How Air Ambulance Services Work For Events

I was reading this recent story in the Punch Newspaper.Apparently, there were 10 deaths at the Robert Kelly Concert in Abuja.

We believe that many of the thousands of deaths that take place at events in Nigeria are completely preventable if more care is taken at the planning stages. This point was also made by the Director-General of the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation, Otunba Olusegun Runsewe in the Punch article.

Looking at the health and safety risks of any event is an exceptionally important part of event planning. Failure to do often results in the sort of tragedy described in this article. Fifteen young, fit, educated music fans died at a concert in Abuja, because a group of organisers failed to adequately assess and equip the venue adequately.

The Flying Doctors as well as 2 or 3 other companies offer both risk assessment consultancy and stand-by ambulance coverage for events. However, the Flying Doctors Nigeria is the only company that specialises in using doctor-led land AND air ambulance cover for events like this. In November, we were asked by the Federal Government to cover the presidential 'Declaration of Intent' ceremony which was an honour and a privilege.

For anybody planing a large concert/church programme/political rally or sporting event. Make getting EXPERT consultants on your health & safety risk and obtaining adequate medical coverage a priority,so we can avoid anything like this happening again!

Funmi, Year 1 intern @Flying Doctors Nigeria Ltd(Medical Student)

A Wake Up Call?

Nigeria has had many wake-up calls.

This is undoubtedly one of them.

Our condolences go out to the friends and families of the twelve that died and the eight that were injured.

We definately think that the type of rapid, expert medical care offered by the Flying Doctors Nigeria is needed in Abuja more then ever. Emergency services have made a HUGE difference in other cities where such tragedies have occured such as Mumbai

Dr Da Vinci's Book

We are extremely proud to present doctor Da Vinci's new book, published by Radcliffe.

She has been in the UK and Nigeria promoting it and sales have been excellent so far.

The quality of Child Health is a huge issue in Nigeria, so much so that it has been highlighted as one of the Millenium Development Goals(MDG's);more on our work with the fabulous Amina Ibrahim and the MDG's later.

Thanks to the various contributors that worked so hard to make this book a success including Dr Guy Millman, Dr Damiete Harry, the extraordinary Dr Helen Chaplin and Miss Lucy Cooper for making it happen.

Sam

Nigeria loses 59,000 pregnant women annually

I have already highlighted the embrassing Nigerian maternal mortality rates in a previous post but today the Punch-Nigeria's most widely read newspaper has published an article on the governments latest efforts to combat this problem.

The sum of N9bn has been allocated to 12 states to help train the appropiate specialists and update the facilities in state obstetric units.

This is an issue that the Flying Doctors has and will continue to lobby about, as well as provide critical care transport for these women and their often critically ill newborns.

Dr Da Vinci hopes that at least some of this funding will make it through Nigeria's funnel of corruption (pictured above).

Andrew Lansley And OOH

Many names go through Dr Da Vinci's head over the course of a day. One of the new-comers is a gentleman called Andrew Lansley the new secretary of state for health.

What is he plotting? Is he as competent as everyone says he is? What does this mean for the NHS? What's his angle?

An article in the Daily Mail this week, based on his recent press conference, touched on a very sore nerve for many doctors; the provision of out-of-hours services by GP's.

You see many GP's work over 60 hours a week already. It would take a great deal of re-structuring to ensure that this service can be provided safely.

I've read some of the comments on the article. GP's are once again branded as 'Lazy', 'Fat Cats', 'Greedy', 'Focussed on profit instead of patient care' when infact the crux of the problem seems to be how OOH can be safely implemented and paid for rather than GP's being reluctant to do it.

I like the fact that....."Under his plans, responsibility will be handed back from primary care trusts to GPs working in local groups, who will commission services or provide them by working in rotas through co-ops."This will be much better than the current private provider model.

Opinion on Andrew Lansely? As yet undecided, all will be revealed on his 60 day report card.

Valerie Taylor And CRP

I've been meaning to write about this inspiring story for a while. Pleased I finally have gotten round to it. It's a story that touched me immensely when I first read of it a few weeks ago.

The woman in the picture above is Valerie Taylor O.B.E. Orginally from Buckinghamshire, England,she first travelled to Bangladesh with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in 1969 to work as a physiotherapist in Chandragona Hospital, near Chittagong. At that time Bangladesh was still known as East Pakistan, as a result of the partition of India after British rule ended in 1947.

In 1973 Valerie returned to England to attempt to raise funds to establish a rehabilitation centre for disabled. She stayed in England for two years before returning in 1975. It took another four years before CRP was able to admit it's first patients in 1979. During this time, Valerie worked in the Shaheed Surawady Hospital in Dhaka and it was in the grounds of this hospital that CRP had it's first premises, two cement storerooms which were used to treat patients.Since then, the CRP has grown to include a 100-bed hospital, in addition to providing other rehabilitation treatments. The center includes recreational services including a swimming pool, and sports areas. The center also provides vocational training so that the poorer patients can learn income-generating skills that can be performed while in their physical condition.

Through all the various moves from one premises to another, Valerie has continued to work tirelessly for the benefit of CRP. Even today the light in her office can be seen burning till late in the evening.

Valerie is also legal guardian to two disabled girls, Joyti and Poppy.

Despite officially taking a backseat role at CRP some years ago, Valerie remains the driving force behind the running and development of CRP.

In 1998 Valerie was awarded Bangladeshi citizenship by the then Prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina.


Amazing story. People like this push me forward, make me want to read more,strive more, learn more and teach more in an effort to become a better doctor and a better person.

Unfinished Business say Remedy UK

The doctors pressure group remedy is doing great things.

I've never been a pet person, but I love the ferret. Lovely to see you supporting your trainees!

Industrial Accidents In Nigeria

You may recognise some of the images that are posted above. They are images from some of the most harrowing and disastrous industrial accidents in recent times.

The second picture depicts the severity of the deep water horizon disaster without me even having to put it into words. Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig which sank on April 22, 2010, causing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This was the result of an explosion two days earlier where eleven crewmen died. However, seven lives were saved and taken to hospital by air ambulance.

The first picture is of the Georgia sugar refinery explosion that occurred on February 7, 2008 in Port Wentworth, Georgia, United States. Thirteen people were killed and 42 injured when a dust explosion occurred at a sugar refinery owned by Imperial Sugar.

There were 112 employees on-site at the time and over 100 of them became casualties.

The air ambulance service and their staff were indispensable in finding, treating and transporting these patients to hospital.

Many victims were placed in artificial comas because they were on life support systems, many were in critical condition. There were eight deaths.



Whilst developing this product, we discovered that the problem was by no means confined to the multi-nationals that we were developing it for. As a matter of fact, the companies that were asking us to provide the industrial cover ironically already had some of the best health and safety records in Nigeria! They were simply seeking better, more cost-effective alternatives.

So it's obvious that many Nigerian companies value their staff immensely and acknowledge the ever present risk of industrial accidents. The risks are heightened by the lack of a fully-functional land ambulance service,the huge distances to properly equipped trauma centers and deficient major incident training. These factors make air ambulance services even more essential to industry here that they are in the States!

The Facts About Industrial Safety + Accidents In Nigeria.


Most of the industrial deaths in Nigeria occur due to lack of ambulance to take accident victims to hospital during emergency. (2009)

Reacting to the rising case of accidents in some companies, the General Secretary of the National Union of Chemical, Footwear, Rubber, Leather and Non-Metallic Products Employees (NUCFRLANMPE) said, the companies valued production more than the lives of the producers. (2009)

Official statistics has show that no fewer than 3,000 industrial accidents take place in Nigeria annually. However, the unions put the number at closer to 7000 due to gross under-reporting and under-recording (2009)


The commonest accidents in their order of frequency were: falling from a height, explosion/fire, motor vehicle accidents and falling objects. Multiple injuries, head and neck trauma and drowning were the commonest cause of death at autopsy (2006)

Accidental deaths were commoner in the small-scale industries (81%) than in the large-scale industries (19%)(2006)

Almost on a daily basis, various degrees of industrial accidents are recorded, from minor to major injuries to employees (2009)

None of the 2, 913 patients admitted to the university hospital Ilorin; many victims of industrial accidents, received ANY pre-hospital care (2005)


The list of evidence that industry in Nigeria was in dire need of air ambulance cover/pre-hospital care solutions and safety training catered directly to industry was overwhelming. This is just a snap-shot. There was definitely demand and an unfilled market need at the time.

Since we launched, it has become our most successful product to date by providing cost-effective, efficient, air ambulance cover and industry-specific first aid and safety training to our clients.

We hope to see an increasing number of companies joining us to help reduce the morbidity and mortality from industrial accidents in Nigeria.

Well Hung

No, this is not a post about the beautiful hanging gardens of Mumbai in the picture above.

This is about the UK election result. We have a hung parliment. A hung parliament is one in which no party has an overall majority, which means no party has more than half of MPs in the House of Commons.

It means that the government will not be able to win votes to pass laws without the support of members of other parties.

The conventional wisdom is that it is Gordon Brown's duty to stay in office until it becomes clear which party or combination of parties can command the most support in the new parliament.

This should become clear in the next few hours to days.

Dr Da Vinci will remain in suspense till then.

Democracy

I'm watching the live feed on the BBC as the votes for this years election are being counted up.

Free and fair.


I am hoping the elections process in Nigeria can mirror it this time around.


Fingers crossed.


Yar'Adua Rest In Peace........

Specialist Training in The UK

My decision to move back to Africa, become the MD of the first Flying Doctors service in West Africa and set up my own line of clinics was influenced for the most part, by my determination to induce an improvement in healthcare across the region.

But also due the poor methods and standards of training I was offered in the UK. The dumbing down of medicine was getting ridiculous as pointed out continuously by the entire medical blogosphere. Unfortunately our comments fell and are still falling on deaf ears.

One of such bloggers that has been something of a pace setter for this issue is my beloved ferret, he has spoken about this time and time again.


I wonder how much highlighting an issue needs before someone takes note. It'll take as long as it takes I guess.

I think Bill Alexander outlines these problems quite eloquently in his letter to the Lancet.

Hospital consultants and GP's please take note! You still have the collective power to turn this around.


The Lancet, Volume 350, Issue 9094, Pages 1851 - 1852, 20 December
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)63668-9Cite or Link Using DOI
Specialist training in UK
Bill Alexander


Sir,

The commentary by Philip Barber reflects, I suspect, the views of the vast majority of clinicians in the UK. Why have we stood back and watched the high standard and enjoyment of clinical medicine disappearing under non-evidence-based edicts? I suppose because the silent majority of clinicans have been left beleaguered by more voluble ex-colleagues who now dictate to them from the bureaucracies that attracted them out of mainstream care delivery into the seductive political world. What a pity more of us have not taken as much time publicly as we have privately, to express our dismay at the implementation of systems we all loathe and for which we have never accepted the rationale.

There is a further, so far unmentioned, consequence of these harebrained new schemes that may be even more destructive than the schemes themselves. That is the appearance of a reduced threshold for doctors in training to take sick leave. This is likely to be due to reduced morale and commitment rather than increased disease.

I agree with Barber that the Royal Colleges need to be more supportive of their ordinary fellows and members and more aware of their concerns. I hope there will be a flood of letters in response to Barber's refreshing opening shot and that copies will be sent to the relevant bodies. I suspect, however, that it is far too late and we are now all too weary.

Flying Doctors For Industry

The number of industrial plants/off shore rigs and factories located in isolated or extremely congested areas where emergency evacuation by land would be difficult, in Nigeria are immense.

We have had significant demand from these industries, particularly within the oil and gas sector, to design a product specifically to meet this unique set of needs.

It turns out that many of these companies recruit expats from Europe/America and Asia to provide their expertise. One of the main issues for recruiters is how to guarantee their safety at work.

The team and I have thought about these issues at length and come up with the 'FLYING DOCTORS FOR INDUSTRY' product. This does not require every single employee to take out an individual plan, rather it covers the company as a whole.

This means that The Flying Doctors now can guarantee, in the event of an emergency at work anywhere in Nigeria, the individual(s) will be in a state of the art facility within minutes.

The Flying Doctors Nigeria also takes responsibility for training staff in basic life support skills on a course designed specifically for industrial environments as part of our package.

All Flying Doctors medics are HUET trained and winch trained, we are therefore capable of retrieving patients from areas where it is difficult or impossible to land as well as covering offshore facilities.

Taking out Flying Doctors Cover For Industry is a cost-effective way for any company to provide a safer working environment for it's staff as well as attract additional talent to the company. It boosts staff morale and therefore increases productivity.


For further information on this or any of our other products please see our website or email Dr Ola directly at olao@doctors.org.uk

Living With Cancer

By this stage in my career as you can imagine, I've explained the diagnosis of cancer to hundreds of people. As you may or may not be able to imagine, it never gets easier.

I wrote this article through the eyes of a doctor who has seen, diagnosed and treated many cancer patients over the years. I have only see a glimpse of what these people are going through. But I hope this piece can provide some knoweledge and maybe some inspiration.


There are a few words in the English language that conjure up as much fear and anxiety as a diagnosis of cancer. The thought of the cells of our bodies developing limitless replicative potential, giving them the ability to evade the evolutionary mechanisms put in place to protect us is a terrifying concept. It is indiscriminate and it is ruthless having no respect for age or status or gender.

So this article is dedicated to the domestic workers, the bankers, the train drivers, the market stall owners, the sex workers, and the teachers; the mothers, the uncles, the daughters and the friends; those that campaign and research and teach….to everyone that has felt he scourge of cancer either directly or through family and close friends. I hope it helps.


The Diagnosis.

This is usually where it starts. Your head is spinning wildly and you feel like the life has been sucked out of you, all in one moment life as you know it is gone. ‘Getting diagnosed throws your entire universe into freefall’ . It’s almost guaranteed that 90% of what the doctors says after he’s given the diagnosis falls on deaf ears, so taking as much information in form of writing is essential. You should have leaflets describing in some detail, the type of cancer and it’s prognosis, as well as sources of spiritual and clinical support within the hospital and out in the community.

The most important thing to remember is that you are not alone. There are thousands of support groups online providing an immense amount of inspiration and information for newly diagnosed patients and their families. Nobody understands you quite like another cancer survivor; they are a very valuable resource to tap into.


Management

My veins are filled, once a week with a Neapolitan carpet cleaner distilled from the Adriatic and I am as bald as an egg. However I still get around and am mean to cats.
John Cheever, letter to Philip Roth, 10 May 1982, published in The Letters of John Cheever, 1989, concerning his cancer and its treatment

‘How are we managing her?’ my consultant often barks out me. ‘Management’ is another one of these umbrella terms; we’ve invented to encompass everything we are doing for a patient. By using terms like these we are able to neatly divide a persons entire future into a series of succinctly delivered bullet points, one of the many strategies we adopt to avoid involvement in thire so vividly shattered lives, which like a tragic subplot , we encounter during almost every surgery and ward round. Of course every patient needs a plan of management, but sometimes in our rush to concoct our plans, the patients own wishes are neglected or ignored.

The management of cancer is complex and involves a whole host of professionals making decisions on each case individually. Communication between all those involved is vital, it is of utmost importance that the doctor acknowledges and explores the ideas and concerns of the patient, but it is also important for patients to voice their management preferences and expectations. As the patient your opinion matters and it facilitates you being as involved in your management as you want. So look on the internet, read books, speak to friends, family and those invaluable support group members, having some opinion or preference for how you want to be managed will inevitably help you doctor give you more personalised help, tailored specifically to your own individual needs.

That said, it is important to remember the internet is no substitute for your oncologist who has passed gruelling exams and managed countless cases, dedicating his entire career to cancer research, diagnosis and treatment. If you could get everything you needed to know about medicine from Wikipedia, then none of us would have gone to medical school and certainly not bothered with the 10 or so subsequent years of 50 hour weeks, on-calls, research, audits and professional exams that follow it.

Below are some of the most common management options
1) Surgery: In many cases a tissue diagnosis of cancer is made with either a tissue diagnosis or an operation to remove the tumour. Although it is sometimes the only treatment required in early tumours of the GI tract, soft tissue sarcomas, and gynaecological tumours, it is often the case that the best results follow a combination of chemotherapy and surgery. Surgery also has a role in palliating advanced disease.
2) Radiotherapy: This is the use of ionising radiation to kill cancer cells. Radiotherapy can be used in active treatment or palliative treatment eg for bone pain
3) Chemotherapy: This is the use of drugs to fight the cancerous cells. Chemotherapy can also be active or palliative.

Management lies in the hands of the doctors informed by the patient, it’s important that what ever plan that is formulated meets your needs.


Healing

One must not forget that recovery is brought about not by the physician, but by the sick man himself. He heals himself, by his own power, exactly as he walks by means of his own power, or eats, or thinks, breathes or sleeps.
George Groddeck, The Book of the It, 1923

Whilst management lies in the hands of the doctor informed by the patient, healing lies in the hands of the patient the doctor merely assists in this process. Healing concerns not just the cancer itself. But every area of your life the cancer has damaged.

Sexuality can be impacted hugely by a diagnosis of cancer. Not everyone who has cancer will have changes in sexual desire or how they feel about themselves sexually. You may not notice any changes at all. Other people lose interest in sex and feel very tired. But you may find that the changes cancer causes to your body image affect the way you feel about yourself and having sex. At the other end of the scale, some people say that they want to make love more than usual. If you are in a relationship, a crisis can sometimes bring couples very close together.

Because we’re all so different and have different sexual needs, it’s impossible to say exactly how cancer will affect each person’s sexuality and sex life. Some types of cancers and their treatments affect your ability or desire to have sex more than others. If you are already in a loving relationship your concerns may be different than for someone who is single.

If your feelings about your body and having sexuality change during your cancer treatment, it doesn’t mean that it will last forever. If you are able to talk to your partner or a health professional about your worries, it can help to lessen them. And they may be able to suggest ways to help improve any problems you’re having.

Self esteem and self image also tend to take a bashing. Cancer and its treatment can change the way you feel about yourself (your self esteem). This may be because of physical changes to your body or it may be about less obvious changes.

The intense emotions that cancer can cause may also lower your self esteem. You may feel that you have lost some of your independence and can't do things that you used to enjoy.

You may feel so tired and worried that activities you used to find easy now seem too difficult to do. Your future plans may have to be put on hold. You may begin to feel as though you have no control over your life. All these things can make you feel less confident about who you are and what you do. Having confidence and a healthy self esteem are very important to us all.

It can be very difficult to boost your self esteem when you feel so low. But there are things that you can do. The most important thing is to talk to someone about how you are feeling. This can be a close relative or friend or a health professional. Just talking about your feelings can help you to feel better. Give yourself some time to come to terms with all you’ve been through. It will take time to raise your confidence and self esteem again. But it is possible.

‘Once I was able to change my focus desperation led to inspiration’

Get creative and design a healing plan for yourself. A combination of lifestyle changes, input from the complementary therapies and of course your friendly oncologist; is helping people with cancer lead healthier lives.


Research into complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) has increased over the last few years. This is due to a significant change in how health professionals and patients see alternative therapy. There are several reasons for this shift in views:

•A general increase in the use of CAM to almost 6 million people in the UK each year
•The number of people with cancer using these therapies is estimated at over 3 in 10 (30%). Some recent research has shown that as many as 4 in 10 (40%) use them .
•Reports showing that some therapies do improve quality of life for people with cancer


Alternative therapies such as aromatherapy, reflexology, massage and meditation have helped countless cancer survivors by empowering them to take charge to their own healing journey.

The American Institute for cancer research, which funds research studies that focus on the role of food and exercise in cancer prevention and treatment recommend a diet that’s at least two third’s vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans.

A 2005 study showed that 92% of nearly 3,000 women with breast cancer who walked or did other exercise three to five hours weekly were still alive 10 years after diagnosis, compared with 86% of those that exercise less than an hour a week.

This shows that changing lifestyle factors has a least some role in cancer outcomes.

Kris Carr puts it more eloquently than I ever could when she says:

Here’s the deal, cancer is a just a silly metaphor, like it or not, it’s in each of our lives in some way. For me it’s tumors, for you it may be a bad job, your weight or a dead end relationship. It’s spooky but it doesn’t have to be taboo. It’s just life, so we have to wake up to it! Some skeptics have asked, “What’s so sexy about cancer, lady?” My response: the women who have it! We are crazy, sexy, whole, loving, surviving, delicious women, so get out of our way!

All of us have or will have things in our lives that change it drastcically and cause us pain. It is the inevitable companion of lives led authentically. Not only cancer patients need healing plans.

Life is a terminal condition which is never completely predictable. As a doctor, I’ve learned to use the word impossible with the greatest caution . We’re all going to die. On further reflection, as I look through photos taken on my 80 year old mothers trek through Thailand, I realise, cancer patients just have more information, but we all in some ways, wait for permission to live.

Thank You LadyBrille Nigeria

Dr Da Vinci is flattered to have been named LadyBrille Magazine's Personality Of The Month and is grateful to be part of the powerful revolution incited by young Nigerians which is turning the country's fortunes around.

The Ladybrille®Nigeria is Nigeria’s pioneer and first ever fashion industry magazine connecting Nigeria’s fashion professionals worldwide. They provide intelligent and brilliant coverage of fashion events, fashion shows, retail, business of fashion, trade laws, global fashion, financial news, profiles and interviews on Nigeria’s top fashion personalities and much more!

Thank you for your support!!!

You can read the full article here

The Bad Medicine Diaries: Entry 1

Dr Da Vinci has decided to start sharing her diary of examples mostly gleaned from friends and family where Bad Medicine is being practiced.

I hope it helps patients to make informed decisions about thier health care.The moral of all of these stories is......if in doubt, see a doctor!


I was watching a dvd with my friend tech guy, you may remember him from my post 'The Wonderful....well' when I spotted a rather foul looking mole on his shoulder. The following conversation went something like this:

Dr Da Vinci 'I should take that off for you with my handy scalpel before it grows wings'

Tech Guy (Beaming) 'You doctors are so brash, there is a practitioner down the street who can just melt it off. My friend the German got his taken off there and is very please with the results'

Dr Da Vinci 'Is the practitioner a doctor?'

Tech Guy 'No, but she knows a lot about whipping off moles'

Dr Da Vinci 'But the problem is she doesn't know any medicine, if she did she would have heard if the ABC Score moles like yours should always be CUT out by an experienced physician and sent for pathology! Not burnt off!!!'


Malignant melanoma is a rare, but yet killer disease. This is why we send every suspicious looking lesion for pathology. If melanoma is diagnosed in its early stages, there are greater chances of effective treatment because the tumor has not yet dug deep into the skin tissue. One must remember that when melanoma is not extracted in its early stages of growth, it will be harder for the person to control spread in nearby tissues and parts of the body.

So Tech Guy, the reason why I choose the scalpel over the acid/liquid nitrogen for all my patients is not because the all-natural, buck-wheat ingesting, amino acid injecting practioner down the street is cooler than me, but rather it is because I refuse to practice Bad Medicine.

This is Bad Medicine entry number one, stay tuned, Warm Regards, Dr Da Vinci

Lady Dora Is Back!!!!

The world that Dr Da Vinci lives in a very, very strange world.

A world that is willing to pay her more to model for a day, than to work as a doctor for a month.

Dr Da Vinci knows therefore that none of the women that give her the most inspiration will feature on any of the 'Most Inspirational Women's' list's online.

Admittedly, at this very moment; Dr Da Vinci is in the lab, wearing Kate Moss jeans and there are several magazines with Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Jennifer Anistion, Angelina Jolie, Beyonce, Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian splashed across thier covers outside her clinic. She appreciates the value of music, fashion and celebrity, afterall Andy Warhol is one of her favourite people of all time, so perhaps she too,contributes to this ridiculous celebrity-obsessed culture.

The definition of the term 'female role model' has changed so much over the past few decades that the women who metaphorically burnt their bra's to liberate us, I expect, would be aghast if they could travel through time and experience the so-called post-feminist era that many of them fought tirelessly to create.

That said some see this hollywood-tainted army of walking, talking plastic figurines as the future. The future of art, the future of music, the future elite......the world of science fiction, has taken it even further than that, you'll know what I mean if you've seen the movie Surrogates.

And of course I acknowledge the fact that we have now female surgeons, prominent female politicians, females on the boards of fortune 500 companies, female presidents/prime minister's and that women are allowed to be creative and appreciated for thier work. We only have to compare the experiences of George Eliot and JK Rowling to appreciate that we as females have come along way, even though it's a world that our bra-burning suffragettes may still find objectionable.

However, today I would like to talk about one of the many women that inspire me. She does not have her own line of lingerie or her own talk show, she has not, to my knowledge realeased any sexually explicit music videos, she has never made the GQ magazines list of sexiest women, she has not posed semi-nude for FHM and does not get paid millions of dollars to perform for terrorsist's.


Without further ado or pseudo-feminist commentary, allow me to introduce you to:


Dr Dora Nkem Akunyili


Dr Dora Akunyili is the current (since December 17, 2008) Nigerian Minister of Information and Communications. She is a pharmacist and governmental administrator who has gained international recognition and won hundreds of awards for her work in pharmacology, public health and human rights.

She entered the public eye in 2001 when she took over the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of Nigeria after a World Health Organisation survey revealed that more than half the drugs on sale in Nigeria were counterfeit or sub-standard. Nigerian hospitals were using fake and contaminated drips, surgeons were using fake adrenalin to re-start the heart, anaesthetists were
giving sub-strength muscle relaxant to patients in their operating theatres; many
of her countrymen and women were fighting killer diseases like malaria and tuberculosis with fake drugs cynically packaged to look like the real thing. As a pharmacist she had always been aware of the problem, indeed, her own diabetic sister died from what Dora is convinced were fake insulin and fake antibiotics.

Her responsiblity was to root out these fakes, to defeat counterfeiters, to close down the importers and end bribery, in an effort to eliminate the large scale corruption that was ruining the health and taking the lives and the hopes of so many.

Within a mere six months of her appointment this remarkable lady had closed down the vast open-air medicines market in Kano for three months while her officers confiscated £140,000 worth of fake drugs. She built a new team of female inspectors and pharmacists. She began to prosecute importers of fake drugs. She upgraded premises and she upgraded laboratories. The public applauded, but the counterfeiters fought back. They fire bombed NAFDAC offices, trashed the NAFDAC laboratories and sent death threats to her and her family. They even shot at her and her family in their car – a bullet grazed her skull, but she survived.

But since her appointment there has been a drop of at least 50% in the quantity of fake drugs on the market and many now owe their lives to her fearless campaign.

Dora Akunyili is revolutionary, she is fearless, she has intergrity, she is loyal, she is diplomatic, but is also ruthless operating with an almost messianic zeal.

Dr Da Vinci has been waiting and watching the results of Mr Jonathan's cabinet re-shuffle very carefully and is extremely, pleased to hear that Dr Dora is back in the new cabinet to continue our fight against the con-artists, fraudsters and swindlders that threaten Nigeria's stability daily.

Death to con-artists, fraudsters and swindlers. Long live Lady Dora!

All Eyes On Jonathan

Dr Da Vinci, is still optimistic about Goodluck, even more so since she spotted an article in today's independent.

It's just over a week since he dissolved the entire cabinet and investors are watching subsequent developments extremely closely to ascertain which direction Mr Jonathan is steering Nigeria.

As the names begin to leak, Dr Da Vinci becomes increasingly encouraged. The direction seems to be towards reform......

I'm focussing particulary on his choice of Mr Olusegun Aganga, a London-based managing director at Goldman Sachs. His inclusion appears to signal the acting president's intent to move ahead with critical banking reforms and bring in new-blood to what was seen as Yar'Adua's failing administration.

The nomination of Mr Agang – who heads up Goldman Sachs' hedge fund consulting services in London – comes as Nigeria is set to test its strength with foreign investors with a planned $500m debut global bond.

Dr Da Vinci thinks this is an excellent step in the right direction and believes that the Nigeria diaspora holds enormous potential,some of which Mr Jonathan is already tapping into.

In earlier posts,Dr Da Vinci has spoken at length about the various ways the diaspora can contribute to Nigeria's development and hopes that this is a trend that will continue.

Good Bye Doctor Crippen

http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/: Farewell Dr Crippen, Godspeed


Dr Da Vinci does not know who Dr Crippen is, but it feels like we have been friends for a very long time.

He was one of the first doctors on the medical blogosphere.

I started reading your blog as a medical student, now a doctor with several years experience, it remains one of the first pages I check after my email every morning.

You may not have an MBE or an excellence award Dr Crippen. You may not be a 'Patient Dignity Champion' or sit on any bureaucratic leadership boards.

But you have been instrumental in fighting for the rights of patients and doctors, you have been our voice for the best part of the last decade and for that Dr friend, I salute you.


“By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction”

William Osler quotes (Canadian Physician, 1849-1919)


I wish you a fruitful and enjoyable retirement. I hope you get to take on new hobbies, see new places, hear new points of view, learn new skills and generally make the most of this new and exciting phase of your life.

Kudos To You! And thanks again.


Dr Da Vinci.

In Support Of Dr Kim Holt

Excerpt From The Times (02/10)

David Holt said his wife, Kim, a consultant of 25 years' standing, was "in shock" after the world-famous hospital advertised her job recently without even telling her.

"She couldn't believe it," he said. "She was speechless. This kind of behaviour completely blows out of the water any belief in the hospital's good faith, or their ability to change the oppressive culture Kim has experienced."

The move is the latest in a string of cases where the NHS's promises to protect whistle-blowers have proved false.

The inquiry into the Stafford hospital scandal has heard how medical staff who tried to warn of fatal failings at the trust were threatened into silence by NHS managers.

This month, a London consultant, Ramon Niekrash, won an employment tribunal case against Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich, after he was victimised for raising concerns about cost-cutting.

Dr Holt's MP, Lynne Featherstone, has said that colleagues who supported Dr Holt are being "bullied" and "pressured" by the hospital.

However, further staff have come forward to speak of serious problems at Great Ormond Street.

In December, Great Ormond Street promised to reach a "swift and amicable solution" with Dr Holt after a damning NHS London report largely vindicated her criticisms of the child abuse clinic in Haringey, for which Great Ormond Street provided the doctors.

Dr Holt has spent the last three years on "special leave" since warning – more than a year before Baby P came to the clinic – that she and other doctors there were dangerously overworked and a child would die unless action was taken.

Dr Da Vinci is once again fuming! A brilliant physician working at a world renowned centre with a global reputation in her speciality is being hounded out of her job!
Her crime? Raising concerns about the safety of her patients.

At a time that we are desperate for peadiatricians Dr Holt; a gifted and experienced peadiatrician has been on 'leave' for a whole THREE YEARS.

I often look back home to the UK as a model for Nigeria to follow especially in terms of healthcare policy, but incidents like this show that corruption is indeed endemic is every society and requires people to unite and take a stand against it!

In Nigeria, the Flying Doctors Nigeria continue to work with the government to develop the healthcare system. We also encourage an open culture of reflective learning in our own organisation; reviewing and examining each step of every mission.

I am thankful that I am in the position to do this. Every doctor should be able to look at the structure of their organisation and constructively critisise it with a view to improvement. We are our patients advocates. This is our raison d'etre.

This is true patient centred care.

The Home Birth Nightmare + Maternal Death In Nigeria

In the UK, home births are the fashionable thing to do. The propaganda tells women they should experience the birthing process without nasty little interventionalist doctors and midwives, in spite of the fact it takes very experienced midwives off of the ward and down winding, isolated country roads, to the front rooms of some times quite high risk women who have decided the 'natural' birthing option.

That said many ladies opt for a home birth after they have experienced labour once or twice, it is usually quite quick and they have been judged by an experienced consultant as low-risk by looking at age , family history, co-morbidities etc. Other ladies have had pretty bad experiences in hospital and have since developed an aversion to them. This is also very understandable.

This is not to say that women should not have a choice over how and where they give birth. I would hate to insinuate that. But in my experience the NHS is often too understaffed to provide that personal one2one service that a home birth requires without posing a risk to the ladies birthing on the ward. Furthermore, if complications arise at the home birth, it becomes a horrible nightmare. The worst kind of nightmare......or so I thought, pre-Nigeria.


Managing obstetric emergencies is going to be a large part the work of the Flying Doctors. This is why every doctor that works with the service must hold a full MOET qualification or it's equivalent.

The 'nightmare' situation I described in the UK that occurs when home births go wrong, pails in conparision to what we face in Nigeria. Despite having some of Africa's most skilled obsteric surgeons and midwifes, we are faced with a lack of beds and equipment.

In Nigeria 59,000 women die during or soon after childbirth every year. This maternal mortality rate is the second highest in the entire world! The country is home to 2 percent of the global population, but 10 percent of all maternal deaths take place here.

The task before Flying Doctors is to try and reduce this number by providing rapid, cost-effective transport to the RIGHT facility for these critically ill ladies who develop complications during childbirth.

The homebirth nightmare I described in the first few paragraphs experienced when I worked in the UK is a very different kind of beast to the one we experience in Nigeria. I dare say, it's like comparing a squeaky mouse to a howling werewolf complete with a full set of fangs.

The true solution to the problem can only come from a joint effort from not-for-profit organisations like the Flying Doctors, government agencies, doctors/midwives and hospitals with international support.

This is an issue that our team at the Flying Doctor continues to help tackle and we remain hopeful and optimistic that the our shocking maternals mortality statistics are set to improve in the near future.

Stem Cells And The Dawn Of A New Era

I have developed a somewhat romantic relationship with my stem cells.

The sharp contrast between the patient, contemplative, snail-paced world of research and the rapid, consummate, expeditious world of acute medicine; makes a lot of people think you are either a researcher or an acute medic, very rarely both.

There is no trial and error when you are diagnosing a pneumothorax next to a busy road or when a child is gradually turning blue before your eyes. Unlike in the laboratory, you can't throw the cells away and try it another way. You HAVE to keep the pressure on that wound in the back of the helicopter even though you are tired and your arms hurt, you can't try again the next day, there are no spare parts in the deep freezer.

But for me, this antithesis seemed to have helped me grow; both as a physician and as a person. I've had time to reflect, to study and to write. At first, the time spent waiting for the centrifuge to stop spinning, for my PCR to process or painstaking filling at 96 wells with 10 microliters of PBS+TRYSPIN was boring to me.

However, I have learned that things don't always have to be adrenaline-fuelled to be amazing.

When my christian and muslim friends/family learned that I was doing stem cell research they expressed a great deal of concern about the ethical implications of my work. There has been a lot of controversy about stem cells research, so in this blog posting I hope to clarify some of the presumptions about stem cells and stem cell research and explore some of the associated ethical issues more closely.

Firstly, let me explain what is so special about stem cells. Well, stem cells have the remarkable potential to develop into many different cell types in the body during early life and growth. In addition, in many tissues they serve as a sort of internal repair system, dividing essentially without limit to replenish other cells as long as the person or animal is still alive.

When a stem cell divides, each new cell has the potential either to remain a stem cell or become another type of cell with a more specialized function, such as a muscle cell, a red blood cell, or a brain cell. Stem cells are distinguished from other cell types by two important characteristics. First, they are unspecialized cells capable of renewing themselves through cell division, sometimes after long periods of inactivity. Second, under certain physiologic or experimental conditions.(Ref: http://stemcells.nih.gov/info/basics/basics1.asp)

Perhaps the most important potential application of human stem cells is the generation of cells and tissues that could be used for cell-based therapies. Today, donated organs and tissues are often used to replace ailing or destroyed tissue, but the need for transplantable tissues and organs far outweighs the available supply. Stem cells, directed to differentiate into specific cell types, offer the possibility of a renewable source of replacement cells and tissues to treat diseases including Alzheimer's diseases, spinal cord injury, stroke, burns, heart disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Stem cells are largely divided into two categories: i) Embroyonic stem cells ii)Somatic/Adult stem cells

The term adult stem cell refers to any cell which is found in a developed organism that has two properties: the ability to divide and create another cell like itself and also divide and create a cell more differentiated than itself.They can be found in children, as well as adults.

Pluripotent adult stem cells are rare and generally small in number but can be found in a number of tissues including umbilical cord blood. A great deal of adult stem cell research has focused on clarifying their capacity to divide or self-renew indefinitely and their differentiation potential.

The use of adult stem cells in research and therapy is not as controversial as embryonic stem cells, because the production of adult stem cells does not require the destruction of an embryo.

The controversy, for the most part surrounds embryonic stem cells the central question comes at the intersection of two primary opposing viewpoints: the high esteem for human life and the right to it, on the one hand; and the desire to alleviate human suffering on the other. While these two ideas are not in themselves contradictory, in this particular case it is impossible to satisfy one without violating the other.

One evening , some time ago, I was working in the emergency room, when I heard news that a child had been badly burnt in a fire and the paramedics were bringing him to our hospital. Nothing prepared me for what I saw. In the UK, I think because junior doctors don't generally do as many nights/long hours we are shielded somewhat from these things.

I received my baptism of fire as the smell of burnt flesh filled my nostrils, screams from a hysterical mother pierced through my eardrums chilling me to my very soul, I helped assess the patient on ALTS autopilot as my trembling hands brushed against his hard, charred broken skin. He was only 4 years old. Children are fighters. He survived after over 5 months in hospital/burns unit. But the resultant deformity was devastating.

The stem cell research done in our lab, has helped to Japanese pharmaceutical company JTEC develop a novel cultured epidermis that can be used to save the lives of patients with severe burns and reduce the resultant deformity.

When 1 in 3 embryo's are lost due to chance anyway, is it is justifiable to use cells derived from an embryo with a 30% percent chance of developing into a baby to safe the life of this beautiful child, the victim of a catastrophic accident?


I have a 7 year old on the ward that needs a heart. She has a rare form of cardiomyopathy. She is native Japanese and therefore according to some research genetically superior to me. I'm in my 20's therefore by some standards have lived a good life. She hasn't had a chance yet. We are a tissue match. If her parents used these justifications to ambush me on my way home from work and steal my heart (of course this is an extreme factious example to demonstrate a point) for their daughter, everyone would say it was a crime.

Is this really tantamount to what we are doing when we kill embryo's for embryonic stem cell research?

Food For Thought.


For the record, my research is with adult stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells. I have never used embryonic stems cells, but I do believe they have a role to play in medical research.

The Orthopaedic Surgeon Paradox

On the ward round today, I have a re-realisation about orthopaedic surgeons.

We were looking at the CXR of a child who had been treated under orthopaedics 11 months ago for a broken humerus (arm bone). The professor of paediatrics pointed out that at the time this child had his surgery there was a very obvious coin lesion in the upper zone of his chest. If this had been spotted then, the child could have been investigated thoroughly.We would have found out that the coin lesion visible on the CXR was cancer; as most coin lesions tend to be in this part of the world and he would have been treated according.

But instead the child was brought into the outpatients clinic nearly a year after this CXR was taken. He had, had an unexplained fit.

Today, he is dying. He has metastases in his brain and bone, his management is palliative.

Our professor pointed out to the team how typical this was for orthopaedics. 'They can't see beyond the bone they are fixing' he stated angrily shaking the CXR in the air. Same in the UK, I nodded knowingly, recalling the difficultly I had managing patients with medical problems on orthopaedic wards.

Most specialists have some kind of stereotype associated with them, perhaps none more so than orthopedic surgeons. One of the predominant stereotypes about them is that they’re into power tools and carpentry and things like that, and are less intelligent than other doctors.

The mistake described above I must say is extremely, extremely rare. Orthopaedic surgery is a competitive speciality that continues to attract the brightest young doctors and the coin lesion was small and poorly defined. It is very easy to crtisize other doctors when you have a retroscope. Hind sight is always 20/20. The orthopaedic surgeon was agast when he found out what had happened despite, reassurance from the radiologists about how difficult a call it was.

In the coffee room after the ward round I re-counted some of my favourites jokes about orthopaedic surgeons-in haphazard Japanese. Listed below:


3 orthopaedic surgeons took 55 days to do a jigsaw and were proud of their achievement.When asked why they were so proud they said because it said 2-3 years on the box.



At an orthopaedic meeting how can you spot the academic orthopaedic surgeon? He's the one who can just get his knuckles off the floor!


What's the difference between a carpenter and an orthopaedic surgeon?A carpenter knows more than one antibiotic!

How do you hide a twenty pound note from an orthopaedic surgeon? Put it in a text book!

How do you spot the orthopaedic surgeon's car in the car park? It's the Porsche with a comic on the back shelf!

What's the difference between a rhinoceros and an orthopaedic surgeon? One's thick-skinned, small-brained and charges a lot for no very good reason....the other's a rhinoceros.

What do you call two orthopaedic surgeons looking at a chest X-ray? A double blind study.


The definition of shifting dullness - an orthopaedic ward round.


Why do anaesthetists take an instant dislike to orthopaedic surgeons? Because it saves time

How do you get an Orthopaedic Surgeon to refer you to some one else? Ask him the time.

How many orthopaedic surgeons does it take to change a light bulb? Just one to write the ref feral to the medics saying 'darkness ?cause'

An elderly lady and an orthopaedic surgeon were travelling in an elevator together. The doors started to shut as the lady was trying to get out of the doors. The surgeon kindly put his head in between the doors so the lady could get out. 'Thank you very much' said the lady, 'but why did you use your head?'. 'I used my head because I need my hands for work' said the orthopod grinning proudly.

The list goes on...................................................


But despite the stereotype we owe some of the greatest scientific discoveries this decade to our orthopods. Have a look!


Sir Alexander Flemming

Trained in orthopaedics,named one of Time Magazines 100 Most Important People this Century for his discovery of penicillin, and stated; "It was a discovery that would change the course of history.


Sir Frederick Grant Banting, KBE, MC, FRSC

Orthopaedic surgeon and Nobel laureate noted as one of the co-discoverers of insulin.

In 1923, Banting and John James Rickard Macleod received the Nobel Prize in Medicine.


James K Styner, MD, FACS

An orthopaedic surgeon, practicing in Lawndale, California. He was instrumental in the development of the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) program which has consequentially changed the face of trauma care worldwide.


Shinya Yamanaka

A Japanese orthopaedic surgeon and stem cell researcher. He was recently awarded the Lasker award and was also named one of time magazines most influential scientists and well as my own personal demi-god when he changed the face of stem cell research forever by developing induced pluripotent stem cells.

Orthopaedic surgeons are probably the most influential and innovative specialists we have, just I guess it's still fun to have a giggle at their expense!

The Wonderful World Of The Worried Well

For many doctors, including Dr Da Vinci, the line between patients and friends is very blurred. People in her neighbourhood i.e her neighbours attend their local hospital therefore become her patients, sometimes patients become friends and all of her friends ask for her medical advice before going to see their doctors, so most of her friends are patients.

Dr Da Vinci has diagnosed her housemate with diabetic nephropathy when she saw his urine, after he forgot to flush the toilet one day. She also diagnosed him with sleep apnoea when she crept into his room whilst he was asleep to steal a razor to shave her legs.

Many members of Dr Da Vinci's family prefer to have their cosmetic surgical treatments done by her as well.

However, 99.9% of the people who ask Dr Da Vinci for ad hoc medical advice have nothing wrong with them. They are the worried well.

For example; take her beloved friend and valued mentor the Tech Guy (TG). TG is a tech entrepreneur approaching his 40's he has run several highly successful Tech enterprises and is continually brain-storming new ideas. His take on life, skills set, cultural awareness, openness and intellect make him a pleasure to be around.

However, he suffers from back pain. There are no red or yellow flags, he is in his forties and has spent a large part of his life in front of computers. Any doctor could tell him after examining him that it is highly likely this is mechanical back pain. Any doctor could tell him that most back pain is not due to any serious disease.

Mechanical back pain is pain originating from muscles, ligaments and small facet joints when they are strained. This can follow injury, poor posture or inactivity.Sometimes aches and pains can last for a long time, but that doesn’t mean it’s serious. It does usually settle eventually – even though it is frustrating that no one can predict exactly when.

Most people can get going quite quickly even when they still have some pain. Your back is designed for movement: it needs movement – a lot of movement. The sooner you get moving and doing your ordinary activities as normally as possible, the sooner you will feel better.The people who cope best with back pain are those who stay active and get on with life despite the pain.

Every doctor knows this. But because TG is in the top tax bracket it is lucrative to offer him unnecessary tests, for diagnoses that can be almost completely ruled out by a thorough history and clinical examination.

You see the actual cost of an ECG(Heart Trace) is about £1, but many private clinics charge over £100 for this test. So it makes doing tests profitable.

Therefore, because my friend TG was able to pay for his X-ray, CT and MRI, he got them. The doctor knew they were going to be normal, but he got them anyway, because it makes the practice money to do these tests.If you have pots of money and you demand a scan somebody somewhere in the world will do it for you. They really should weigh up the risks and the benefits on your behalf before embarking on loads of tests, but money talks.

Big Business has never succeeded in making a profit from the medical care of poor, sickly folk. If you are looking for profitability in health care you need to contrive to make the wealthy worried well even more worried and in the process milk as much money as you can out of them.

Mr TG's kitchen is lined with an array of various snake oil's to promote 'physical and mental well-being' you can find everything from the extract of Antartican polar bears liver to the exlir derived from the bill of a platypus, all promising 'increased concentration', 'improved circulation' or 'enhanced lymphatic drainage'.

Dr Da Vinci thinks that making her company a social enterprise: applying market-based strategies to achieve a social purpose, is an ideal model for providing healthcare solutions as it ensures that any profits gained are funnelled back into healthcare that benefits those i.e the elderly,the poor, the dying, that need it, the most as well as creating initiatives to improve the quality of medical education in the country.

So Mr TG dear, the doctors prescription is keep your back moving, 2 weeks of ibuprofen, perhaps some massage therapy, less desk work and NO more radiation!

Major Trauma Care In England 'not good enough'

According to last weeks article in Headway which you can read it here

I've worked in trauma/ITU both in the UK , in Singapore and in Japan now, all developed countries and one of the comments particularly interests me.

care should be led by consultants experienced in major trauma, but major trauma is most likely to occur at night-time or at weekends when consultants are not present in emergency departments

The main reason why there are so many trainees not experienced in major trauma in the UK is because there frankly isn't that much of it about. I see more trauma in a week working in Lagos/J-Burg that most trainees see a decade. But yet the training systems seem so against letting UK doctors take a year/rotation out and seem all too intensely focused on the bureaucratic, form-filling, box-ticking operation that medical training in the UK has become.

I think there maybe many advantages to actually encouraging trainees especially in departments such as A+E, T+O and infectious disease to take a gap year or do a 4-month rotation in another country.

In my opinion, spending a few months exposed to, living and working immersed in another culture is worth more than 100 of those communication workshops they put us through. In addition to this, these countries are usually developing/3rd world countries who could benefit immensely from the expertise of a doctor from a more developed country.

The options for taking time out are currently fraught with bureaucracy. I don't really understand why since this is something that could improve the technical skill and level of experience for UK doctors especially in Trauma.

Knowledge Foundation Interview: Transcript

Tell us about your childhood?

I grew up for the most part in a little town called Lowestoft with my foster parents. So I actually have four wonderful parents.
I lived with my Caucasian parents, my biological sister, my two Indian brothers, my two Caucasian brothers and our poodle Benjamin (named after Benjamin Britten one of Lowestoft’s most famous exports). There were a few other temporary foster siblings’ in the house over the years as well.
Lowestoft is in my mind one of England’s finest seaside towns, my earliest memories are of chimneys, sea air, punch and judy shows and our amazing beach.
I had a wonderful childhood and I’m grateful to my four parents for that.

Who is your biggest inspiration?

Unfair question!! *smile* I don’t think I could just choose one person because so many people inspire me in such different ways.

My parents- I use that term to refer to the entire multiracial quartet, inspire me. I have an uncle who I also refer to as my father, Mr Dele Adesina, he reminds me of the value of hardwork, integrity and determination, he is one of the foremost lawyers in Nigeria and one of my most valued mentors.

I have a research interest in stem cells, so Professor Yamanaka from Japan is my medical research role model. When he and his team discovered how to re-programme normally functional cells back into stem cells he changed the face of stem cell research forever. He is an innovator and a visionary.

I am also very inspired by the arts. Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami are a few people I rate extremely highly.
In politics, Ingrid Betancourt, Aung San Suu Kyi , Condelleza Rice, Hilary Clinton and Angela Merkel continue to challenge my thoughts, opinions and aspirations as they raise the bar for women in general.

But what characteristics bring all these people together? I suppose I’m inspired by dedication, persistence, strength of character and intelligence. And these are traits that all of these amazing individual’s possess.


What does Flying Doctors Nigeria do?

The Flying Doctors Nigeria has already been quoted as the ‘single most influential innovation in the Nigerian healthcare system this decade’. It is the first social enterprise in the whole of West Africa to provide cost-effective, rapid, effective critical care solutions via air ambulance to the medical emergencies across the country.

With our helicopter and four doctors we aim to save 1000 lives this year alone.
1000 children, fathers, best-friends, uncles, cousins, grandparents and sisters.
I’m just thankful for the privilege of being involved. But I can’t thank those that have supported me enough. From my board of directors, to the BBC, to Virgin Unite, to the UK schools that have put on fundraisers for us, to the doctors/medical students and professors that have helped us design protocols volunteering their time and energy.

Thank you all!


How did your interest in being a doctor begin?

Mainly because my younger sister suffered a lot with sickle cell anaemia as a child and I was around hospitals and doctors a lot.

Through school I was a science geek and in many ways still am.

As a teenager, I never dated or went out to parties. I loved the textbooks! I read so much in school that I actually became popular for my geekiness. I studied so much that I ran out of textbooks to read.

I live with my best friend now and it’s perfectly normal for him to come in from work and find me practicing my tiny sutures with a magnifying glass and a bloody pigs foot.

What do you like to do to relax?

I’m a big formula 1 fan, I love going to watch the races if I can. If I don’t I never miss the live race on TV.

I like spa therapies: massages, facials, pilates, I think this are important for overall well-being as I take a holistic view to health in general.

I like music; Jazz and soul in particular. I suppose it’s part of the reason why I love Tokyo and Prague so much.............because of the Jazz clubs. They tell me the best Jazz scene is in New York though. I’ve never stepped foot on American soil, believe it or not, but I’m looking forward to exploring the New York jazz scene at some point.

I’m a massive foodie and an extremely bad example for my patients in terms of my diet. I love cheeses, Italian, Tapa’s, Brazilian BBQ’s and Japanese food especially tempura.

I only recently realised the enormous value of having a good work life-balance. I have also realised the value of having a good set of friends around you (Helen, Odera, Kana, Wole , Kemi, Sharmin, Petra ,Thank you!), to tell you when work is taking over and remind you too relax.


Do you think it is important to be ambitious?

Ambition is the desire to be rich, successful or powerful. It’s a word that is subject to various interpretations.

I think personal happiness and fulfilment are important. True success is about a
passion to create a better world, live a life that you can look back on and be truly proud of.

Ambition may be an extremely valuable tool in achieving this.

How does the health emergency system in Nigeria compare with the UK?

I couldn’t agree more with Oscar Wilde when he says,

It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.

I refer to the death of my 12 year old sister due to the absence of critical care facilities in Nigeria.

It was a horrible way to find out that the nearest air ambulance service was in South Africa, over eight hours away. That the mortality for head injuries in states outside Lagos and Abuja was 100% because there are hardly any neurosurgeons working outside those areas. And that the first time an air ambulance in Nigeria was proposed was in 1960 by the British, then again in the 1980’s, but no one had taken this idea forward.

My sister was one of the thousands of sisters, brothers, mothers and grand-parents that died ever day because they couldn’t get to the hospital quick enough.

As I researched further, I realised that I could apply many of the skills I learned in the UK to the Nigerian healthcare system.

Our business model is already being talked about as a potential solution for providing critical care solutions in countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Compared to the UK? We’ve got a lot of catching up to do. Flying Doctors is just the beginning of a massive overhaul of our emergency care service in Nigeria.

Nigeria is in the news for many negative reasons what are the common misconceptions and indeed what do you love about Nigeria?

My first trip back to Nigeria since I was a child was last year. It was my first time back since my sister died and I had as much of a culture shock as any other visitor would.

My initial impression was that the entire country operated in a moral vacuum, where anything goes. My first impulse was to run back home to my comfortable NHS job, with all its familiarity and calm. I think that feeling is natural, we have to force ourselves out of our comfort zones to really challenge ourselves.

It was only after I got over this initial hurdle that I was able to see what Nigeria was really about. I’ve lived in all over England and in Japan and I’ve travelled Asia, Europe and other parts of Africa. If there is one thing I’ve learn it’s how much we have to gain from learning about other cultures, each culture having its own unique set of weaknesses and it’s own astounding strength’s.

Nigeria is a breath-takingly beautiful country with a wealth of natural resources. People are extremely open and go out of their way to help. The adult literacy rate as estimated by UNICEF is nearly 80%. Nigeria is spewing with highly educated, bright young graduates from both the sciences and the arts.

Nigeria is also a country with incredibly rich culture particularly with regard to the arts. Its inhabitants are extremely diverse; the plethora of different backgrounds and traditions is paraded proudly in cosmopolitan centres such as Lagos State.

Nigeria’s problems centre around poor leadership, but having met several state governor ‘s and heard their plans for the healthcare systems in their states, I think we’ll begin to see some real positive change over the next few months to years.


What is your current career, where are you working?

I am a doctor trained at the University of York, I did my post-graduate training in the West Midlands. I have a specialist interest in Pre-hospital and Trauma care, but I also hold membership with the American Academy of Aesthetic Medicine.

I was awarded the prestigious MEXT government scholarship this year and am working in Tokyo doing stem cell research, where my team and I are making unprecedented breakthroughs in the field of regenerative medicine.

I have an office in Nigeria with several members of staff and travel there regularly for meetings and negotiation regarding my Flying Doctors service. I manage the Flying Doctors Service currently and consult for various government agencies and private companies on both aesthetic medicine and emergency medicine.



Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

Hopefully married. I love to travel, I’d like to adopt a few kids, but most of all in five years time I like to be able to look back, by that time a fully-fledged diagnostic savant and know I’d been instrumental in changing the face of healthcare in Nigeria for good.

Do you get back home often?

I try, I really do.....although I suspect my mum would beg to differ.

The Knowledge Fountain Magazine

On the subject of Black Entrepeneurship, I've just been asked by to an interview for the largest and fastest growing Black Business Magazine in the UK.

Going to trot along there and will post the transcript when I'm done.

Say tuned for the next part of my BBC radio interview with Lesley Dolphin in the next few weeks also will be putting the podcast and the transcript on this blog also.

I used to DJ for the hospital radio in London before I started medical school. Still getting used to being on the other side!

http://www.knowledgefountain.co.uk/

The Rise And Rise Of Black British Entrepeneurs

The black business community forms a vital part of London's economy. Today there are more than 10,000 black-owned private sector businesses in London. Black businesses no longer simply specialise in a few industries, serving niche markets, but cover many mainstream market sectors. Their combined annual turnover exceeds £4.5 billion, and they provide over 70,000 jobs to London's economy.

However, there are unique challenges facing black businesses such getting access to finance, both private and public, finding suitable and affordable business premises, and finding the right kind of business support.


This is why I was delighted to be contacted by Dr Victor Thompson editor of the Knowledge Fountain: http://www.knowledgefountain.co.uk/index.htm, the UK's largest and fastest growing black business magazine for an interview, due for publication next month.

The current issue is availible for free and back issues are availible for purchase on their website. Do take the time out to have a look an the amazing heights that ethnic owned businesses are reaching in the UK .