghana. We wrote the letters. He distributed the letters to 20 organizations with follow up. And trust me, not a single of those organizations gave us a dime, not even a dollar. And I used my money sending this guy going around looking like delivering the letter. Some of them would say call back and I have to give him money to buy talk time to call this organization. And that was a moment that I nearly gave up. But I was like, no, we can't fail. This is too early to just give up. And I started talking to a lot of people, including one for a professor emeritus that taught me in Ghana. She's actually from the US, but came to Ghana after her retirement, called Professor Janet Gross, who said, oh, Jerry, this is a great idea. And then she gave me some money from her own personal fund as well, that you can use it to start this. And then we use it to organize the first conference. So I spent all my time, free time, working on the conference, right from the website. I have to learn how to update our website. I have to learn how to call for abstracts and then organize these abstracts and put them together, get reviewers to review them, while also looking for keynote speakers panel members to fit into our team that we want to talk about each year. And also, besides that, going the extra mile to establish contact in the countries where the conference is going to happen. I use my time most of my time to plan everything from A to Z of everything that happened in a conference, in addition to few people that I have helping me voluntarily because there is no money to pay these people. And so if anybody who help me or help us to organize a conference, do it purely on a pro bono basis, no funding. But I enjoy doing this, I must tell you. I enjoy doing this because I see a lot of great outcome from this conference. Yes, let's talk about the outcomes. First, what was it like seeing all your hard work come together for the first Africa Interdisciplinary Health Conference? Can you highlight some of the research your attendees are focusing on and the impact you foresee coming from this opportunity you've created for them to collaborate? Well, it was a great feeling. It was so great and fulfilling. And I'm like, yes, this is a dream that we have and it's coming into reality. I felt that, wow, this is something that with a little planning, with just a small thought from the beginning, with so much energy put in it, was able to bring this wonderful group of people together. This is out of determination and love for the country, Ghana, and for the continent, Africa. And this is very helpful for our continent to bring people together who are not only in the same profession, but in diverse professions. And there were people even from government in Ghana at the time that came to the conference. Through some people connections that I made, they were able to connect me to some people in some positions in like government position in Ghana who came and were on the panel. So many interesting research findings have been presented in our conference. We are in the sixth year. The sixth one will be happening next month in Nairobi, Kenya. So many interesting topics or findings have been presented from HIV to non-communicable diseases, to climate change, to interdisciplinary approach, innovative ways that people are coming to address problems. the complex situation of healthcare delivery in Africa continue to increase. So, for instance, we were thinking about Africa was known to rely on infectious diseases and a whole lot of those conditions. But now, The clock has turned completely. We've seen a lot of non-communicable diseases emerging in Africa, killing a lot of people that even the infectious diseases that we thought about. A lot of things that are coming from other cultures that our system is not yet adapted to are kind of like influencing some of the lifestyles that we are seeing. And then also we see climate is having so much effect, the changing climatic conditions. We're seeing flooding, we're seeing in some places, we are seeing drought in other places. All these things come with different healthcare challenges and bring about some complexity in a healthcare delivery. So I think these are areas that we have to be focusing on as we are addressing the current problems that we are facing. We also have to be looking in the future because it's said that even though Africa is the least to contribute to the climate changing Africa is going to be the most affected as far as the effect of climate change is concerned. So what can the African leaders do now to kind of reverse some of these changes, some of these effects of climate change in the health of the people is some of the things that we have to be considering. As we speak, most countries do not even have proper ways or guidelines of cancer or oncology or cancer treatment. Meanwhile, we are seeing a lot of these in addition to other chronic diseases in South Africa. And we don't have a policy and treatment guideline and think how to approach some of these conditions. And managing cancer and these chronic diseases does not take only one person to treat the patient. It takes everybody in the healthcare system. So these are the complexities that I think that we are not ready for at the moment. Even if where we are, if we are at already, I don't think it's enough for us to be so comfortable that things will be better because we still need to approach this because we are now struggling with the chronic diseases, non-communicable diseases in addition to the infectious diseases that we have already, like children and maternal and child healthcare delivery is a big problem. We are in Africa recording the highest number of maternal mortality and child mortality. in addition to the chronic diseases that are happening. So there is much more for us to do. And it will not take only the physician, it will not take only the nurse, it will not take only the pharmacist or the physiotherapist doing things in their own kind to solve the problem. People who participate in this conference are not only academics, they are also people from the clinical side or they are practicing in the clinical side. And also there are policymakers that comes to our conference. So when researchers find this, they present, can present their finding, the practitioners and the policymakers also take this go and think about them. And how do we implement this? And the things that we are doing, practicing currently, are those contrary to the findings that were presented at a conference? And how can we improve upon such practices? Now, another way that this has happened is that We've seen situations where people from our conference, people presented a finding at a conference and a practitioner will collaborate with them and then they conduct further studies. And these are some of the outcomes that are happening. We believe these are improving health because if clinicians and people in research or in academia come together and then conduct research, In the future, in the next five, ten years, I'm hoping that we will be one of the biggest conferences in the whole of Africa, and for that matter, among the big conferences that happen in the world. We can be able, also in the next 5-10 years, be able to get support and funding to help people who cannot attend the conference because of finance and other challenges, bring them together. and then we can be able to change through the conference, change the healthcare delivery in Africa, improve the quality of healthcare delivery in Africa. That is our goal. And also, it will help early career researchers and practitioners in the healthcare industry in Africa to think interdisciplinary and come out of practicing in this silo. and be able to think that our healthcare delivery will be better if we work as a team, not as a team as only nurses or doctors or lab technicians or pharmacists, but think as a team interdisciplinary. those years to come, I think people can point to this conference that it helped us to understand the concept of interdisciplinary care delivery and interdisciplinary research to solve the challenges that healthcare is facing in Africa. There are words that keep ringing in my heart and my mind all the time that we can do it. I think we focus on the positive and that's what's been keeping us going. Thank you for listening to A Nurse First from Sigma. If you loved this episode, do us a favor and subscribe, rate, and leave us a review. It is very much appreciated. For more information about A Nurse First and Sigma, visit sigmanursing.org. Until next time.