Graduate Member spotlight: Dr Ben Ojakapeli
In May, InterSurgeon met with Dr Ben Ojakapeli. He is a recent graduate from Moi University, Kenya, waiting for his medical internship training to start. Meanwhile, he was using InterSurgeon to get connected with other members to form global collaborations.
Neurosurgery was a childhood dream for him after his friend told him a story about Dr Ben Carson from the United States. Whilst at medical school, Ben obtained an opportunity to do a medical elective in the United States, but unfortunately this was 2021; “Covid 19 was still around and the school wasn’t able to sponsor us to go to the United States. So, I missed that chance. However, I applied to a mission hospital here in Kenya. There’s a hospital called Tenwek Mission Hospital. I applied to the neurosurgery department for the medical elective period of six weeks. During that time, I interacted with attending consultants from the United States. I was able to learn from the experience and also interact with some students from? that facility.”
Once he graduated, Ben used InterSurgeon to contact neurosurgeons in other countries: “I became active after I finished medical school. That’s when I started interacting with the website of InterSurgeon and I wanted to link up with other people to get opportunities.” So far, he has contacted neurosurgeons in Ethiopia and Australia; “One consultant is from Ethiopia, he’s a neurosurgeon. I reached out to him and asked him to be my mentor and he agreed. And then we started a collaboration on a research project. Currently we are doing a research proposal. It’s ongoing.”
We asked what benefit global collaboration could bring to Kenya’s patients and medical students; “In Kenya we have very few neurosurgeons so the fact that visiting consultants from other countries come here and they’re able to spend maybe two, three weeks or even a month to attend to patients and do some complex procedures, was a great benefit because they were able to attend to the patients. And, being students, we are able to learn how things are being done. And that’s why I got my motivation. It grew even more of wanting to become a neurosurgeon.” He said, “I think InterSurgeon is a really good platform that could help you as a student or as a graduate to see what opportunities are available because actually I imagine it’s very difficult to know where to look.”
Finally, he said of InterSurgeon; “What I can say is that InterSurgeon, it’s a great platform where people from all over the world, especially surgeons, can interact and share opportunities between them and be able to grow and this will be of great impact to the patients all over.”
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