Dr Judith Melanie Carter started her medical career at the University of the Witwatersrand Medical School in 1992, graduating in 1997. She completed her internship at Johannesburg General Hospital, now Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Hospital, and was among the first group of medics required to complete a year’s community service, duly fulfilled at Umtata General Hospital in the Eastern Cape. It was here where she was first given the opportunity to perform caesarean sections, often under very difficult conditions.
Upon returning to Johannesburg in 2000, she took up a registrar post in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of the Witwatersrand under the tutelage of Professor Franco Guidozzi and the late Professor Basil Van Iddekinge, as well as Dr Trudy Smith, who has always fulfilled a mentorship role to her. She completed her fellowship at 29 years of age and took up a Specialist, then Senior Specialist, role at Johannesburg Hospital until the end of 2008, when she went into full-time private practice at Netcare Park Lane Hospital.
Dr Carter functioned primarily as an Obstetrician for a decade until early 2018, when she chose to leave Obstetrics and focus on Gynaecology from childhood and adolescence through to maturity. Her special interests include midlife women’s gynaecology and navigating menopause, as well as the management of osteoporosis. She also assists many breast cancer survivors who need special gynaecological care in the decade following diagnosis and beyond.
Dr Carter saw a need for outpatient colposcopic services and, under the expert guidance of Dr Trudy Smith, created LadyDocs Colposcopy, which has grown from strength to strength since 2019. Their dream is to expand the service in years to come in order to give many more South African women access to quality diagnosis and treatment of cervical pre-cancer.