Adapting And Advancing: A Doctor’s Journey Through Grief Across Continents | Dr. Oluwole Babatunde, MD

What if your hardest seasons became the fuel for your life’s most meaningful work? We sit down with Dr. Oluwole Babatunde, a physician who turned early loss, cross-continental training, and relentless study into a compassionate career in psychiatry. From medical school and public health in Nigeria to a PhD in epidemiology and psychiatry residency in the United States, his story shows how purpose and discipline can shape resilience that lasts.

We explore how global research exposure sharpened his analytics, how humility and grit powered a move that meant starting over, and why psychiatry emerged as the place where his lived experience meets his clinical skill. Dr. Babatunde opens up about cases where depression and anxiety intertwine with life stressors like job loss, divorce, and homelessness, and how listening for the trigger matters as much as the treatment plan. He shares what faith looks like in practice without preaching: values that guide every interaction, quiet habits that sustain hope, and the simple, sincere goal of sending patients out ready to be the best version of themselves.

You’ll also get a tour of his book, Adapt and Advance, and its MAPLAMP framework. We break down how to find meaning in hardship, convert big dreams into daily actions, plan with clarity, build networks that protect your growth, and anchor your work in a personal mission. If you’ve ever wondered how to hold steady through change, or how faith and evidence can coexist in mental health care, this conversation offers both a philosophy and a toolkit you can use today.

If this episode sparks something for you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs encouragement, and leave a review to help others find these stories. Your support helps us bring more human, practical conversations to your feed every week.

To hear more about Dr. Babatunde, please visit his website.

Purchase his book Adapt and Advance on amazon. 

Transcript

Welcome And Mission Of The Show

Ashley Love 0:00

Hello and welcome to Shadow Me Next, a podcast where I take you into the behind the scenes of the medical world for to provide you with a deeper understanding of the human side of medicine for. I'm Ashley, a physician assistant, medical editor, clinical preceptor, and the creator of Shadow Me Next Forum. It is my pleasure to introduce you to incredible members of the Healthcare Field Forum and uncover their unique stories about the choice and challenge and what drives them in their career stuff. What's access to want and stories you need for whether you're a free house, the healthcare fields for the colour. And my psychiatrist may be kind of the place where his lived experience for and medical skills finally met for. We explore resiliences, education, and what it really means to adapt without losing yourself for and advanced without leaving others behind. Please keep in mind that the content of this podcast is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only for and should not be considered as professional medical advice stuff. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosting guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. This is Shadow Me Next with Dr. Aluole Baba Tounde. Dr. Babatunde, thank you so much for joining us today on Shadow Me Next. I cannot wait to chat with you about your very, very interesting career in medicine.

Dr. Oluwole Babatunde 2:23

Thank you so much, Ashley. I'm so excited to be here today, and I'm glad to share some of my story, hoping it inspires people.

Ashley Love 2:31

Absolutely, absolutely. And we will, we will, because your story itself is inspiring. And like most stories that are such, it does start off with a little bit of tragedy. So really stepping back into where you were first introduced to medicine, your mother and your father are both in healthcare. Your mother's a nurse and your father was a pharmacist. And unfortunately, you lost them quite young. Would you say they are who inspired you to enter medicine originally?

Dr. Oluwole Babatunde 2:56

Definitely. At least for the few years, mom left when I was seven, dad when I was 13. But at least for my dad, I think I watched him a little more. I saw I always saw him care for people, and I just wanted uh to care for people on a deeper level, on a higher level. Um, fortunately, after he died, then I was 13 years old. Shortly after that, uh, one of his friends, who is a medical doctor, you know, just took interest in me and was sharing how he wanted to be a doctor at Kudimbi, and he had a dream that one of his kids would be saying, Wow, that's that works.

Ashley Love 3:44

That is fantastic.

Speaker 3:46

I'll be one of the kids that would at least carry on that legacy of caring for people. And I'm glad I was able to get into medicine.

Training In Nigeria And First Practice

Ashley Love 3:54

Absolutely. Um, and you you were trained in medicine in Nigeria originally, is where you got your MD and your master's of public health, um, which of course is just the start of your journey of all of these incredible titles that you also have. I would love to chat about that transition if we can, from practicing medicine in Nigeria to practicing medicine in the United States. And of course, once you got to the US, you also got your PhD in epidemiology as well. And now you're practicing psychiatrist. Tell us a little bit about that transition. Was that smooth sailing?

Choosing Research And Global Perspective

Dr. Oluwole Babatunde 4:29

Of course, every good thing comes with challenges. So some of it was smooth, but of course, it's always every good thing always has challenges built into it. And that's the way I look at life. And that's one of the reasons I wrote the book, Adapt in Advance, letting people realize that at every stage of life, uh, there will always be challenges, there will be things that will be difficult, and we've just got to adapt, meaning we adjust to it without losing ourselves or losing our minds. And then to advance means despite the problems that come with it, we are able to still continue to go forward and make progress in everything that we lay our hands upon. So the transition was one because uh so after I practiced, I finished medicine in Nigeria, I did residency community medicine, and I practiced in the community for three years before I left. And during that practice, two things became very obvious to me. One, uh I loved research, which I was already doing during my master's in public health and residency in Nigeria. So I had the privilege to present some of my papers in the US then uh as a visitor, and then to I remembered my very first international trip was Brazil, then Canada, then US. So then UK, those four trips uh kind of uh uh opened my eyes to see that whatever I was doing in terms of research with my Nigerian MD and Nigerian MPH, there was just a lot to still learn uh at that time. If I remember one of my posters I presented in Canada, I felt really like, oh, this doesn't look like every other person's poster. I'm like even little things like that. Uh it was like the quality wasn't just so good. And I just felt I needed to learn more in terms of the carrying out research itself, higher level of analysis that I can do in a place where resources are not going to be a big challenge to learning. So I felt either US, UK, Canada, whichever one works out, would be good for me. So that was number one reason I left. Number two reason was during my three-year practice after becoming an attending in Nigeria, I saw a lot of cases that were psychiatry related. And I started thinking in my heart, like looking at all my past story, I think psychiatry seems to be the best fit uh for me in terms of practicing medicine. Because I call it, I call psychiatry like the subspeciality that is closest to being a pastor, in court, because we get to hear people's problems a lot. You know, for someone to come down with depression almost always, there's always one last big trigger. Maybe it's a divorce, maybe it's unemployment, maybe it's you know, financial problems, whatever it is, homelessness, you know, we get to see this every single day. People having going through stressors, precipitating either depression, precipitating either anxiety for some people, precipitating even schizophrenia for some people, although they all have most of mostly they have biologic basis, but at the same time, they almost always intersect with one stressor going on in their lives. So I decided, okay, uh, I'll come to the US with my PhD, and after that, I'm going to do psychiatric residences so I could use my story the best. Not that I tell all patients my story, no, but at least I could relate with them on a deeper level and be able to empathize and be able to show compassion, even as I care for them every single day. So the transition was relatively okay. I got the admission with you know some scholarship here and there. Uh so it was, but it was of course tough. I came with my wife and took it. So we had to adjust to a new culture. We had to leave a big house in Nigeria for a very tiny place in the US that we could afford. And, you know, but you know, we kept moving on and moving on and moving on. And we are grateful that things eventually have worked out over the years. Yeah.

Ashley Love 8:32

Absolutely, absolutely. Dr. Babatunde, thank you so much for foreshadowing so much of the amazing things we're going to talk about too. We are absolutely going to talk about your book, Adapt in Advance. I think it is such a gift to people. And um, believe it or not, we're also gonna talk a little bit about faith in medicine as well, because that's something that is so important to you. And um, and I think that it is uh it's a conversation that people do shy away from, but it's one that is always underlying, right? There's always, it's always right there under the surface, like you mentioned. Um, let's step back just a second and talk about all of these titles that we've just mentioned, right? MD, MPH, which is the Masters of Public Health. Um, and then of course we need to throw epidemiology in there as well at some point. How did you make all of these different decisions? And and how where did you find all of these, where did you find yourself in all of these roles?

Moving To The US And Culture Shock

Why Psychiatry Became The Fit

Dr. Oluwole Babatunde 9:22

Yeah, so um that's a great question, Ashley. Um, in terms of my MD, like I already mentioned, you know, I even when I was a kid, I already made up my mind I was going to be a doctor, even before the loss of my parents. And then after the loss of my parents, when a friend of my dad was like, oh, he really wished one of his kids was one. So okay, I'll try my best to be that kid. That would be one. Um, so getting to medicine was rough and tough at like like everywhere in the world, you have to take exams and pass exams and all of that. So I had to do that. I remember one exam I had to do again for another year before I could get enough points to get me into medical school. But it was, you know, it was tough, but it was doable. So I got in, I was glad. Uh, but that was that experience also prepared me for medical school. And, you know, I made up my mind from day one, I'm going to graduate because not all everybody who gets into medical school graduates. But it was so bad in Nigeria then that like my school, I'm sure maybe not more than 50% of us that started actually finished. You know, it was just very rough. But I decided I was going to finish and I was going to finish well. Many challenges, difficult exams, but you know, we go through it. And um masters in public health came along. It was an opportunity we had to do it because in community medicine we do a lot of kind of research and we do a lot of things that are related to public health. So that was how masters in public health came on. Then the PhD I already gave you a little bit, was because I just realized I was presenting at conferences, and I realized there was a lot of things being said that I just didn't know in terms of analysis, and I just wanted to be good at whatever I was doing. And uh felt uh I wouldn't get the best if I stayed back in it to do my PhD in Nigeria. I just wanted to do it in a place where there's a lot of resources and where I can, you know, have access. Being here, it's just easy to learn it, have access to it much more easily compared to uh when I was in Nigeria. So that was what brought me to PhD epidemiology, uh, because it was closer to so it was closer to masters in public as that was the closest thing to it. Uh just continuing from where I stopped in Nigeria. Uh, so that was what uh epidemiology. Then after that, we have residency in psychiatry, which I already touched a little bit about. I really felt um that burden in my heart to do a specialty in the US where I could be very empathetic and I could really relate with what people are going through. I haven't lost my mom at seven, lost my dad at 13, uh, and been through a lot of financial hardship going through school and all of that. I it's I I I relate easily with people, and I I find it easy to empathize and be able to, you know, reach out to them on that level of it's going to be okay. Uh it's life can really be difficult for us at times. And um, so that brings us to the PhD, then the residency in the US in psychiatry. And I think, yeah, so that's our but in in all of it, I think the biggest for me is which I would say to everybody listening is no matter what level you are right now, depending on our purpose. So one thing I would say is we have different purposes and we have to understand what our purpose is. Does everybody really need to go to school this long? I don't believe so. I believe for some people, you know, for example, you discover your purpose very early, and you know my purpose is to be a businessman, for example, you know, and you know how to get there, of course, go ahead. I'm off there. But I I always encourage every young people to at least get as much formal education as they are able to. Um, not necessarily a PhD, even if bachelor's is just what you believe is unique for what you have. I I strongly believe it's important for us to get some. A chapter in my book was dedicated to formal education. But I also had a chapter right next to it where I talked about informal education, meaning there's a lot we can learn without even going to school at all. And we look, we don't need, you know, we just need to look all around us. We see a lot of very successful people with not so much of formal education. So it's formal education is not everything, but I believe a little bit of it, if only if only what it trains us is the discipline of beginning and finishing something. You know, I believe it's a discipline we need in our works today. And you know, the process of learning every day, waking up, going to classes, you know, it teaches you something that stays with you forever. Try hard to get at least a bachelor's minimum. That's my recommendation. It's not compulsory. We have a lot of successful people without it, but I would still recommend it at least for the discipline that you get from it. And then, you know, it helps to just see life in a different way, the people you meet along the journey and all of that.

Ashley Love 14:34

No, it's beautiful. And it exemplifies a really important equation in medicine, and that's purpose, which is what you've mentioned, plus discipline, which is also what you've mentioned, equals resiliency. And I think that is something in medicine that we have to have, especially with you and your journey. I mean, unfortunately, your resiliency started developing very, very, very young when you were still a child, basically. Um, but but without purpose, you know, we we can't, we we don't have that heart focus. And without discipline, well, we we haven't overcome challenges, you know, and you need both of those to really develop resiliency, to realize you are where you need to be, doing what you need to do. And I I love that. I think that is just that's so beautiful. Dr. Baba Tunde, before we get into a day in your life as a psychiatrist, um, would you have done anything differently?

Degrees, Purpose, And Discipline

Dr. Oluwole Babatunde 15:20

Honestly, I don't think so. Including even the loss of my parents, um, in as much as tragic as it was. Maybe time has passed and I've looked back uh again and again. I meditate a lot, I think through things. Uh I don't think I would have chosen anything different looking back at everything and where I am today. Of course, I'm not yet where I want to be. There's just still a whole lot of plans in front. I have 50-year plans at least from where I am, uh, that I plan, you know, one after the other. I have a five-year plan. I have, of course, I plan every week, I plan every month, I plan every year. And I have many other things I still want to do and the and how I want to impact, you know, with my story uh to people. But looking back, I don't think there's anything I will have chosen differently. Um, I the you know, I read books a lot, like I read one book every week beginning from year 2000. And but most of it is audio, so that makes it easier. My whole idea about reading, and I encourage people to do that, is I say at least one book every month to every young person growing up. A book that can encourage you, that can stimulate you, that can help you know that you know, no matter what you're going through, people have been through this before, not to minimize your pain. Uh so I reference that because I read a book and I've read a lot of stories of people from time to time, and these stories always encourage me to know that people have been through very difficult situations. Of course, every person is unique, every situation is unique. So I don't want to minimize anybody's pain or to just say anything is similar to each other. No, there's you are different and the dynamics of your life is different, but you can learn from other people. I read a lot, I learn from other people, but I also believe there's also the place for your own personal experience that you know reading might not be able to substitute completely for that. So learning is good from other people, but there are some things you are also meant to experience or go through as a person to help you uh going forward.

Ashley Love 17:33

The personal experience is something that we we speak so highly about, I think, because we are proud of our experiences. But like you mentioned, sometimes those personal experiences are traumatic or they're not desired, you know, like you mentioned, those experiences are what builds resiliency. So if you are in the heavy of one of those moments where you just don't know which way is up, you don't know which way to turn for, if you can take a step back and say, you know, perhaps this is one of those resiliency building moments. And if I can just continue to forge through, if I continue to put one foot in front of the other and build on this situation, let's use it for good. And um, adapt in advance is a book that we've talked about already. And this is really your gift and a great place to start for anybody who might find themselves in that situation. And I giggle, adapt in advance. It makes me think of your background in epidemiology. There's plenty of things that are adapting and advancing there as well. But tell us a little bit more about this book. Primarily, who is this book for?

Would Anything Change In Hindsight

Dr. Oluwole Babatunde 18:37

Okay. Yeah, that's very exciting to me, Ashley. Uh, so I wrote this book because I wanted to put my story out and let people know no matter what you are going through, um you can adapt. And what that means is you can adjust without losing your mind, without losing yourself. And then you can advance, meaning you can go forward despite the challenges that you are going through. Honestly, I would say this book is for everyone, everyone, because we all go through challenges, but most for young people, uh, people in college, uh, people in high school, just because it's a vital developmental moment of our life where we are trying to develop our philosophy of life and understand how best life should play out for us. So it's important for us. I would say the things I learned at those stages of my life were very, very helpful for me. And that's when I actually I was in college when I started reading one book every week. And I think that that would be the best decision of my life if I'm asked to say one thing that has been most helpful for me in my life is reading.

Ashley Love 20:40

What did it explain how I fill it for others to find it? And what does it teach me about resilience, empathy, or purpose? And then practice telling that story with reflection, not performance. Keep in mind that there's more interview prep such as mock interviews and personal statement review over on ShadowmeNext.com. There you'll find amazing resources to help you as you prepare to answer your own quality questions.

Reading Habit And Lifelong Learning

Adapt And Advance: Who It’s For

Dr. Oluwole Babatunde 21:04

Not necessarily school books, of course. I have to read school books to pass my exams, but learning about life generally. Just, you know, so much we can learn from people that have succeeded or people that have gone ahead. And so Adapt and Advance is a book for young people mainly, but generally for everybody. In it, I used seven uh section, seven main sections. I used the map lamp acronym, M meaning making. Uh, I pulled from Victor Franco's book on Man's Search for Meaning. It was one of the Holocaust survivors, and he said he gave three main ways to make meaning, which has stayed with me so much. I use it, I make meaning of any challenging situation I passed through in life very quickly because of that book. He said one is to look at the big picture or how you can help people despite the problem you're having. So you are not, you whatever you are going through does not stop you from still having a smile in the middle of it. It might be tough, uh, or still being able to help people in the middle of it. That means you are looking at the bigger picture. That this problem has not come to destroy me or grind me to a halt. Rather, it has come to build me up. So, which brings us to the second thing is your attitude towards the problem. So we need to have the right attitude towards whatever we are going through. I'm not saying it's going to be easy. It was never easy. I can smile about talking about my past now, but there were days I cried. There were days I locked myself up in the room. I'm like, cried. I'm like, God, why did this happen to me? How I wished that you know my parents were here, especially those times when you see other people, you know, doing very well, supportive parents, and you are just there, and you know, it's just so tough to even get tuition for school paid, and you just don't even know what the next day holds. So, but in the midst of everything, our attitude towards it matters a lot. And the third one is experiencing someone or something, which could be experiencing nature, it could be experiencing a loved one. For me, I experienced music every day because one hiding place for me the most since I lost my parents was music. Music was very helpful. I remember even then I'll pick a church hymn book and read. I remember the songs we sang at their phone era, it was very comforting to me at very difficult periods. And all of that was very, very helpful for experience. So that's money-making. Hey, it's action. Action is action, we don't have to say a lot about it. You've just got to put action behind your dreams. Dreams only come to pass when you back it up with action. You know, I have all those degrees, I have all this schooling, but it's been a lot of action, a lot of work. And now that I'm done schooling, I'm grateful. I'm also even still working very hard. Every single day I put in my best to what I'm doing. I always tell myself every morning, part of my confessions every morning to myself is I want to go to my bed at night empty. Empty meaning I want to pour out every good thing in me that I'm that is that is in me to be a blessing to people around me. My patients, my residents, my students, everybody, co-workers. I want to go to bed empty every night so that when I die in my old age, I want to go to my grave empty. Everything that is in me, I want to pour it out. So action is what leads to that, put action behind things. You just don't dream, put action behind it. Wake up every morning and do something. One thing every day towards your big dreams in life. P is planning, you know. I use the cops model, which is clarify, capture first. Thoughts come to your mind, you don't want to lose it. Capture it, are you sticking out till capture, clarify your thoughts, um, plan, then prioritize it, simplify it. You use that framework, you know, to keep planning every day. And then L is learning. I've talked about this. One book a week for me. I recommend one book a month for everybody listening. Really listen to books that helps you, that helps encourage you. Read biographies of people who you want your life to look like when you grow up. You know, I do that all the time. And then um, A is alliance formation, you know, relationship, good relationship with people, M is mission statement. So you've got to have a mission statement, whatever, no matter how little it is, if I just say it's just to be a blessing to people or to be a good father, good mother, or good spouse, whatever it is, your mission statement. Have something. I have mine that I say to myself every single day. And the last one is peace, prayer or prayer equivalent. You know, if you are a person of faith, prayer might be easy. If you're not a person of faith, I believe there are prayer mental equivalents that are also equivalent to what prayer is for everybody. So that's the structure I use in the book. And I every chapter I wrote, every chapter I shared my personal stories, and I share the stories of other successful people that you used to principle in that chapter. So it's a book I recommend strongly to everybody to read.

Ashley Love 26:03

It is such a wonderful book. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna quickly rattle off those things that you just elaborated on. Look at the big picture, have a good attitude, experience something, putting action behind your dreams. I love that. That is a great takeaway. Planning, learning, alliance. That means being in relationships, um, having a mission statement that goes back to our purpose, right? And then prayer. And that is just a perfect takeaway for us to wrap up with. And that is prayer and faith, um, whatever that might look like for you. Dr. Papatunde, what would you say to somebody who says that faith and medicine are not symbiotic, that they don't belong together?

MAPLAMP Framework Explained

Speaker 26:44

I I would say, you know, for me, I see that they belong together because one way or the other, everything I do, uh, you know, they come from the same source for me. And I strongly believe they mix together one way or the other. Um, faith, you know, even in, for example, in psychiatry, there's a lot of research, for example, that shows that people who are of faith tend to do better with certain disorders because their faith tends to help them, you know, be more resilient uh um during it. And even, for example, things like addiction, you know, uh, for example, AA that people go to, one of the reasons are called anonymous is successful, is because they believe in a higher power. They use higher power, of course, not necessarily a particular faith, whatever you believe in. At times we just want to hold on to something higher than us, and um, I believe that's something that helps. So I believe they mix together, and most of what I do, of course, I don't mention my faith that will work like that to patients. Um, you know, but I most of my values from my faith, I leave it out every day and in my day-to-day interactions with people. The biggest, for example, for the Christian faith is to the two big laws is to love God, love others. So I believe the world would be a good place if we all uh love others, at least, you know, the second one. Uh it's good if we do things out of love and out of a mission in that I want to be a blessing to other people. So I believe they mix together uh one way or the other because it could serve as the foundation. People want to talk to providers that are real, that are genuine, and that are able to empathize with them, not just doing it for the sake of the money. Of course, the money is a good part of it, but I want every patient that leaves me to remember me for something. I always leave them with one, for example. I always tell them, you know, um, to always be the best version of yourself whenever I'm discharging a patient. I always tell them, I want you to remind me for this one thing. So I want them to, I want to leave a good taste in their mouth. Not that I just treated them and gave them medications alone, but I want them to go and know that someone truly cares about them.

Dr. Oluwole Babatunde 29:03

That's beautiful. That's amazing. Dr. Baba Tounde, his book is Adapt and Advance, a faith-based step-by-step guide to turning trials into triumphs, it's available on Amazon. I'll link it in the show notes below. Thank you so much for taking the time today for describing your journey and uh for just being such an incredible human. Thank you. Thank you, actually. I'm deeply grateful. Thanks for having me.

Ashley Love 29:26

Thank you so very much for listening to this episode of Shadow Me Networks. If you liked this episode or if you think it could be useful for a friend, please subscribe and invite them to join us next Monday. As always, if you have any questions, let me know on Facebook or Instagram. Access you want or stories you need. You're always invited to Shadow Me Networks.