Spotlight Interview with Dr. Saeeda Paruk
“It is critical to empower people with knowledge. We still need much more equity and advocacy. COVID has taught us how much we as a world are one.” – Dr. Paruk
Location: Durban, South Africa
Bio: Meet Dr. Saeeda Paruk, MBChB, FCPsych, MMed, PhD, a child psychiatrist at the King DinuZulu Psychiatric Hospital and a lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). After completing her undergraduate and postgraduate training at the UKZN, she obtained her PhD in 2016. Dr. Paruk has been lecturing in the undergraduate and postgraduate psychiatry programs for the past 15 years and has published several articles and co-authored a book chapter on adolescent psychiatry. Dr. Paruk has interests in risk factors for early onset psychosis, neurodevelopmental disorders, and HIV in children. She is currently mentoring postgraduate Master’s and PhD students and her portfolio within the UKZN Department of Psychiatry is to develop research capacity. Dr. Paruk received the Biological Society Established Researcher Award and the NRF award in 2019.
Dr. Paruk, did you always know you wanted to be a doctor?
“I think I always knew I wanted to be a doctor but it also became clearer to me more and more as time went on. Then came my interests in psychiatry. I felt as if in my studies I didn’t know enough about child psychiatry and then my passion kind of grew from there. I think sometimes in life your part finds you.”
Can you share with us the differences you see between adult versus child psychiatry care?
“In South Africa, every psychiatrist is trained in child psychiatry. However, there are still limited resources and not many child and adolescent units. In terms of the adult versus adolescent psychiatry approach, it is important to realize that in children, there are different developmental levels. We tend to approach child treatments by focusing more on the family and relying on caretakers and looking at it as a whole picture. Children tend to have more behavioral, multidisciplinary issues. For children, it needs to really be holistic care and context based.”
Our Boston University Medical Campus-Massachusetts General Hospital T32 Global Psychiatry Clinical Research Training Program is a three-year postdoctoral training program that combines rigorous didactic instruction, clinical research methods training from Boston University and Harvard University, practice in working effectively with disadvantaged communities, and immersive, mentored clinical research experiences in global settings. What has been the best part of working with the Global Program at BUMC?
“It’s been an honor and privilege to be a T32 mentor. We’ve worked with Dr. Durham and she’s visited our sites, guest lectured, and helped integrate our clinical services for child and adolescent psychiatry. We’ve also worked with Dr. Borba supporting us with research capacity training. We usually have an annual research training week and help direct workshops here. It’s been great to learn from each other in our partnership. We are very excited to hopefully have new fellows!”
Can you share with us what you most love about your job?
“I think I am very fortunate that I love my job. I really like interacting with patients. I love teaching and training and it’s very rewarding to see a student first publish or graduate; it is always exciting. I am lucky in many ways that I enjoy several aspects of my job.”
And are there any aspects of your job that you don’t enjoy?
“What I don’t like is the administrative side of things and all the red tape involved in whether or not I can do something.”
I definitely can see how you could run into many obstacles. Speaking of hindrances, I was wondering how the pandemic has affected your work?
“It definitely is a new normal. Different interactions. We’ve moved teaching to online which obviously was an adjustment for most. It created challenges for clinical services. Especially because the patients I serve were severely mentally ill and it is difficult for them to appreciate COVID guidelines such as physical distancing and masking. We had to try to implement contingencies plan to protect our patients such as screening patients, creating wards for COVID positive patients, and that decreased bed capacity in our psychiatric hospital. There was a drop in patient attendance because they were frightened to attend the hospital.
In terms of research, in South Africa specifically, any in-person research that was non-interventional and non-clinical trial based was suspended. We lost our follow-up data and for our population, we can’t move research onto an online platform because of access inequities to smart phones or data.”
Can you speak on the impact of stigma surrounding mental health?
“I think stigma in mental health has been a huge issue, especially in my setting where there is poor access to help and poor awareness of mental health. Mental health is often still attributed to certain cultural beliefs. Many patients who are psychotic and disruptive will come to seek treatment, but we are still not seeing a lot of people with anxiety and depression due to stigma. COVID did raise a lot of mental health awareness because of its implication of the lockdown, people were so anxious generally. I also think the pandemic has shone light on other social determinants of health. Hopefully, this pandemic’s effects on mental health awareness will last and people will continue to stay open minded.”
What are some gaps currently present in global mental health that you would like to work on?
“Well we need to focus on education, on training, increasing capacity building, and building more sustainable practices. It is critical to empower people with knowledge. We still need much more equity and advocacy. COVID has taught us how much we as a world are one. A lesson is to look at addressing things together. I think maybe we need to integrate global health and global mental health.”
Is there any advice you would like to offer to the youth who are interested in pursuing a career in this field?
“I would say follow your interests and passion. Look at what interventions work in low-resourced settings and replicate it. Address how we can integrate interventions into a pediatric service. It’s important to address the access to care component and keep that in mind.”
If you could ask for one wish and it would be granted, what would it be?
“At this moment in our lives, I would ask for equity and good health.”
What is a lesson in your life that you would like to share?
“Live your life. It shouldn’t just be about work. Have balance. Things will find you. Enjoy the moment and the day!”
By Joanne Won, October 2021