Japa: My experience as a psychiatrist in US
I studied medicine at the University of Ibadan. I was really concerned about the deplorable condition of medical health in Nigeria then, that is what prompted me to want to JAPA. I came with my wife, she was pregnant. It was rough. It was rough at the beginning because, my younger brother’s friend had promised […]
pastor
I studied medicine at the University of Ibadan. I was really concerned about the deplorable condition of medical health in Nigeria then, that is what prompted me to want to JAPA. I came with my wife, she was pregnant.
It was rough. It was rough at the beginning because, my younger brother’s friend had promised to host us. But when we got to the airport here, he did not respond to our calls. So we’re just frantic and desperate. I had to call somebody else in New York.
He was gracious enough to keep us. It was rough. It was rough. We moved from New York to Atlanta. Then in 1992, I came to Howard University Hospital in DC, where I was accepted to do my residency program in psychiatry.
I applaud our country for going to medical school almost free. When I got accepted to Howard in 1992, my first day, I remember an African American doctor, and he had a lot of school loan to pay. And when I told him that I had no school loan, he was shocked. He said, “you mean your government trained you and allowed you to leave?, allowed you to Japa?” You know, I found that many of my colleagues, doctors, American doctors, were still paying school loan.
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I feel indebted to our country for being gracious enough to have made me go to school. So I’m a psychiatrist and I still practice. I’m also a pastor. I got born again in the United States. God arrested me.
It was a total arrest. And, I pastor a Redeemed Church in Riverdale, Maryland, the Redeemed Christian Church of God, River of Life Parish. So I am able to, practice, psychiatry and also pastor. We feed about 400 widows and orphans monthly. I’ve adopted, some people.
I’ve trained people in college. If, things are different, we’ll really want to do more.
I remember, years ago, I went to Port Harcourt to feed widows. They were all waiting. My wife had gone to prepare the ground.
I was going there to preach to them, and kidnappers came to kidnap me. A country where you cannot call the police if something happens, you see. My number one issue is not light. It’s my number one issue is security. So it was by god’s grace.
It was by God’s grace. I would have loved to go more, but that’s that became, that really has limited me. Not just for me, there are many of my colleagues who want to go and do more. We want to go and volunteer in hospitals.
Our class of 86, most of us are abroad, we’re doing so well. Top notch doctors. And we’re just waiting for security to improve because we owe Nigeria such a great country, A country that gave to us. We want to give back.