Matters of the heart
PNG’s first female heart and lung surgeon
“Igrew up in a household in which I was told girls can do anything that boys can do and if you have the ambition, you can achieve your goals,” says Dr Elizabeth Alok, Papua New Guinea’s first female trainee cardiothoracic (CT) surgeon.
Alok will be one of only two practising CT surgeons in PNG when she completes her training this year.
She is an advocate for a specialist CT institute in Port Moresby. The idea for a specialist unit was first promoted by chief cardiac surgeon, Dr Noah Tapaua, in 2016, who wrote that the caseload for heart and lung surgery was increasing in PNG in line with population growth.
Most patients, he said, were children with congenital heart disease (80 per cent), but he warned that it didn’t reflect the true rate because of the prevalence of rheumatic fever and other heart diseases associated with the changing lifestyle of the population.
It’s a view shared by Alok, who chose to go into CT work “because there is a need”, she told Paradise.
Until recently, CT surgery in PNG had been carried out in Gorokoa and Port Moresby by a few visiting Australian surgeons. But Open Heart International (OHI) in collaboration with Operation Open Heart PNG – which sponsored these visits – has moved to training the local PNG team rather than solely relying on overseas doctors.
“I decided at medical school that I wanted to be a surgeon, so I chose my residency in the Highlands,” Alok says. “I knew that it was more likely that I would see trauma cases up there and the overall exposure would be good for me. I spent one year at Mount Hagen, where my dad is from, then a year in Goroka and finally a few months in Kudjip with Dr James Radcliffe.
“And it was what I expected. You are required to do more ‘hands on’ in so many areas and you see so many different cases when you’re working in the outer provinces. Personally, I was happy with that choice before coming back to Port Moresby.”
There was no immediate vacancy in surgery, so Alok spent six months in obstetrics and gynaecology, followed by a year in the field
of accident and emergency, before finally getting her break into general surgery in 2009 at Alotau General Hospital.
She recalls, with fondness, one of the deciding moments in her career when the late Dr Lister Lunn, one of PNG’s first CT surgeons, allowed her to assist in a closed-heart operation and the awe and fulfilment she felt when assisting during that case.
“Operating in the chest was one of those areas I feared, when starting up as a general surgeon. But facing one’s fears head on is the best way to overcome any obstacle,” she says.
In recognition of her skill and work ethic, Alok was asked to joined the OHI team in Tonga last year, which was her second OHI visit to the country, as the support surgeon for over 20 operations. She took the lead in a number of cases alongside Sydney specialists Dr Ian Nicholson and Dr Bruce French.
I pass on to young girls the same message my parents passed on to me when I was growing up. ‘Girls can do anything boys can do’.
“I loved it. Two weeks of hard work. I had blisters during my first week, but you just have to look past that and keep working. Most people wouldn’t like the hours and the stress, but I love it.
“Initially, the Tongan patients thought I was African. No one expected a Pacific islander to be one of the surgeons in the team. I think all
Pacific islanders are very receptive and accept that we were there to help them. They did ask later where I was from.
“In PNG, sometimes they don’t realise that
I’m a surgeon and will be operating on them. Initially, they think either I’m a nurse or a support person, because most of the time they think only males are surgeons or someone else not from PNG.
“I pass on to young girls the same message my parents passed on to me when I was growing up,” she says. “Girls can do anything boys can do. I’m not being feminist or anything like that, but there’s a discrepancy in our culture where women have their work and boys have their work, and the boys will be regarded as usually being the breadwinner.”
Alok is from a family of four and she says the support from her family has been “awesome”.
“I would never have made it this far without them behind me.”