There are very notable Nigerians who have contributed meaningfully towards the development of the health sector. Most of them are operating from the diaspora. We present some of the distinguished ladies and gentlemen who are promoting Nigeria brand in the health sector.
Assistant Director General of World Health Organization
Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu is currently the Assistant Director General for the Division of Health Emergency Intelligence and Surveillance Systems in the Emergencies Programme of the World Health Organization (WHO), leading the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence.
He is a graduate of the College of Medicine, University of Nigeria and holds a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from the Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany. In 2003, he was awarded a Fellowship for the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) and subsequently completed his Public Health specialization at United Kingdom’s Faculty for Public Health.
Ihekweazu trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist and has over 25 years’ experience working in senior public health and leadership positions in several National Public Health Institutes, including NCDC, South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency, and Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI). He was the first Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and led the agency between 2016 and 2021. He led the transformation of the agency to one of the leading national public health agencies in the world.
PHILLIP OZUAH
CEO, Montefiore Medicine, US
Phillip Ozuah is currently the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Montefiore Medicine, the umbrella organization for Montefiore Health System (MHS), and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the United States.
He graduated from the University of Ibadan, Oyo in 1985 and earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership and administration from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
Ozuah expanded access for underserved communities, recruited and cultivated outstanding talent, advanced programs of excellence, fostered innovations in medical education, and improved financial and operational performance by integrating care across an evolving Montefiore system that sees more than six million patient interactions a year.
He has been recognized for excellence in teaching and patient care, including as an inductee into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and a two-time recipient of the Academic Pediatric Association’s prestigious Helfer Award for Innovation in Medical Education.
TOCHI IROKU-MALIZE
President, American Academy of Family Physicians
Tochi Iroku-Malize, a family physician in Long Island, New York, is the president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. The AAFP represents 133,500 physicians and medical students nationwide. As AAFP president, Iroku-Malize advocates on behalf of family physicians and patients to inspire positive change in the U.S. healthcare system.
Iroku-Malize serves as founding chair and professor of family medicine for the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in Hempstead, New York, and senior vice president and chair of the family medicine service line for Northwell Health.
In this role, she oversees four family medicine residency programs, three fellowships, with more than 100 residents, 380 medical students and 500 family physicians spread across 23 hospitals.
She was previously the director of the family medicine residency program at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, New York. She was active in the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors, which presented the Silver Program Director Recognition Award to her in 2015. She is currently a member of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and is active in the Association of Departments of Family Medicine. She currently serves on the boards of Neighborcare Health and HealthierHere.
ADEBOLA GIWA
Pediatric Endocrinologist with Johns Hopkins Children’s Center
Adebola Giwa is a fellowship-trained pediatric endocrinologist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, a pediatric acute care children’s teaching hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
His clinical research involves multi-center clinical trials utilizing islet cell transplants to re-establish insulin production and other beta cell function in people with established Type 1 diabetes. His bench research is focused on identifying unconventional lymphocytes and studying their role in the pathogenesis of Type 1 diabetes to possibly target them for future immunotherapies.
CHINYERE ANYAOGU
Deputy Chief Medical Officer, New York Health + Hospitals/ Jacobi/North Central Bronx
Dr. Chinyere Anyaogu is an obstetrician-gynecologist who currently holds the office of the Deputy Chief Medical Officer at New York Health Hospitals/ Jacobi/ North Central Bronx in Bronx, New York.
She received her medical degree from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and has been in practice for more than 20 years.
Anyaogu received dual sub-specialty training in Internal Medicine and OBGYN at the Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. She completed her master’s degree in Public Health at Columbia University and has a special interest in maternal mortality.
NNEKA MOBISSON-ETUK
Co-founder & CEO of mDoc Johannesburg, South Africa
Nneka Mobisson-Etuk is co-founder and CEO of mDoc, a social enterprise that integrates proven methodologies in quality improvement and behavioral science with web and mobile-based technology to optimize the end-to-end care experience for people living with chronic health needs such as diabetes, hypertension, and cancer.
She earned a bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, her MPH from Emory University, and her MD/MBA from Yale University and completed her Pediatrics residency at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She is a 2017 Cartier Awards Finalist and a 2014 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader.
At McKinsey & Company, she worked primarily in the area of strategy development for healthcare companies. At The World Bank, she worked on investing in private health care and developing the health care strategy for Africa.
Prior to mDoc, she was executive director for Africa at Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), a leading global health organization focused on healthcare quality improvement. Through her leadership, IHI dramatically expanded its efforts at building sustainable change in healthcare delivery systems in priority African countries. The professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology has up to 25 years at Montefiore Medical Center, a hospital, providing care services in geriatrics, neurology, cardiology, immunology, oncology, pharmacy, radiology, surgery, and urology among others in the State of New York. Nneka was previously Vice President of Community Health and Population Health Management at the Connecticut Hospital Association, where she provided leadership to hospitals in population health management.
NWANDO ANYAOKU
Chief Equity Officer, Swedish Health Services
Anyaoku joined Swedish in 2016 as the associate medical director of pediatrics and was promoted to the executive medical director of pediatrics the following year. Last year she became executive medical director of Medicaid strategy for population health.
Before joining Swedish, Anyaoku served as the system medical director of pediatric medicine at CHI Health in Omaha, Nebraska. She holds bachelor’s degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins University, and an MBA from the University of Washington.
As the first chief health equity officer of the Swedish Health Services, Nwando Anyaoku oversees programs that promote culturally competent care, measure equity in care delivery and outcomes, and improve access for patients from all backgrounds. She is specialized in the woman’s reproductive tract, pregnancy, and childbirth. She is the current president of the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA).
PROF ADETUNJI TORIOLA
Professor of Surgery, Division of Public Health Sciences, Washington University School of Medicine
Adetunji Toriola is a professor of surgery in the Division of Public Health Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is also the second physician-researcher named as part of the School of Medicine’s new Physician-Scientist Investigators Initiative, which supports pioneering physician-scientists whose work already has transformed their fields. As a public health scientist, Toriola is investigating ways to reduce the risk of premenopausal breast cancer and also colorectal cancer. Toriola is a molecular cancer epidemiologist who joined the faculty in 2012. In addition to his physician training, he also received further training in public health with an emphasis in cancer epidemiology and prevention. Adetunji Toriola has just been named a William H. Danforth Washington University Physician Scholar.
