News — Healthcare

People who draw on their own experiences to make the world a better place for others are invaluable and Dr. Oluwatomilayo (Tito) Daodu is a poster girl for such people. She had a rough childhood and as the first Black female pediatric surgeon practicing in Canada at the Alberta’s Children’s Hospital Foundation, she wants to make surgical care accessible to all.

Daodu is an award-winning researcher, volunteer, and the first Black pediatric surgeon working to “break down barriers to patients in need of surgical care.”

She believes her job is the best in the world as she does not only get to save lives but save the lifetimes of children she encounters.

As part of Black History Month, the American Pediatric Surgical Association (APSA) gave a nod to the remarkable work Daodu is doing in her field on Twitter.

According to Avenue Calgary, Daodu was born in Nigeria. After being deported from Canada, she permanently moved to the country when she was eight. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she grew up in a rough neighborhood in the inner city of Winnipeg.

Determined to be more than she sees around her, Daodu chose to make the local drop-in center for kids, Wes Broadway Youth Outreach, her second home. There she was mentored by volunteers, and to date, she credits them for changing her life.

It was then that she took a stance to do everything she could to help the less privileged in society because when they get help, they, in turn, might grow up to reciprocate that help and the entire cycle is broken for a better society.

To her, the world would be a better place when pediatric surgeons are accessible to all peoples everywhere. “When we help the worst off or those with the least access, we do a service to the entire system,” she said.

She received her medical training at the University of Manitoba and did her residency and fellowship at the University of Calgary. Her research was on the impact of socioeconomic status on surgical outcomes and access to care.

For her outstanding work to society, she was nominated as part of Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 in October 2019. The award scheme recognizes high-achieving Calgarians who are doing their bid to effect change in society and creating a lasting impact on the future of others.

As a medical student, Daodu was part of a team that developed a project centered on adolescent gender and reproductive health in Tanzania.

There were no summer ‘holidays’ for her either because she spent her summers in her native country Nigeria researching early childhood pneumonia and later launched ‘a surgical needs assessment’ for Nigeria as well.

Currently, Daodu is pursuing a master’s in public health at the Harvard University’s T.H Chan School of Public health. At Harvard, Daodu is part of a team working to modify the safe surgery checklist for high-income countries around the world, per Avenue Calgary.

Her passion is to promote justice and equity in medicine through Global Health. She is participating in ongoing research on Global and Public Health that focuses on improving surgical outcomes and improving equal access to surgical care for Canadians and the world at large.

“One of the things that excite me about the future is that I have a story that not that many people have,” she said. “I am probably uniquely situated from what I’ve gone through in life to be able to speak not just from an academic point of view, but from real life.”

Ghana on Wednesday became the first country in the world to receive Covid-19 vaccines from Covax, an international co-operative program whose mission is to ensure that low and middle-income countries are not left behind in the distribution of coronavirus vaccines. The shipment, consisting of 600,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccines, arrived Wednesday morning at the Kotoka International Airport in Ghana’s capital, Accra.

The vaccines, which are part of the first wave of vaccine deliveries headed to several low and middle-income countries, were produced by the Serum Institute of India, in the Indian city of Pune, a joint statement issued by UNICEF Ghana and WHO Ghana said.

“Today marks the historic moment for which we have been planning and working so hard,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “With the first shipment of doses, we can make good on the promise of the COVAX Facility to ensure people from less wealthy countries are not left behind in the race for life-saving vaccines.”

“The next phase in the fight against this disease can begin -– the ramping up of the largest immunization campaign in history,” said Fore. “Each step on this journey brings us further along the path to recovery for the billions of children and families affected around the world.”
Ghana, with a population of 30 million, has so far recorded 81,245 cases of the coronavirus and 584 deaths. The West African country is among 92 countries that have signed onto the Covax program. Covax is led by the United Nation’s World Health Organization; Gavi, a vaccine group; and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI. Covax is funded by donations from governments, foundations and multilateral institutions. Its aim, according to a report by CNN, “is to buy coronavirus vaccines in bulk and send them to poorer nations that can’t compete with wealthy countries in securing contracts with the major drug companies.”
In February, Covax said it had secured almost 2.3 billion doses for distribution this year. Out of that figure, 1.8 billion is expected to be made available to 92 of the world’s poorest countries, the majority of which will be free. Countries that have signed to the program have to submit a detailed plan for handling and distributing the shot. Charles Adu Boahen, Ghana’s deputy finance minister, said Accra was first because the WHO had given the nod to its rollout plan. That rollout plan was led by former WHO deputy director-general Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah.
“[He] was in charge of vaccines for three years at the global health body and . . . was instrumental in putting together the rollout plan in a timely manner, allowing Ghana to be approved ahead of other African countries,” Boahen said, according to the Financial Times.
Ghana’s vaccination campaign will start March 2 and will be conducted in phases, beginning with health workers, adults of 60 years and over, people with underlying health conditions, frontline executive, legislature, judiciary, and their related staff, Ghana’s acting Minister of Information Kojo Oppong Nkrumah said in a statement.

“The government of Ghana remains resolute at ensuring the welfare of all Ghanaians and is making frantic efforts to acquire adequate vaccines to cover the entire population through bilateral and multi-lateral agencies,” he said.

People who draw on their own experiences to make the world a better place for others are invaluable and Dr. Oluwatomilayo (Tito) Daodu is a poster girl for such people. She had a rough childhood and as the first Black female pediatric surgeon practicing in Canada at the Alberta’s Children’s Hospital Foundation, she wants to make surgical care accessible to all.

Daodu is an award-winning researcher, volunteer, and the first Black pediatric surgeon working to “break down barriers to patients in need of surgical care.”

She believes her job is the best in the world as she does not only get to save lives but save the lifetimes of children she encounters.

As part of Black History Month, the American Pediatric Surgical Association (APSA) gave a nod to the remarkable work Daodu is doing in her field on Twitter.

According to Avenue Calgary, Daodu was born in Nigeria. After being deported from Canada, she permanently moved to the country when she was eight. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she grew up in a rough neighborhood in the inner city of Winnipeg.

Determined to be more than she sees around her, Daodu chose to make the local drop-in center for kids, Wes Broadway Youth Outreach, her second home. There she was mentored by volunteers, and to date, she credits them for changing her life.

It was then that she took a stance to do everything she could to help the less privileged in society because when they get help, they, in turn, might grow up to reciprocate that help and the entire cycle is broken for a better society.

To her, the world would be a better place when pediatric surgeons are accessible to all peoples everywhere. “When we help the worst off or those with the least access, we do a service to the entire system,” she said.

She received her medical training at the University of Manitoba and did her residency and fellowship at the University of Calgary. Her research was on the impact of socioeconomic status on surgical outcomes and access to care.

For her outstanding work to society, she was nominated as part of Avenue Magazine’s Top 40 Under 40 in October 2019. The award scheme recognizes high-achieving Calgarians who are doing their bid to effect change in society and creating a lasting impact on the future of others.

As a medical student, Daodu was part of a team that developed a project centered on adolescent gender and reproductive health in Tanzania.

There were no summer ‘holidays’ for her either because she spent her summers in her native country Nigeria researching early childhood pneumonia and later launched ‘a surgical needs assessment’ for Nigeria as well.

Currently, Daodu is pursuing a master’s in public health at the Harvard University’s T.H Chan School of Public health. At Harvard, Daodu is part of a team working to modify the safe surgery checklist for high-income countries around the world, per Avenue Calgary.

Her passion is to promote justice and equity in medicine through Global Health. She is participating in ongoing research on Global and Public Health that focuses on improving surgical outcomes and improving equal access to surgical care for Canadians and the world at large.

“One of the things that excite me about the future is that I have a story that not that many people have,” she said. “I am probably uniquely situated from what I’ve gone through in life to be able to speak not just from an academic point of view, but from real life.”

A 17-year-old high school senior hopes her science experiment will be instrumental in saving lives in developing countries. Dasia Taylor has developed a color-changing suture that will make it easy to detect infections.

The sutures will change color if the PH level of the patient alters, making the detection of infections faster and easier and that was the most important aspect of her research. When the PH level alters, it indicates the presence of an infection which leads to its early detection.

Ultimately, it will make the early detection of infections in developing countries a lot easier, so they are quickly treated with antibiotics to cut down the costs of expensive treatments.

Taylor did not start by wanting to experiment with sutures in a lab growing up. She nursed the dream of being a surgeon, but a suture gift one Christmas sparked her curiosity in STEM, and she went for it.

“Even if you don’t know what you’re doing, just go with it,” Taylor told reporters. “I stand by the idea that I stumbled into STEM by way of intellectual curiosity. Be curious, because that will afford you so many opportunities.”

The Iowa City West High School senior is now a Regeneron Science Talent Scholar for her research work on the color-changing sutures.

She took up the task outside normal school hours with the help of her science teachers. After a year of intensive research, she entered her work into the 80th annual Regeneron Science Talent Search.

Taylor was named a part of the top 300 scholars out of the 1,760 students who made submissions. Her research primarily focused on the suitable material for the stitches and learning how to work in a sterile environment to test bacteria as well as how to wear gloves properly.

Her high school was kind enough to give her bacteria from its labs for the research. “I wanted to conduct research. I didn’t think I was going to get this far,” Dasia recalled. “This was really a chance for me to branch out and use my creativity.

“I love my project, and to find out that it was working and to get the results I did, I was over the moon.”

The first time the public saw her experiment was in March 2020 at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium. Most Black people stay away from STEM and for a Black girl walking into the competition with her afro, Taylor stood out from the crowd.

That notwithstanding, she had worked on her studies for a year and had done a lot of trial and errors so she walked into that competition full of confidence and she won with her head held high.

“Being in the room knowing stereotypes were flying and to be able to prove them wrong and win first place was phenomenal. My mom and I talk about it all the time. I often find myself in white-dominated spaces. That’s definitely one for the books,” Taylor told the Gazette. 

The young researcher could be named one of the 40 finalists to receive $25,000 as a Regeneron Science Talent Scholar and participate in the final competition in March 2021 for the grand prize of $250,000.

Still unsure of what college she will attend after high school, Taylor wants to major in political science and wants to be a lawyer. In the last four years, she has been dedicated to equity and restorative justice in her community.

“I’m a firm believer (that) you don’t have to be confined to a box and just stay in one subject area. You can bounce around. If you’re interested in it, go for it,” Taylor said.