I left Kenya after high school to join the Virginia Military Institute where I graduated with a degree in Biology and Chemistry. I was then blessed with the opportunity to pursue graduate school in England where I earned a Master's degree in cardiac physiology as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. My thesis explored the role of neuropeptide Y in cardiac cholinergic control. I worked as a researcher on atherosclerosis at the University of Virginia's school of medicine before attending medical school at the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine. I chose to specialize in Family Medicine because I will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to treat a broad range of diseases that afflict patients throughout the course of their lives, anywhere in the world.Family Medicine offers me the opportunity for making long-standing relationships with patients and families during times of health and indisposition. I will have the privilege to be the patient's advocate, guardian of their stories and provider of disease prevention and curative means. I was introduced to the University of Arizona residency program by my wife who as a teenager was a patient at the Alvernon Clinic. She was so impressed with the care she received that when we were looking at residency programs, she suggested to me that we should have a look at the U of A program. I spent a month as a sub-intern on the inpatient service and loved it. The attending physicians were exceptional and the residents were kind and committed to my education. I feel like I will be able to accumulate skills that would enable me to serve my patients equally well whether I find myself as the only doctor in a remote part of sub-Saharan Africa or as a physician in a busy academic center. I will be able to deliver babies, take care of the youngest young and the oldest old, and perform minor surgeries in the office and hospital as the need arises; it is all I wanted from a residency program. After residency, I joined a group practice in Oro Valley, AZ and hope to participate in health care provision for underserved communities in this country as well as my native Kenya.I hope to give back to society that has given me so much; I hope to enable others to enjoy the same advantages that I have.
I belong to the Turkana tribe, a people who occupy a very primitive area in Northwestern Kenya, East Africa where poverty reigns supreme and academic opportunities are few. While I hail from ordinary circumstances, I have been blessed with truly extraordinary opportunities and experiences due to the generosity and kindness of people who saw potential in me. I am very glad to have received the same caliber of training that produced the caring, proficient physician like our Program Director at the time who was the one who provided such memorable and exceptional care for my wife when she was a resident physician.