Event location
Guest Speaker Seminars will take place at Seminar Room 218, FHH (Frederik Holsts hus), 12:15-13:30.
Zoom link for those wishing to attend online.
Abstract
Hydrocephalus is the most common neurosurgical condition among children worldwide with an estimated 400 000 new cases every year, and about half of these cases occur on the African continent where neurosurgical services are extremely meagre. The main reason for the uneven distribution of hydrocephalus relates to Africa’s high crude birth rate, but also to higher incidence of postinfectious hydrocephalus and and spina bifida. Both postinfectious hydrocephalus and hydrocephalus due to spina bifida are in theory preventable. Today however, the only viable treatment option is neurosurgery.
My Phd project is concerned with pediatric hydrocephalus across Africa, particularly focusing on Malawi. Through different methods and approaches (cross-sectional, systematic review and meta-analysis and in-depth interviews), I have investigated clinical characteristics and early surgical outcomes (article #1), etiological distribution and diagnostic work-up (article #2) as well as detection and referral practices for hydrocephalus (article #3). In this presentation, I will mainly focus on data collected for my fourth article, consisting of maternal interviews of mothers of hydrocephalic children in Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. Although I am still in the very beginning of the analysis, in this seminar I plan to share with you some of the diverse obstacles that mothers and their sick children face seeking medical attention.
Bio
Camilla has been working as a nurse in the neurosurgical department at Rikshospitalet since 2007, taking care of critically sick patients. In 2013, a bilateral institutional health partnership, Blantyre-Oslo Neurosurgical Exchange Program, between the neurosurgical departments at Oslo University Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi was established. This propelled Camilla into the field of global health, an area of research and practice that she had always had a passion for. After finishing her master’s degree in 2019, she continued with her PhD studies in combination with 50% clinical work. In her PhD, she explores pathways to care for children with hydrocephalus, which is the most common pediatric neurosurgical condition worldwide, focusing on Blantyre, Malawi. She has also studied the etiology of hydrocephalus among children across the African continent. In 2022, Camilla received a Fulbright scholarship and visited the Program in Global Surgery and Social Change (PGSSC) at Harvard Medical School for a semester. She continues to collaborate with her colleagues at PGSSC and is involved in the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies through her role as nurse co-lead in the Global Neurosurgery Committee.