In safe hands

Dr Husnia Gargash, consultant obstetrician, gynaecologist and director of The Dubai Gynaecology and Fertility Centre (DFC)

I enjoy helping people and doing my best for different women. It makes me very happy when I feel that I have made someone else happy. That is what motivated me to study to be a gynaecologist.

My mother, Badriya, wanted one of her six children to become a doctor and she always wanted me, the eldest, to study for this. So I grew up with the idea of becoming a doctor. It is (the matter of giving) others' happiness that made me become a doctor, mainly dealing with women's problems.

I was born in Dubai at Al Maktoum Hospital. I grew up in Dubai and studied in different government schools here. I was always a good student at school, scoring As.

I studied medicine at Baghdad University and returned to the UAE upon completion of the course. At the time, the rule here was that a person had to work for the government for three years before proceeding for postgraduate education abroad.

So I took up a job in Abu Dhabi at Al Jazira Hospital. Then I went to London and completed my postgraduation even as I worked for the next five years. I started with Guy's Hospital, which is a teaching hospital, then moved to Newham University Hospital, Whittington Hospital and later on, the Hillingdon Hospital.

After I passed my exams, I came back to Dubai to work, since I wanted to be near my family. In Dubai I began working at Al Wasl Hospital. Some years later, and many change of jobs in between, I ended up as head of the Department of Gynaecology at Dubai Hospital. The whole process took about 10 years.

During this time I was also teaching at Dubai Medical College (DMC).

I was then given the responsibility of Dubai Fertility Centre and took up my position here in 2003. I went for further training in fertility treatment to London and then continued here. Currently I am director of the DFC. I feel that my hard work and dedication to my chosen profession has brought me to this position.

My father, Abdullah Gargash, was a businessman and my mother, a homemaker.

My father was a good student and passed his business administration degree with distinction from the University of Lahore, which was then part of India.

My mother was not highly educated but was a very bright and active woman. I am the eldest of six children. My sisters are all professionals.

Sameera is a lawyer, Sara is an accountant and Farial is a designer of jewellery. My brothers, Abdul Jabbar and Tarik, are both businessmen.

I am married and have four children. My husband, Maher Sawalma, is a surgeon in Al Baraha Hospital. We have two daughters - Ghada, who is 18, Jasmin, who is 10, and Salma, who is 8. Our son, Faisal, is 13.

The reason I chose gynaecology was because it is part-medicine and part-surgery ...
... and I love surgery. When I was studying medicine, I used to get very high marks in medicine papers, but when I started working I preferred surgery.

In medicine, many patients are chronically ill and have to undergo continuous treatment. An end to treatment is almost non-existent and that can be very depressing for the doctor.

With gynaecology and obstetrics, there is an end to the problem with a combination of medicine and surgery. Moreover, I am dealing with women. I believe a woman can understand a woman better, especially when she has problems concerning her most intimate health problems area or sexual problems.

Here and in many other parts of the world, women find it easier to talk to a woman doctor about such concerns than to a male doctor.

When I was specialising in fertility problems, I instintively knew that I had chosen the right field and that I was in the right place. I was happy that my knowledge was going to help at least 10 to 15 per cent of women with fertility problems overcome the hurdles.

Sometimes infertility may not be a purely medical problem, but a psychological one too.

This is where being a female doctor comes in very handy as it helps a woman be free and express her feelings, fears and hopes. As a doctor, at that point, it feels good to know that I am in a position to perhaps cure their bodies as well as their minds.

If I can in any way bring about a change for the better in their lives, it brings me a lot of joy.

For example, when a woman who has been considered infertile gets pregnant after (fertility) treatment the joy she experiences is unbound and this joy is felt as much by her as it is felt by me.

This is one area where absolute fulfilment is experienced by both the doctor and the patient. Like all medical fields, gynaecology is continuously changing and developing.

There is constant research going on, (investigating) how to improve a mother's health, how to reduce maternal mortality and how to improve results in infertile mothers, etc. I find it challenging to keep up with these breakthroughs and use that knowledge in my work.

In this line of work (as in so many allied medical fields) there are always emergencies and a gynaecologist must be able to make quick yet correct decisions. As it concerns childbirth, it is a 24-hour on-call job.

Yes, it can be stressful but it is so rewarding because it makes me see how I am responsible for two lives - the mother's and the baby's. And the moment when you get to see the mother and child doing well, there is nothing more satisfying than that for a doctor.

My belief in God and the principles with which I have been brought up …
… keep me rooted to the demands of my job and to life. I really don't know what the future has in store. I believe in keeping my options open. Right now it is to do with improving DFC so that I can help more people.