Dr. Frances Wurie
What Love Demands
The dates stay with her: "Born on the 30th of July. Died on the 6th of August." Dr. Frances Wurie's journey from loss to healing began with a twin pregnancy and ended with a calling.
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"I was diagnosed with ectopic kidneys. My kidneys were in the wrong place, they were in my pelvis," she shares. At 24, before meeting her future children's father, this diagnosis sparked fears about fertility.
“It would tell a story of love and loss.”
At 24, before meeting her future children's father, this diagnosis sparked fears about fertility.
"I started thinking, oh my god, I'm not going to be able to have children."
Her path to motherhood would indeed be marked by both joy and heartbreak. As a young doctor, she became pregnant with twins. But at seven and a half months, her journey took an unexpected turn. "I had a friend who was back in Sierra Leone and I called him," she recalls. "I'm like, you can't even believe I'm peeing all over myself." What she didn't realize then was that her membranes had ruptured. Soon after, she went into premature labor.
"First one was breech. So they had to do a caesarean section," she remembers. "In my head, I'm thinking, oh my goodness, they're so small. They're so small."
The following days became a blur of hope and fear. "By day three, he was better. And the other one now became worse," she says, her voice softening. "By day seven, the first twin was dead."
That loss transformed not just her career path, but how she would practice medicine.
"We talk a lot about compassion, bedside manner," she reflects. "In this part of the world, not everybody, obviously, I won't generalize. But I feel like sometimes we lose the mark. Because it's like, I'm the doctor, I'll tell you what to do. You just listen to me."
Her practice now stands apart for its deeply personal approach.
"The patient is the boss," she emphasizes.
"When these patients come to us, they don't say, let me see your degree, let me know if you came first in class or second in class. That's not important to them.
How did you make me feel? How did you talk to me? What was your approach?"
This compassion extends especially to women experiencing pregnancy loss. "I usually tell my patients, the only way how I can relate to you in this manner, is because all your highs and lows, I've had." She recalls her own struggle letting go: "When I had that twin pregnancy, I'd already bought two of everything. I had such a difficult time letting go of things. It was like maybe the last two years that I got rid of my crib, my bath and bowl, all of those extra things that I had."
Now in her early forties, Dr. Wurie brings the same openness to discussions about menopause, a topic often shrouded in silence. "It's almost as if a lot of menopausal women suffer alone," she observes. "Getting to perimenopause and menopause doesn't mean you're dead. People get to live 30, 40 years after that, so you still have a whole second phase of your life that you can be vibrant and sexually active and find pleasures in life."
Her vision extends beyond individual patient care. "I would like a society where we have comprehensive sexual and reproductive rights education in schools, in communities in small focus groups," she says. "I would like to see those girls who've been taught well about their bodies, about their rights become women who have access to hospitals."
For now, she focuses on creating a safe space in her practice. "Part of my consultation is creating that space where somebody can come in, breathe," she explains. Sometimes a five-minute appointment becomes an hour of needed conversation. "The fact that you didn't go to your mom, your godmother whatever it is, you came to me... because you know there's no other place I'm going to be like, you know Mrs. Lala came today and said..."
When asked to introduce herself, Dr. Wurie's response reveals the heart of her practice: