Bangladeshi nurse becomes first with PhD

Jacinta Olympia Gomes

A Catholic woman has become the first government nurse and only the second Bangladeshi to obtain a doctorate in the field of nursing.

Jacinta Olympia Gomes, 49, a Catholic from northwestern Bonpara parish recently obtained the PhD in June from Victoria University in the United States.

Gomes, an executive board member of the Nursing Association Bangladesh (NAB) was awarded the doctorate following her thesis on “Prevention and Control of Breast Cancer, an approach to develop nursing support.”

Gomes is one of Bangladesh’s top nurses and serves on the Bangladesh Catholic Nurses Guild (BCNG) and is a teacher at the Bangladesh Nursing School (BNS).

In those capacities she has helped train thousands of young nurses.

“She helped me survive the tough training with a lot of mental support and advice,” said Pollobi Corraya, 28, a Catholic nurse. “I’m really happy for her,” she said.

“She can make a huge contribution to Catholic health services and also in society, much more so than in the past,” said Catherine Costa, secretary of BCNG.

Gomes says she wants to use what she learned during her studies to help promote breast cancer awareness in Bangladesh.

“Bangladesh is a developing country with an underdeveloped society. Women with breast cancer are often reluctant to get proper treatment” she told ucanews.com.

According to one cancer specialist 20,000- 22,000 Bangladeshi women seek breast cancer treatment each year but there’s a larger number of women don’t.

“Many women die unaware that hey could have been cured if only they had sought early treatment,” Gomes said. “There are also many women who are unaware that they have the disease.”

Women aged 35-55 are most at risk she said.

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Tags: Bangladesh women, Breast cancer, Jacinta Olympia Gomes, Nursing