Florence Tumasang, Cameroun

Photo by Peter Hamblin

“I knew I wanted to be a doctor from the time I was six years old. I asked my mother, 'What's the difference between a doctor and a nurse?' She said, 'A doctor carries a stethoscope.' I never felt like I couldn't do it because I was a girl. Today in Cameroun, not enough girls are taking the science courses needed for medical school, and so there are still very few female doctors. But those of us who are in practice have no problems at all. In fact, many women actually prefer consulting a woman rather than a man."

About Florence

An obstetrician-gynecologist, Florence Tumasang works in the maternity ward of a busy hospital in the capital city of Yaoundé, Cameroun. The former President of ACAFEM (Cameroun Medical Women's Association), she worked for several years to educate other medical doctors and traditional healers about HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment and lobby medical schools to include such training in their academic programs. ACAFEM's research, including a recent groundbreaking study on the impact of traditional practices on reproductive health, is widely consulted by other nongovernmental organizations and the Ministry of Health. Florence is also secretary general of the Camerounian chapter of the Society for Women and AIDS in Africa, which conducts community outreach and preventative education campaigns on HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted infections. As an OB/GYN at Yaoundé General Hospital, Florence finds herself all too frequently in the position of telling a patient that she is HIV-positive. To keep her spirits up, Florence says she plays tapes of live comedy on the way home from work.

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