Salome Maswime

"It is a new discipline in medicine which focuses on access to surgery and improving quality of care and outcomes. I like to describe it as the interface between surgical services and surgical systems."

"My research is working on improving perinatal outcomes and stillbirth auditing across Africa. In many countries, we don’t know what the real numbers are at the end of the day, so we have to start counting."

"More importantly though, the role of women in their societies can tell us a lot. Communities that protect their women seem to have better health outcomes."

"t's always the elephant in the room. When you walk into a room, and you don't see anyone that looks like you, sometimes you don't know if you are welcome or not. Luckily, i am comfortable with situations where I am minority."

"But I am very clear about what my expertise is. It is also a sense of pressure and responsibility because I often feel that if a wrong decision is made, I am not speaking just for me, but for many."