She Got Pregnant at 18, Divorced Twice, and now Zimbabwe’s First Female Transplant Surgeon: Inspiring Story of Praise Matemavi

 

Praise Matemavi dreamed of becoming a doctor since he was four years old. At the age of 10, she expressed her desire to become a cardiothoracic surgeon after being inspired by a group of doctors from Loma Linda University in California who visited Zimbabwe to perform congenital heart surgery on children at Parirenyatwa Hospital.

When she was in fifth grade, her supportive father bought her a copy of “Gifted Hands,” which she finished in one night. Her interest was further fueled by Ben Carson’s famous narrative. She preferred to operate on the brain rather than the heart.

At the age of fourteen, she moved to the United States to pursue her love while retaining her scholastic success. Matemavi shared with The Weight She Carries that she has always believed in herself. I’ve always believed that I could do whatever I wanted. There was never any doubt in my mind that I could accomplish anything.”

However, the trailblazer admitted that there were times when she felt most undermined, particularly when she went to hospitals to retrieve organs and the hospital staff immediately struck up a conversation with her accompanying assistant—typically a white male—because they assumed he was the surgeon.

“I just let them go ahead because I know they’ll have to come and talk to me eventually so I can tell them what kind of equipment I need and exactly how I want things to go,” she told me. “It’s one of those things I’ve had to learn to deal with and it doesn’t bother me much anymore.”

She married again, this time to a guy who understood her passion and didn’t complain about her work schedule, despite the fact that she worked approximately 120 hours per week and was on call every day.

Matemavi is Zimbabwe’s first female transplant surgeon and one of its youngest, however she works largely in the United States.

According to New Zimbabwe, she is an accomplished author with the following books: “Lessons for my Daughter: Adapted from Life Experience” and “Passion and Purpose: Black Female Surgeons,” focusing on the fortitude of women in the medical sector around the world as they pursue their aspirations.