Page 49 - Number 2 2021 Volume 74

Sylvia Kambalametore - Physiotherapist 37

the very stringent requirements for the paediatric specialty Fellowship of the
South African College of Medicine. She travelled to Cape Town repeatedly for
clinical attachments and examinations, succeeding in this ambition in 1975. Her
children well remember her hours of study for these exams which she undertook
even during family holidays while the bustle of activity went on around her: there
is an apocryphal Norway photo of the patch of dry and flattened grass marking
the spot where she sat and studied, day after day, while her menfolk fished,
climbed, boated and swam.
Her focus was always on providing quality care for sick children. This
meant hands-on clinical practice - seeing numerous patients herself, every day,
whilst at the same time refining her own knowledge and improving her skills. No
effort was too great for her patients; she would drive into the hospital at night,
would personally carry out exchange transfusions and was always available for
telephone calls from nurses worried about their patients, parents concerned about
their children or emergencies among friends and acquaintances.
Over the years, her clinical commitment grew and over the 1970s and
80s as Chief Paediatrician she built up a vibrant paediatric department with the
help of only a few colleagues. With the advent of the College of Medicine in 1991
she willingly shared her clinical department (which already hosted the Blantyre
Malaria Research Project) with her new academic colleagues: Paediatrics
remained and continues to be a model of clinical and academic collaboration.
Her clinical acumen was legendary, her bedside skills unparalleled,
based on her experience but also on her unswerving commitment to lifelong
learning - she studied and read medical journals all her life. Her methods were
hands on and personal: she had many patients with chronic conditions who she
followed up for many years and even through their teenage lives. Her dedication
was completely equitable and totally humanitarian, and coupled with her
professional care, she reached the lives of many, many children from all levels of
society. However, with the constant needs of so many very sick children she was
never tolerant of any well to do parents who brought their patently thriving off
spring to her with a minor complaints: “Your child is fine!” she would say and
send them off without any further ado and certainly without any medication.
Indeed, at times it seemed as if honey, papaya and worm pills were her most used
daily remedies! But if a child was really sick, she would pick it up immediately –
a glance at the mother, a look at the child, an experienced hand on the abdomen
and the diagnosis pronounced; she was rarely wrong.
In the 1970s It became possible to send children with congenital or
acquired heart conditions to South Africa for cardiac surgery, and accordingly she
set up a specific cardiac clinic to prepare, select and later follow up these patients.
This was in the days when echocardiography had not even been thought of and