Meet Dr. Jeanne d’Arc Ibock, young woman, doctor, soon to be a pediatric Surgeon; daughter, mother, Cameroonian and currently resident in Senegal.
What made you pursue a career in health?
I knew very early on that I would like to serve causes greater than my little self, to bring better being to the most vulnerable, while having a strong taste for leadership. On the other hand, the difficulty has never frightened me. I received an education that made the cult of hard work a central pillar. I had a lot of passions, but the sciences made hermetic by some teachers tilted my natural taste for challenges, so I got into it. And hesitations in certainties, here I am in human health.
How would you describe your career path?
My career? (Laughter.) I’m not sure I have one, not yet, I just work a little better every day. I see it more as a life journey, a personal journey but at the service of the community to the best of my ability. It is often a question of putting into play our intellectual and practical knowledge but not that; often it will be a matter of helping the person, psycho-social accompaniment and many others. For now, we have been practising as a generalist doctor, sometimes as a doctor of interim work and now as an aspiring Surgeon-Pediatrician and this in 2 African countries, so everything is still to be done.
We hope that it will be possible for us to participate in the creation of additional institutions specialized in the multidisciplinary care of our children, but also of associations that will further develop in the field the assistance to the most deprived children for access to specialized care for all.
What does a typical day at work look like for you?
Working days are long and depend on the objectives of the week, month or longer term. Classical activities are medical and surgical activities, academic and scientific research activities, seminars and congresses, humanitarian activities when the occasion arises. To which must be added the activities of his personal life. It’s up early and gone to bed late, often not at all.
You have worked for a number of organisations, have you ever faced challenges due to your gender?
The challenges are many and daily. But I would say that the most usually recurring thing is to succeed in getting your opinion and know-how accepted as legitimate while remaining feminine (according to your personal vision of femininity, of course). For a long time, it was a question of the past generations (especially of surgeons) to erase their particularities or even to masculinize themselves in order to be accepted more easily or not to be approached sexually.
The second will always be in the African sociological context to be able to reconcile professional life, Life Of Woman, Life of mother, especially in a profession that is a true priesthood and therefore more a way of life that one can hardly get rid of when leaving the office.
This job has no hours, especially in the poorer countries where the lack of qualified and available staff is glaring.
What experience are you most proud of?
There are a few that I remember with pride and above all surprising, because for me it is always a question of doing the best with humanity.
I remember some of the humanitarian achievements, but I would go back to the Basics: service on a daily basis.
In 2016, I was awarded the prize for the best medical personnel of the year (all specialities included) in the reference Hospital where I was working at the time as a general practitioner, the Laquintinie Hospital in Douala-Cameroon. This plebiscite of my peers, elders, colleagues from other professional bodies and support staff was certainly a surprise to me, but a reminder of how it is necessary to always do the best in respecting its values of integrity and how the good will always end up standing on. It takes knowledge, ability and well-being.
What is your greatest regret?
The greatest regret… There’s still a long way to go, there’ll probably be more.
To this day I would say, to have hesitated for a long time in my academic choices. Having several passions and the will to explore them all is not necessarily an advantage (laughs). I’ve been thinking about Architecture or diplomacy for a long time. Then having fixed my ideas on science, I started with a Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry to do research when I already knew I wanted to do medicine, to be in contact with others than behind test tubes. When you are one of the first in your home community to make certain choices, sometimes visual navigation is inevitable and you pay the price of your boldness one way or another. I’d be at another stage in my career if I’d made up my mind earlier. But these choices have cultivated in me other qualities that are very useful now.
What, in your opinion, are the biggest opportunities for women in health on the African continent?
In my humble opinion, women on the African continent can achieve anything they want if they empower themselves and make sacrifices. The real question is whether the opportunities are made available to young Africans, brought to their attention, whether access is democratized and meritocracy pronounced. This will involve raising awareness, changing women’s overall vision of what they are or are not allowed to do.
Have you ever been mentored, if so by whom?
I do not consider that I have been mentored, no. Certainly, the learning in medicine is done mainly thanks to the accompaniment and a minimum of transmission of one generation to the others. But true mentoring is lacking and would be beneficial.
What is the value of mentorship in your opinion?
Mentoring is a key lever on which we should build. Many do not know the prerequisites for a true scientific career. Many learn on the job and settle for global information on how to train, make an impact. As a result, some of the promising young people stop at a certain level because they think they have either done their best or have exhausted the options available, thinking that the rest is not accessible to them. The glass ceiling is not broken yet and well organized mentoring (on all planes of life) would be a fabulous instrument to get there.
What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice? Can I give you two?
The only guidance counsellor I had an interview with in high school told me, ” you can do whatever you want and wish for because you have the ability.” And my father always said, ” You can succeed in Africa.” Despite the difficulties, I never doubted my ability to overcome them and it was my most valuable leverage.
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