By Enyeribe Ejiogu
QUOTE: I went to a special science school for brilliant chaps, but many of them never went to the university. It reminded me of how lucky I was that I had a father who was able to get me through. But it also brought home to me a lot of the things that our people face. A lot of people have dropped out of school, not because they were not brilliant or interested in going to school, but because the funds were not available.
Associate Professor Christian Onyebuchi Ifediora is a Nigerian medical practitioner and specialist in Family Medicine. After graduating from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and completing the national youth service, he went overseas for Master’s degree and other specialty training, in Britain and Australia. He is also an alumnus of Harvard University and currently an associate professor at Griffith University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
During his youth service year in Oyo State, he emerged the second best corpsmember. Ifediora is the founder of the Onyebuchi Chris Ifediora (OCI) Foundation, an international non-profit organization that offers full scholarships (covering four to six years) to enable qualified brilliant students to become doctors, engineers, accountants and educators according to the duration of their courses.
Through the OCI Foundation, he has been funding breast and cervical cancer awareness through NYSC corpsmembers across the country. The awareness programme has been incorporated into the secondary school curriculum in Anambra State by state law. Meanwhile, the National Assembly is on the verge of passing a Bill to make the law applicable in all secondary schools across the country. He is an indigene of Nsugbe, Anambra State.
After graduating from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, completing housemanship and national youth service, did you practice in Nigeria before going for specialty studies?
I practiced very briefly in Nigeria. My practice was basically during the national youth service year. I made up my mind to leave Nigeria when I was still in medical school. I was either in the fourth or fifth year. I got involved in medical students politics, which gave me opportunity to move around Nigeria and Africa at the time, and by moving around like that I got to realize that my dreams would only be realized outside the shores of Nigeria, though I always had it in mind that I would come back to the country. Even my choice of place for the housemanship was informed by my decision to leave the country. That was why I chose the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, Idi Araba for the housemanship, because I felt it was close to the airport. I got my visa to travel during my youth service year. I completed the youth service with distinction in a rural health facility, General Hospital, Kishi, Irepo Local Government Area, Oyo State. I left the country barely two weeks after my service year.
What informed your decision to choose your area of specialisation and where did you do the specialty training?
Leaving Nigeria as early as I did, I was open to any specialty that would keep my long term dream alive. The special attractions were Obstetrics and Gynaecology, General Surgery with Orthopaedic Surgery and Family Medicine. After arriving in the United Kingdom (UK), I did not stay long. I did the Master’s degree programme and decided to move over to Australia and went straight to Obstetrics and Gynaecology. I should have stayed there because the hospital offered me a position but I had to apply for Family Medicine, which suited a lot of what I intended to do and want in my life. I preferred the flexibility and the professionalism. Here in Australia, Family Medicine just allows you to do a whole lot of things in different areas of medicine, combined. It offered me everything in one full package. So, it was an easy decision to make. The hospital was disappointed when I told them that I was leaving to finish my training in Family Medicine.
As a family physician, what do you find most exciting about your specialty?
The specialty, in my view, is the most balanced part of medicine. It allows you to come across virtually everything in medicine. You are supposed to have an idea of everything and manage cases of patients, and you are very close to the patient. You are among the first line of doctors to be met by the patient. You have a lot of say and sway in how patients live their daily lives, who gets immediate treatment and gets saved. You can also delve into other specialties if you want to while still practicing as a family physician. But most importantly, it gives you a lot of freedom to do other things you want to do. I have always been somebody that wants freedom, to make money where I want to make money and freedom to delve into these, which include things like going into the academic space, research, humanitarian services, having the time to write and do non-medical stuff. Overall, family medicine is the only specialty that allows me to live my life the way I want while still practicing full medicine. I doubt if any other specialty would have given me that much freedom – maybe or maybe not. It gives me the best fit that I want.
At what point in the course of your career did you relocate to Australia?
My decision to leave for Australia was taken within three months of arrival in the UK. At the time UK had some rules that were not student-friendly. There were some fairly discouraging hurdles which led me to look elsewhere. I was not attracted to America and Canada. I knew little about Australia at the time, but as luck would have it, I found out more within two week of arriving. At the time, I knew no one before arriving. I only stayed in UK long enough to finish my Master’s degree dissertation, submitted it and left. I didn’t even wait for the graduation before leaving the UK. It was early on and within two years of arriving in the UK.
How did you cope in managing the health of your patients during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Like many other countries, Australia was in lockdown. Before the lockdown, we attended to patients. My clinic took appropriate measures to safeguard the patients and the entire medical team. When things got worse and everybody was in lockdown, but as a doctor I still moved around to attend to patients. After the lockdown, tele-health services and telephone consultations which served as backup became quite popular in Australia. I was involved in all of these; I was involved in the early days of physical interactions. At the time I was never really involved in the high risk, positive cases. It was just the low risk, non-positive cases. Tele-health and video consultations became the only way to attend to patients.
I was never really bothered about COVID-19; rather I was bothered about the rest of humanity. My family and I were in decent health and I didn’t feel threatened at all. But I was mindful of the fact that one never knew how the body would react if one did catch it. Even at the peak of the lockdown, I was allowed to move around, to attend to patients, because of my position.
When did you decide to set up OCI Foundation?
Back in medical school, I always knew that I would do something for humanity at some point, but I was not quite sure what shape or form it would take. But as I progressed in my career, I knew I would run a foundation at some point. I only waited for the right time. I waited to make sure that my career was in full swing, and I had finished my fellowship training. I had a family running, both nuclear and extended family.
I have always been a believer that charity begins at home. The foundation actually came into being in 2016. The focus has always been on education, health and public social welfare. The tripod captures why I set up the foundation.
What particularly prompted your decision to establish the foundation?
As a young doctor, I saw firsthand the dangers we face from poor healthcare. I saw people die during my medical school days and also during my housemanship at LUTH when I was directly involved in treating patients. I saw a woman die of cervical cancer in her 40s. As a young doctor I cried my eyes out and lamented bitterly. During the youth service, a colleague of mine came to me because the sister who was 28 had breast cancer. I saw people get treated for cases that were clearly avoidable. Due to ignorance, they did not know that those things were there and they did not know the risk factors. By the time they got picked up it was already too late. I saw people who could not pay their bills, I saw lives lost needlessly. I felt strongly that something had to be done. Remember I said earlier that I wanted to do something for humanity but did not know what form or shape it would take. So these things prompted my decision to make health one of the key pillars of the foundation. The education aspect was because as a student my father was not particularly rich. He did the best he could. The demands were too many, because we lost our mother early and he had take care five children. It was heavy on him and I never had as much as I needed. What that meant was that there was constant threat to my education. I faced that threat firsthand when I got into school. Thanks to my father, I went to the Special Science School, Ihe, Awgu, Enugu State; it was a school for brilliant chaps. It was a collection of brilliant children, but many of them never went to the university. It reminded me of how lucky I was that I had a father who was able to get me through. But it also brought home to me a lot of the things that our people face. A lot of people have dropped out of school, not because they were not brilliant or interested in going to school, but because the funds were not available. That warranted the need to have education as one of the pillars. We know that we can’t save everyone, but the little we can do, we do it diligently. My experiences in Nigeria in the schools and the healthcare system drive us to do whatever we can to minimize the risks we face. The public social welfare aspect focuses on people who can’t go to school but they still need to be engaged in something to sustain themselves. It may be to start a trading activity, open a shop, etc.
The motto of the Foundation says, “We rise, by lifting others.” With that in mind, to what extent has OCI Foundation achieved its major goals in terms of impact?
It has gone global. Before 2016, the expression, “We rise, by lifting others” did not exist anywhere. I have challenged people that if you find anywhere it was used before 2016, I will give the person $1000. The point I am making is that I created that phrase. I take credit for it. My wife finalized it, to make it the way it is now. The reason was that when I was setting up the foundation I said if you want to rise, be ready to serve. You cannot get to the peak of your career by stepping on other people. You do not have to suppress people to get to the peak of your career. I wanted a motto that would encapsulate that ideology into reality and constantly remind me and everybody that the purpose of lifting up people is to lift yourself. The major reward is seeing someone who benefited from you doing well. That motto is not pretense – basically we rise by lifting others.
I was invited to Harvard University basically because of OCI Foundation and what we were doing. I became an Associate Professor, without even applying for it, just because of the work we are doing, to impact humanity. We have received many awards and recognitions. We have won awards in Australia, Nigeria, Africa and other places because of the work we are doing through the foundation. We are not running a business, I am inspiring people.
We take in five scholarship recipients every year. We renew it every year as long as your CGPA does not drop below 3.00. And those in the medical school, they must not fail the MBBS examinations in the applicable years. As at the end of last year, we have had about 11 or 12 that have graduated through the scheme. We have about 20 in the process in different years, from prelim to the sixth year in medicine and surgery, five years for engineering and four years for other courses. It has been an interesting journey. We have had an accountant graduate. A priest graduated from a seminary. So we have a couple of engineers and educational professionals. We have three or four doctors on the scheme. The scholarship programme has been running since 2017, this is the seventh year. Then there is Literary Award for Medical Students (LAMS), which is exclusive to medical students across the country – it is not limited to Anambra indigenes. We try to inspire them to develop literary and research skills. These are two major tools that will help them succeed in their career as doctors. It has been a great journey and we hope to expand the number of recipients.
In what other ways, beyond scholarships, is the Foundation making impact?
As I indicated earlier, the OCI Foundation focuses on three major things: education, health and public/social welfare. The scholarship programme falls under education. The second leg of the tripod is about health and that is where the Arm of Our Youths (ArOY) Campaign comes in. It is a large national scheme we started as a project in our zone (Anambra East, Anambra West and Anyamene LGAs) in 2017. In 2019, we made it a state-wide project. That campaign is now part of the curriculum in all the 264 public schools in Anambra State.
The way it is structured is that we try to teach them about breast and cervical cancers as part of the curriculum of the civic education course. The teachers are trained on this and they incorporate the knowledge into the school exams and quizzes. This started during the tenure of former Governor Willie Obiano. It is one of a kind globally, because we have worked with the National Assembly to pass it into law, to make the awareness part of the educational curriculum under civic education and make it compulsory to be taught in all senior secondary schools in Nigeria. We are waiting for the logistics to be finalized before we launch it as a national programme.
Beyond that, the Arm of Our Youths Campaign has another component which is run under the aegis of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Scheme. It is done during the regular orientation activities in the 37 camps across the country. It is a project that empowers them on a regular, sustainable basis. About six orientation sessions are done every year, and we reach out to thousands of Nigerian youths and provide financial incentives and social media engagement to create awareness about breast and cervical cancer. In this regard, we created the OCI CerviBreast app, which is a free mobile phone application that contains life-saving information and demonstrations on preventive tips for breast and cervical cancers.
As a distinguished alumnus of Unizik, are you considering establishing an academic prize in your name, to encourage academic excellence and honest competition?
This is an interesting question. At the moment, such a prize does not exist, though we have LAMS (Literary Award for Medical Students). We have three sets of LAMS now. The first set is for the Southeast medical schools. It has been running for the last five years and Unizik has won it four times. There is also the LAMS National which is open to every medical school in Nigeria and it has been running for the last three years. Unizik and other Southeastern medical schools are also eligible to feature in the national competition. The LAMS international was recently introduced.
However, your question has triggered a thought in my mind. As a student in the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Medical College, I made a distinction in Pathology. I may have to establish a prize in Pathology. I will have to reach out to the Management of the University, to see how we can establish the prize in Pathology for the MBBS. The issue is that doctors should not just treat patients only. They should contribute more to society and the only way they can do that is to do research, write and publish papers. That is part of the reason for creating the LAMS Prize, to encourage medical students to learn how to sharpen their academic writing and research skills.
Does the Foundation keep track of the career of the beneficiaries of the scholarship/academic prize of the foundation after graduation and monitor their impact on society in their various fields?
We keep track of the beneficiaries of our scholarship and academic prizes. We have more than 30 WhatsApp groups we use to track everyone of the Cyfed scholars as well as our team volunteers across the country and those in the NYSC programme all over the country. Once a Cyfed scholar, you are always a Cyfed scholar, distinguished. It goes beyond the annual scholarships that we provide. We provide trainings in leadership. Our intention is to make their interactions with us to be a life-long engagement.
Now that you are living in far away Australia, do you ever get to eat Nigerian foodstuff at all, like other Nigerians in various parts of the United States and Britain?
This is an interesting question. I eat Nigerian food a lot. Virtually what I eat is Nigerian food. I can never eat Oyibo food – I tried, I just can’t. That is why I had to marry a Nigerian lady from Anambra State. We do have access to Nigerian foodstuff. Yes, Australia is far but it is not that far. There is a huge Nigerian community here with Nigerian shops selling all kinds of Nigerian foodstuff. So, in terms of food I don’t miss Nigeria much, because we do have a variety of Nigerian foods here.
What do you miss most about home, Igboland particularly and Nigeria in general?
I have always felt Nigeria in all my sojourns in the United Kingdom, USA and Australia. What I miss about Nigeria is the whole nation of Nigeria. Nigeria is Nigeria, you cannot duplicate Nigeria elsewhere. Yes, you can have your people around and the culture but you cannot export from the country the feeling that you have when you are there in Nigeria. Consider the harmattan, you cannot find it in this part of the world. It is a season that I grew up knowing. Despite eating Nigerian food in Australia, having that atmosphere of being in Nigeria is not what you can find elsewhere. Nigeria is Nigeria.