For most women, go­ing to the gy­ne­col­o­gist is seen as a mun­dane task. A check-it-off-but-I-don’t-ac­tu­al­ly-want-to-do-it ap­point­ment. But for some women, these rou­tine vis­its can save their life.

Chances are, you’ve heard of the im­por­tance of get­ting a Pap smear done reg­u­lar­ly, es­pe­cial­ly when you’re reg­u­lar­ly sex­u­al­ly ac­tive, but do we re­al­ly un­der­stand what this sim­ple test means? Well, for most, it’s a rou­tine ‘you’re healthy’ check-up, but for some women, it’s the dif­fer­ence be­tween life or death.

You see, a reg­u­lar Pap smear checks for pres­ence of the Hu­man Pa­pil­lo­mavirus (HPV) in your cervix – an in­fec­tion that can cause pre­can­cer­ous or can­cer­ous cells to ap­pear in the cervix. Sim­ply put: a Pap smear checks for cer­vi­cal can­cer.

For gy­ne­col­o­gist Dr. Sab­ri­na Ramkisson, a Pap smear does more than just check for cer­vi­cal can­cer, it gives women their lives back. And as a woman her­self, her scope of work means some­thing more to her, be­cause it’s more re­lat­able. But whether it’s help­ing a pa­tient through pe­ri­ods of try­ing for a ba­by, cop­ing with a mis­car­riage, de­liv­er­ing a new­born, or sad­ly, di­ag­nos­ing cer­vi­cal can­cer, the role cer­tain­ly has its’ ups and downs.

“I love women’s health. I love reach­ing out to girls and meet­ing women on a dai­ly ba­sis,” she ex­plained. “Tak­ing a woman through preg­nan­cy, a mis­car­riage, her cer­vi­cal health, I’ve learned a lot about my­self as I’ve learned a lot about oth­er peo­ple.”

But for Sab­ri­na, be­com­ing a doc­tor felt like the nat­ur­al thing. In fact, even when she was a child, she was al­ways quick to play doc­tor with her mum­my, pa­per and pen in hand to write pre­scrip­tions. But it wasn’t un­til she was do­ing her in­tern­ships in med­ical school that she tru­ly con­sid­ered gy­ne­col­o­gy.

“I think I al­ways had a lit­tle bit of doc­tor in me, but in­tern­ship was when things changed. The doc­tor I worked with at the time al­lowed me to de­liv­er the ba­by,” she said, re­count­ing the first de­liv­ery she’d shad­owed as an in­tern. “That thrill that I felt, to be the first per­son to touch the ba­by, to bring a whole new life out, to be the per­son who made that dif­fer­ence for that woman, that was when it all made sense.”

That mo­ment she con­sid­ers the turn­ing point, and from then she was on a strict mis­sion to be­come a gy­ne­col­o­gist, and to ex­pe­ri­ence that every day. And for the last twelve years, she’s been ful­fill­ing that dream every day: even if it means fly­ing home ear­ly from va­ca­tions to help pa­tients de­liv­er their ba­bies, or rac­ing from North to South and in be­tween to see pa­tients be­tween her of­fices. These are just some of the many sac­ri­fices she makes dai­ly to do her job – but it’s a labour of love. And for Sab­ri­na, there tru­ly is love in it. She feels close to all of her pa­tients, and treats them like fam­i­ly, be­cause she knows if the roles were re­versed, she wouldn’t be quite as friend­ly as her pa­tients are.

“Doc­tors are the worst pa­tients, I don’t think I know how to be a pa­tient. I can re­late to pa­tients, and help them through every­thing, but the minute I switch that role, hor­ri­ble,” she joked. “I think that’s the hu­man side of me, and I think that’s why I’m able to help peo­ple through, be­cause I al­ways try to put my­self or my mom in the role of the pa­tient. I man­age every­body like I would want peo­ple to man­age my mom, and that’s the lev­el of care I give to my pa­tients.”

And so, with this pas­sion for car­ing for her pa­tients and want­i­ng the best for women’s health, she knew that there was more she could do in Trinidad and To­ba­go to pro­mote cer­vi­cal health, en­cour­age screen­ings and ed­u­cate women about why they should vis­it their gy­ne­col­o­gists.

So when Sab­ri­na dis­cov­ered a ‘Smear It’ cam­paign in Nige­ria that asked women to take a self­ie of their lip­stick smeared to re­mind women to get their Pap smears and raise aware­ness for cer­vi­cal can­cer, she knew she need­ed to bring it to T&T. With their bless­ing, she start­ed Smear It TT, an aware­ness dri­ve to en­cour­age women to get reg­u­lar screen­ings and Pap smears. But she didn’t stop there.

Af­ter months of build­ing aware­ness, she re­al­ized there was a ma­jor gap that she could fill. Much like the walks and runs that oc­cur every year for oth­er caus­es, breast can­cer in­clud­ed, she de­cid­ed to host the first an­nu­al Smearathon in 2017. But be­yond just a 5K, the event em­pow­ers women and of­fers fun for all ages. And most im­por­tant­ly, the event of­fers screen­ing for a minis­cule cost, with doc­tors vol­un­teer­ing their time to per­form Pap smears on any woman who’s due for one.

Sab­ri­na says that in her prac­tice, she of­ten sees women in their 30s who have nev­er had a Pap smear, and come to see her when they’re try­ing to have kids. And some­times, these women dis­cov­er cer­vi­cal can­cer in their 30s.

“When I see that you could po­ten­tial­ly save that 35-year-old years be­fore when she was in her twen­ties, if some­body had told her that a Pap smear in her twen­ties would make a dif­fer­ence to her at 35,” she added. “To me, the pow­er of that is self-ex­plana­to­ry.”

Most women put off do­ing Pap smears be­cause there’s a neg­a­tive stig­ma around it, stem­ming from decades-old tools that were large and made of met­al, and would cause dis­com­fort or pain. But Sab­ri­na en­sures that most doc­tors are find­ing ways to make it more pleas­ant for the women – in­clud­ing us­ing a plas­tic specu­lum which is much small­er and less un­com­fort­able for the women.

But the scari­est part for Sab­ri­na, be­yond just telling her pa­tients that they might have can­cer, is telling them the long-term ef­fects it can have on their body. One of the scari­est is that, be­cause cer­vi­cal can­cer af­fects the neck of the womb, she can lose her womb and nev­er have chil­dren. Should you do your reg­u­lar screen­ing year­ly or every two years, it’s eas­i­er to pick up on changes, and that same 35-year-old pa­tients might dis­cov­er she had cer­vi­cal can­cer years be­fore, and it would have made a mas­sive dif­fer­ence on treat­ment and mov­ing for­ward.

“That’s why I’m so pas­sion­ate,” Sab­ri­na ex­plained. “Be­cause it is a pre­ventable can­cer.”

Un­like oth­er can­cers that don’t guar­an­tee ear­ly de­tec­tion, cer­vi­cal can­cer is some­thing that can be screened for year af­ter year with a very sim­ple, eas­i­ly ac­ces­si­ble test, and that’s what Sab­ri­na hopes the Smearathon will raise aware­ness on.

“In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, cer­vi­cal can­cer is the 4th com­mon­est fe­male can­cer, and the 8th com­mon­est can­cer,” she not­ed. “It used to be a lot high­er, but with Pap smears, screen­ing and aware­ness, it’s sig­nif­i­cant­ly dropped in rank­ing. Cer­vi­cal can­cer is def­i­nite­ly be­com­ing less and less com­mon be­cause of more aware­ness and screen­ing tests.”

And this screen­ing is avail­able to every­one, re­gard­less of race, class or fi­nan­cial sta­tus. Be­cause cer­vi­cal can­cer and HPV af­fect women typ­i­cal­ly in their re­pro­duc­tive age, it af­fects a ma­jor part of our pop­u­la­tion, and there­fore it’s made­–READ MORE ON XXTHEMAG.COM