Daniel Ojuka, MBBS FACS

I am an upcoming expert in surgical education and breast cancer. My research has investigated the apprenticeship model that is commonly used in the teaching of surgery within our environment. As a researcher and educator, I am interested in the issues of exposure, supervision, mentorship and whether certain levels of health care facility could be useful in teaching skills given the case volume and the mix. My PhD thesis was on the conceptualization of professionalism among the surgical community at the University of Nairobi, teaching it, challenges that face the practitioners and how to nurture it amongst these key stakeholders. I have been instrumental in the development of the basic surgical skills curriculum that is used by our department to train the surgical skills both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. I have been involved in the College, now Faculty of Health committee on mentorship, developing guidelines for the same. I was given a surgical education scholarship by the American College of Surgeon in 2015 and had the opportunity to visit Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham Women Hospital and Emory medical School. I am involved with development of guidelines for screening for breast cancer, curriculum for mentoring primary health care workers to improve the screening of breast cancer and initiation of multidisciplinary discussions for management of variety of oncologic entities within Kenyatta National Hospital and University of Nairobi. In surgical society I have been the treasurer(2013-2015), Secretary(2015-2019) Vice-President(2019-2021), President(2021-2023) and now I am the pioneer ACS-Kenyan chapter Governor at large.