At an early age, Maseray S. Kamara understood the importance of healthcare.
Now, she is contributing to the creation of quality care for patients. Her professional journey dates back to Virginia, MD, where she was raised by parents from Sierra Leone, West Africa. They informed her of various family members, some impacted by sickle cell, which can cause pain, infections, and joint issues throughout the body, according to the National Institution of Health.
These early conversations profoundly influenced her passion for healthcare and the importance of improving access to it. She also credits a science project from her eighth-grade year surrounding heart rates as a pivotal moment in solidifying her career path.
In 2008, Kamara’s interest in science led her to Princeton University, where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in molecular biology. After that, she attended Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine to obtain a medical degree. She successfully completed her general surgery residency in June 2023 through a partnership between Detroit Medical Center and Wayne State University.
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From there, her career steps led her to participate in a colon and rectal surgery fellowship through a joint partnership with Michigan Medicine and Trinity Health.
Kamara is currently a practicing colon and rectal surgeon in Virginia, specializing in internal surgery. She deals with the medical and surgical management of diseases of the colon, rectum, and anus, including colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, constipation, hemorrhoids, and anal fissures, among others.
“I’m the first in my family to be a physician, first in my family to be a surgeon. So it has been a very a learning experience in itself just to actually get here and be where I am,” she said in reflection during an interview with AFROTECH™. “Now, as a colorectal surgeon, this has given me the opportunity to become a public health surgeon. So, for me, that means not only do I get to operate and not only do I get to have a tangible effect on the symptoms and things that my patients bring to me and the diagnoses, but I can fix those in the operating room, and I can get tangible results.”
She added, “But then further, there are a lot of different topics and things that I can address when it comes to colorectal cancer screening awareness when it comes to quality of life and constipation and how your bowel habit should work. So for me, it was a merger of all my interests of the math and the science and the surgery, but also the public health and being able to speak and empower my patients with information.”
On a day-to-day basis, Kamara’s responsibilities can vary. She divides her week into three distinct parts: clinic days, scoping days dedicated to colonoscopies and sigmoidoscopies, and operating room days, where she addresses various medical concerns.
“The operating room days, either you’re doing an abdominal operation where we are resecting bowel or resecting colon, bringing up ostomy, and managing the abdomen any disease process, whether it’s fistula, diverticulitis, colon cancer, rectal cancer, or things of that nature. Then we can also do the smaller operations, which is dealing with the hemorrhoids,” she explained.
She says technology has been helpful in improving patient outcomes. This includes note applications powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that ensure patients can be interviewed more efficiently to capture information. In the operating room, particularly in the endoscopy suite, AI is being used to detect polyps in the colon during a colonoscopy.
Additionally, robotics is used for complex operations in the pelvis, such as colorectal surgery, which is difficult to perform due to the tight space. Kamara sits at a console and controls the robot’s arms to magnify the area and perform delicate work in the pelvic region.
“Now, this is a widely accepted tool that allows us to take care of our patients. And I always wanna say tool because it’s not like this robot is doing the surgery from beginning to end. It’s a tool,” she affirmed. “It’s literally allowing us to do the operative techniques that we’ve been trained to do from open to minimally invasive. It’s the same operative techniques, but we’re utilizing tools that help with efficiency and just better patient outcomes.”
The use of robotics in the pelvis is also essential, as the ureter is close to this area and is responsible for carrying urine from the kidney to the bladder. Kamara says near-infrared fluorescence imaging is being used to inject different dyes to illuminate the ureter to reduce injury.
“We inject the patient with indocyanine green and then use near-infrared fluorescence imaging or firefly technology to visualize the ureter during the operation using the robot platform. Better visualization decreases the chance of injury to the ureter when doing complex colorectal surgery,” Kamara said in a statement shared via email.
All in all, Kamara sees great potential in the advancements surrounding AI and technology in her field of work.
“We are eager to see the different ways that AI can help us be better surgeons and the different ways that we can use the tools to provide better care for our patients,” she said.
