Testimonials of Merck Foundation Alumni

I am grateful and feel privileged with a sense of fulfillment and a dream come true for undergoing Merck Foundation Advanced ART and Fertility Specialist program and become the first Fertility Specialist in Liberia.

 

This program has prepared me to fill the gap and therefore provide the critically needed help for infertile couples for the first time in their home country. For my patients, the opportunity to have accessible and affordable local fertility care gives them hope and security.

 

Merck Foundation together with our Liberia First Lady are making history in our country by providing training for the first Embryologists and Fertility Specialists in Liberia. It is a dream come true.

Merck Foundation’s sponsorship to pursue the Postgraduate diploma in Sexual Reproductive Medicine was a life changing opportunity for me. I had already done my Master’s in Obstetrics and Gynaecology but there was still a great gap in fertility care in my country. I met couples in my practice that suffered from infertility problems and there was no specialized treatment for them. I was always passionate to help these couples but lacked the required skills and training to offer evidence-based treatment. Completing this course has really improved my ability to evaluate, investigate and treat my patients. Despite still awaiting a specialized fertility clinic in the public sector, I am doing the best with the aid of my training to offer specialized care to my patients.

I hope to start a fertility center in the public sector that will alleviate the sufferings of infertile couples in my community. Infertility may not kill but surely compromises the quality of life for these couples. Together, we can make a difference.

What a great honor and privilege it has been to be part of such a prestigious Fertility training program provided by Merck Foundation in partnership with the First Lady of Namibia. It is a dream come true to be a Merck Foundation alumnus and the first trained Fertility specialist in public sector of Namibia which helps me to build a better future and improve lives of my community.

 

In the words of Nelson Mandela, "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” My clinical skills have greatly improved, and I am confident that I will now be able to provide much-needed access to equitable and quality assisted reproductive treatment (ART) in the public sector closer to my community. Scaling up the training nationwide will reshape the landscape of Fertility care across Namibia.

I feel extremely privileged to have been given this opportunity by Merck Foundation to train in Assisted Reproductive Techniques. This has been a dream come true for me as I had always wanted to do this program. In my opinion the program has been a success and I really feel empowered to help women with fertility problems in several ways. I wish to open a specialized fertility clinic along with my colleagues and juniors, so that we can not only treat infertile patients but also build capacity by means of knowledge sharing. We can conduct transvaginal ultrasound scans (TUS) and even hold clinical meetings to discuss challenges in infertility management.

I have also expressed interest to join the hospital radio program to try and address the issues of infertility and their available solutions. I’d like to thank Merck Foundation for the sponsorship and may this benefit be extended to many others.

I am very grateful for the opportunity given to me by Merck Foundation to be the first embryologist in Liberia. I worked as a clinician and came across couples who have struggled to have a child but to no avail. Being in an African society especially Liberia, couples are stigmatized for not having a child. So, my dream was to advance my studies and help couples in need of having a child. Now I am glad that through this knowledge obtained from Merck Embryology/Fertility Training Program, couples can now have the opportunity to get local fertility care to overcome the stigma they have faced over the years.

Through Merck Foundation program in partnership with Liberia First Lady , Our country for the first time has their own  local clinical embryologists and fertility specialists .