‘I feel extremely proud to be the first person to achieve a PhD in my family,’ said UKZN lecturer Dr Hafaza (Hafsa) Amod. ‘I also feel blessed because I come from a previously disadvantaged background but never gave up on educating myself and others. I am grateful to my family for all the support and patience they offered me. Now I feel empowered to do more for myself and my community.’
Her journey began as a student nurse at the RK Khan campus under the Natal College of Nursing in 1997. Following graduation, she worked at the hospital, mainly in the maternity wards.
Inspired by her passion for teaching, Amod graduated with a B Cur (Baccalaureus Curationis) degree in Nursing Education and Administration in 2013. She joined UKZN later that year as a clinical tutor and was awarded her master’s cum laude in 2016, which led to her appointment as a lecturer in the Discipline of Nursing.
Supervised by Dr Sipho Wellington Mkhize, Amod’s study aimed to strengthen the clinical support offered to undergraduate midwifery students and develop a mentorship training programme.
The mixed method, action research design study showed that although midwifery practitioners support students during clinical placement, some students do not grasp essential skills.
The mentorship training programme developed by Amod obtained a 96% quality score. The findings showed that the training was valuable, well-structured, empowering, and an investment in midwifery. The study proposes a new framework for mentorship and a mentorship guide (handbook) for midwifery practitioners.
‘Mentorship training is a method to empower and support midwifery practitioners in their roles and responsibilities. The framework to guide mentorship will likely encourage more research on guidelines to develop more mentorship training programmes. The mentorship guide contains more than 30 midwifery-related essential competencies and practitioners can use it as a source of reference. The long-term benefits of mentorship training in maternity units will improve the quality of graduates and care and thus improve maternal and neonatal health outcomes.’
Amod said that, while she experienced several challenges, none could not be managed: ‘I believe that I am stronger than my challenges.’ She added that studying while employed as a full-time academic is demanding. ‘I had to constantly manage my time and focus on completing the degree.’
Amod recently created an educational blog, Midwifery Focus with Dr Hafsa Amod to support midwifery practitioners in all aspects of midwifery. She has published six papers in peer-reviewed journals and looks forward to more publications.
Words: Nombuso Dlamini
Photograph: Rajesh Jantilal
