Building Resilient Health Workforces for Global Health Equity:
From Burnout to Purpose
with Dr. Dorothy Kamya, MD, MME, MBA
9:10 am - 9:40 am via Zoom
The focus of this talk is how health systems need resilient, supported health workers in order to achieve health equity, a goal of many national, regional and global health policies. Specifically it will highlight the issue of burnout, attrition and outmigration from the health workforce and outline some of the main causes of this in Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Kamya will the then outline initiatives that attempt to address this – focusing on some initiatives from Aga Khan University in Kenya. Dr. Kamya will discuss how cultures of resilience and support can be fostered through coaching, mental welfare support and psychological safety and how framing workforce wellbeing as a quality and equity imperative can go a long way to addressing the serious workforce gaps faced by the global south and increasingly the global north.
Dr. Dorothy Kamya, MD, MME, MBA is a clinician–educator and health systems leader working at the intersection of women’s leadership, health workforce resilience, and medical education reform in East Africa. She serves as Associate Dean of Postgraduate Medical Education at Aga Khan University (AKU), Nairobi, and as an Assistant Professor and Consultant Anaesthesiologist at Aga Khan University Hospital, a tertiary referral and teaching institution with regional influence.
Trained in the United Kingdom, Dorothy earned her medical degree from University College London and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists (UK). She holds a Master’s degree in Medical Education from Cardiff University, where she was awarded with distinction and the dissertation prize. She received an MBA from Strathmore University, reflecting her commitment to leadership, governance, and sustainable health systems strengthening.
Her work focuses on building resilient, high-quality health workforces through accredited specialist training, faculty development, and competency-based education in low- and-middle-income settings. She has led major educational reforms at AKU Nairobi, including the expansion and international accreditation of postgraduate specialist training and the establishment of undergraduate medical education, contributing to workforce retention, leadership development, and institutional capacity.
A strong advocate for women’s leadership in healthcare and academia, Dorothy mentors and coaches emerging leaders and supports inclusive leadership pathways within health systems. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK), a member of the Haile T. Debas Teaching Academy, and an external examiner for the Master of Health Professions Education programme at Makerere University, Uganda.
At a regional level, she serves as Vice President and Board member of the Consortium of New Sub-Saharan African Medical Schools (CONSAMS), advancing collaborative, scalable solutions in medical education, training, and research across Africa. An alumna of the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Leadership Program and a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership (UK), Dorothy partners with governments, academic institutions, and donors to strengthen leadership capacity and drive health systems reform through education.