AT SEVEN, she was playing doctor with her aunt’s old stethoscope.
Now 28, Shanae Gill has realised her dream and is using the instrument in the examination of her patients at the Barbados Family Planning Association.
As assistant director of clinical services, the general practitioner is the main physician and also clinical director of the association’s clinic.
She always wanted to be a midwife. “I was really pushing to go down that path and my aunt who is a nurse told me ‘maybe you should do medicine, particularly obstetrics and gynaecology’,” she said.
Gone are the days when the Barbados Family Planning Association was concerned merely with family planning, and Gill is leading the charge in getting that message out.
The Bay Street, St Michael facility is now a full-service doctor’s office catering to the health needs of men, women and young people of all ages and most days Gill is busy seeing them all.
At the end of another hectic day on the job which she took up just over a year ago, the soft-spoken doctor sat down with the SUNDAY SUN to talk about her work and the new direction of the Barbados Family Planning Association.
“Our main mandate started off as being sexual and reproductive health, where we covered contraception, sexually-transmitted infection but it has evolved over the years, especially since I would have come on full-time” she began.
“In 2017 we are looking to do a rebranding, getting the information that we are just not pills and condoms. We have a wide scope.”
“We are doing far more, from treating the common cold to even issuing health certificates.
“We see ante-natal clients as part of our normal everyday operation; we also have a specialist gynaecology clinic.”
A men’s clinic on Wednesday evenings from 4 to 7 allows men to access the association’s services without the discomfort of sharing waiting room space with female clients.
Gill explained: “We keep the hours that way so people can come after work and see the doctor. We have male doctors and male nurses working so those men who feel more comfortable being examined by a man can be accommodated.”
For fees far below what is being generally charged in private medical practice, men undergo minor surgeries for things like vasectomies, circumcision or hernia.
“We are a stand-alone organisation with a structure of fees for service, but our fees are subsidised. We receive a subsidy from government but we are not another polyclinic,” Gill pointed out.
She is filling a position which allows her to exercise her passion for sexual and reproductive health.
“Sexual and reproductive health called me to it,” said the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, graduate. Her interest in that area of medical practice started while she was in medical school there.
Growing interest in sexual and reproductive health led to her pursuing a post-graduate diploma in reproductive health in developing countries at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
She is now sharing that expertise with young people, teaching them about their sexual and reproductive health.
“I am very passionate about educating young people about sexual and reproductive health because I think that older people think that they know it but we have to realise there is always a crop of young people coming behind, who have no idea of sexual health, or sexually transmitted disease.
“They don’t get the education in school, they don’t get it at home.”
And she gets the satisfaction of knowing that after a consultation, many a young patient walks out of her office armed with a wealth of knowledge. When a teenager who is just becoming sexually active sits with her, the aim is to get them into good habits from the outset. “Maybe in the future we would not need to see these young people at 26 or 27 with repeat infections and all kinds of other problems,” she reasoned.
“I find it has been eye-opening about what has been happening in Barbados and for us as an organisation, it is really challenging us to really take a closer look at young persons and adolescents” Gill observed.
Often, people will say to her: “Why are you talking to young people about sex that will only encourage them.”
But she argues young people must be armed with the information “so that when the time comes they can make the right choices.”
“That’s the part that gets me all fired up,” Gill said with excitement.
She does not care that she is not in a high-paying job like other professionals who may spend four years studying and then walk into a job where they command a big salary.
“If you are looking to make money this is not the field to go into” she said bluntly.
After seven years of study and with most of the money earned during early years of practice going to repay medical school bills, Gill reasoned it could be as many as 20 years before a doctor begins to see some returns on the investment in studying. This does not deter her, however.
She has thrown herself into her work and is enjoying it, recognising that building trust among the young people she sees is the first step to helping them with their medical problems.
“Sometimes they come in with infections and they have had those infections for two or three months, but they don’t understand what is happening and they come in with further complications as a result.”
“Some persons are even apprehensive even to come through the door and so we are trying to make sure that all of our staff here are welcoming to all persons, no matter what gender, creed, ethnic background. That’s part of our Patient Bill of Rights” she said.
Married two years ago to an information technology expert, she looks forward to the time when she is able to set aside the stethoscope and spend time with her husband Chad, whether learning about the technology in which he is engaged or sitting across a table from him on a night out at one of their favourite restaurants.
The young doctor, who is not yet a mother, said: “I am not letting my age be a hindrance to what I can accomplish.”