New Face at Vascular Cures: Meet Chiamaka Uzoma
Chiamaka Uzoma is a medical student who volunteers with Vascular Cures. She is passionate about vascular health equity and shares her story about witnessing health disparities in Nigeria and finding her calling in vascular surgery.
It was like any ordinary morning in Lagos, Nigeria, when I sat in the back seat of my mother’s crowded car as we headed to my primary school early in the morning. I was lucky, or maybe just bossy enough, to sit by the rolled-down window and absorb the smells, sounds, and view of the busy city, albeit somewhat interrupted by my brother’s heavy, sleepy head. Amid the frustrated drivers honking the cars that illuminated the atmosphere and the multitudes chatter of people braving the streets to sell us gala, chin-chin, and plantain chips, my eyes became fixed on an older man in a wheelchair. He made eye contact with me and was being wheeled around by an underweight dark teenage boy. I immediately asked myself why this boy was not in school but was in between the two lanes on the highway pushing this man in the wheelchair. The man in the wheelchair said nothing but it was clear that he needed help. His neck was the size of a bull’s neck, and the boy had a cardboard sign asking for donations for the man to undergo surgery outside Nigeria. This scenario is not unique but one that often occurs in Nigeria.
While growing up in Nigeria, I witnessed numerous individuals in desperate need of surgery, and TV presenters raising awareness of people who need donations to obtain surgery outside the country. This cry for help became my calling and I aspired to answer this call, which led me to pursue a career as a surgeon. I continued this path through my education and attended Penn State University, where I had the opportunity to volunteer on a medical brigade to Panama and at Mount Nittany Medical Center. After college, my desire to pursue surgery became strong and led me to pursue medicine at Ross University School of Medicine. From my first day of medical school, I was eager to start my clinical rotations.
During my surgery rotation, I had the opportunity to observe and work with a diverse set of services including trauma, SICU, urology, and orthopedics, but I truly found my passion while rotating in vascular surgery. I enjoyed learning about the inner workings and management of various vascular diseases that I saw during the vascular clinic and in the operating room. What I love most about the specialty is the immediate and significant improvement in the patient’s signs and symptoms post-procedure. I saw this with my first patient who had a clot removed in an artery in the right leg. The surgical meticulousness needed for 8-hour long procedures like aorta bilateral femoral bypass, the combination of open and endovascular procedures, and the diverse nature of anatomy involved drew me into the world of vascular surgery. Though my rotations have concluded, I continue to stay involved in vascular surgery. I started volunteering for Vascular Cures and my experience working on educational videos for patients has been amazing thus far. I am also working on forthcoming research projects involving management of lower extremity deep vein thrombosis and new methods of diagnosing peripheral artery disease.
