Health & Happiness: Excerpt 1 w/Dr. Fakolade

This is the first of four excerpts from a longer interview with family medicine physician Adeola Fakolade, MD. In this short episode, Adeola traces her path from Nigeria to the U.S.

The full interview with Adeola is episode 62, and the other excerpts are episodes 65, 66 and 67.

Hope you enjoy listening to this accomplished professional who's good-humored, personable and a delightful teller of her stories.

This is Kate Jones. Thank you for listening to Everyday Creation, available on YouTube and in podcast directories including Apple, Audible, iHeart and Spotify.

Transcript

Kate:
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Hello, and welcome to Everyday Creation, a show

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about living our purpose,

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lifting our vibes, and expressing our creativity

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for the highest good.

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This is Kate Jones with the first of

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four excerpts from a longer interview

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with family medicine physician

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Adeola

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Fakoladi, 

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MD.

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In this short episode,

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Adeola traces her path from Nigeria

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to the U.S.

Adeola:
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My journey to Ashtabula

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has been Nigeria through Pittsburgh, Cleveland and 

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Ashtabula. So it wasn't straight to Ashtabula.

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But while I was in medical school in

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Nigeria,

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I

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knew that I wanted

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to come to the U.S. for training because

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the United States healthcare system is one

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of the

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more advanced healthcare

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systems in the world. Now, granted it's

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not perfect, but

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it's pretty good. And the training

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opportunities here are probably one of the best,

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if not the best in the world. There's

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a lot of research going on, et cetera and

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all of that. So

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when I was going through medical school and

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graduating, I already knew that I wanted to

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do that because I wanted to just be

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able to be the best doctor that I

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could be. So I knew that I wanted

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to come for my specialty training in the

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United States.

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And so I graduated from medical school in

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2011.

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And

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so in Nigeria, when you graduate, you have

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to go through like

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a one-year

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mandatory service to the government. So it was

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during that time that I decided to sort

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of start taking the steps to move from

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Nigeria to here,

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and those steps entailed taking the board exam.

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So the same board exams that medical students

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would take here in the United States, I

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had to take them. And so it was

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like United States medical license and examinations.

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There's a total of three exams, there's a

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step 1, there's step 2 clinical

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knowledge, and there's step 2 clinical skills, and

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then there's a 3rd step, step 3, but

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you don't really need that to get into,

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residency here. So during that year I just

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kind of sat and studied and took basically

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all the three exams that I needed to

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come here. It took me about, like, a

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year and a half of

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studying. Essentially my life then was

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go to work, come home, study,

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then

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wake up, go to work, and just rinse

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and repeat all over and over again. But

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it paid off thankfully because I'm here now.

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And so I did that and then eventually

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I had to come here to do, like,

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a clinical rotation. I had to come for

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interviews

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and thankfully I matched. So I matched into

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a family medicine residency program in Pittsburgh.

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It was the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

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in McKeesport.

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It's an absolutely, absolutely wonderful program. It is

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very international medical graduate friendly number 1, but

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it also

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 serves like an underserved

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population in the U.S. There's a lot of

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need where the clinic is and the hospital

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where the residency is based. And so you

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get to serve a population that really needs

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that help.

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And in my program as well,

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there were different tracks. So if you wanted

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to get more

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training in, like, a specific track, we had,

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like, the HIV

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track, we had the global health track, we

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had obesity.

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I think now we have obesity medicine after

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I graduated,

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and then there was also a wound care

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track. So I also got into the global

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health track and so part of that was

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also traveling abroad

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to go do some medical rotations. So

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I went to Ghana, I went to Honduras,

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so I was able to start, like, a

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project as well in Ghana that I kept

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going for about two years.

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So I had a lot of wonderful, wonderful

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experiences

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in residency.

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And so I think it was

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towards the end of my second year... So

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the family medicine residency training in the United

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States is three years. And so it was

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towards the end of my second year that

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I started sort of getting a little

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dissatisfied, if you would,

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with just the status quo. You know, it

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it almost felt like

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I was

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seeing the patients over and over again for,

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like, the same things. Like, okay, you're here,

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your blood pressure is,

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you know, is high, digestive

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medications, et cetera.

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And it just felt like I could be

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doing more,

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to maybe potentially even prevent the patient from

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showing up in my office in the first

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place. Why are they showing up in my

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office with a problem? You know, maybe just

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helping them, like, live better,

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or live healthier, so to speak,

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and take more of, like, a preventive focus

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than more, like, treatment based. And so

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I did some research and then

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I found preventive medicine. Like general preventive

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medicine and public health. And so I started

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applying for fellowships in that, and I

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did match. I matched at Case

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Western Reserve here in Cleveland and so that's

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the Cleveland part of my journey.

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And so I did my fellowship for two

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years. Part of that you have to get

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a master's in public health and then

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do different rotations

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in public health essentially. So we do

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healthcare

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management, we do healthcare policy, we do

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a core public health, like, with the board

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of health. There are also multiple elective

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rotations that you can do.

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I did a rotation actually in D.C. with

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the United States Preventive Medicine Task Force, so

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that's the body that makes screening

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recommendations for the United States population. 

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You know maybe your doctor has told you

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you need a colonoscopy.

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They are the ones that sort of set

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those guidelines, so to speak. And they do

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that. It's very research based,

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very evidence based from data from the U.S.,

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data from Europe, all over the place. So

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I did that as well. And then in

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my last year of the fellowship, which is

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2019 to 2020, we had this thing that

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happened to the world, the pandemic.

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So

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if there ever was a time to be

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doing a public health fellowship, that was the

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time to be doing it. It was very

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busy.

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It was a lot of hard work, but

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I am so grateful that I got the

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opportunity to train during that time.

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And I got a lot of on-the-

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job training, like just bread and butter public

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health. And it was really, really fulfilling work.

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It was really, really rewarding work just for

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me personally. I did a lot of work

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with the nursing homes because the nursing homes

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were hit pretty hard,

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during the pandemic

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and that's also a vulnerable population. People that

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are in nursing homes,

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they are at higher risk where there's a

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pandemic

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or there's an outbreak et cetera and all of

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that. So once I graduated from my fellowship,

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then I completed like my waiver

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at Ashtabula.

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It's just an hour,

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if that, from Cleveland

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but it's also pretty underserved as well. It's

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considered rural,

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and there is a big need out there

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especially for primary care. So I had to

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do that for three years, and then I

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just kind of stayed on because, again, 

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I enjoy that work. I want to be working

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with an underserved population.

Kate:
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This is Kate again. If you want to

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hear more from Adeola, you'll find the other

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episodes listed in the show's description.

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Thank you for listening to Everyday Creation,

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and please share as you wish.