Margaret Mungai
Margaret is working on a skin care intervention program to reduce hospital acquired pressure injury (PI) and improve PI outcomes among SCI patients. At the conference, Margaret will gain insights to guide implementation of her study and share her experience from Kenya.
Margaret shares her experiences from the conference.
The SRI grant offered an opportunity to meet/ learn from renowned SCI experts. It was unbelievably amazing to be part of a multidisciplinary team aiming at improving SCI care outcomes and experiences.
Presentation sessions and posters focused on varied aspects of SCI, some unattended in my country notably malnutrition and sleeping patterns among SCI patients which are key in SCI patient outcomes .The SRI Early Career Researchers Breakfast event offered an opportunity to meet fellow SRI grantees where we benefitted from previous grantees nuggets of wisdom. Meeting SRI facilitators including Larnie and Antonio among others after holding virtual sessions previously was humbling.The ISCOS nurses meeting was very encouraging building contacts with nurses who are underrepresented in ISCOS despite their immense contribution to SCI patient outcomes.
This opportunity allowed me to meet and establish contacts with various SCI experts contributing to SCI care, research and support .The level of SCI lived experience /consumer engagement or peer support is a new frontier in SCI care in our hospital that is worth pursuing going forward.
Apart from the opportunity to participate and present a poster on the need for more focus on SCI care outcomes and rehabilitation in LMICs, the event provided opportunities to be more grounded in my current SCI Skin Care programme aimed at reducing hospital acquired pressure injuries among SCI patient at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital under the mentorship of Professor Graham under the SRI mentorship programme.
As I continue implementing my research project, I will follow up the research participants after discharge from the hospital in view of establishing SCI support group and peer supporters in future. The experience validated the need for the SCI African Safari Education Programme with AFSCIN and ISCOS we are planning currently. This is aimed to deliver a three cities education programme in Africa where multidisciplinary staff taking care of SCI patients will benefit from training by renowned SCI experts on various aspects of SCI care and rehabilitation in resource constrained settings in Africa.
I strongly recommend this SRI Grant to others more so in LMICs.
