War. Corrupt governments. Political oppression. Physicians are immune to none of these. To escape them, many come to the United States. ľֱ is profiling some of them, capturing their stories, from the challenges -- having it all and then losing it all, planning and executing a dangerous clandestine escape, gaining U.S. entry -- to the rewards (and new challenges) of finally becoming a doctor in the U.S.
The day Bennet Omalu, MD, MPH, was born, his father was nearly killed in an airstrike on a refugee camp in Biafra, Nigeria.
The same doctor who coached Omalu's mother through birth also treated his father, who survived to meet his son.
That was in September 1968, in the middle of the Biafran war, in which Igbo rebels from the southern territory tried to secede from Nigeria. After the war ended in Omalu's early childhood, the Igbos continued to be oppressed, leaving lasting impressions about persecution, feelings of inadequacy, and perseverance in the face of struggle.
"Those darkest times of your life, the most difficult challenges you have in your life, may be your best platform and opportunity to discover who you are, and reaffirm who you are," Omalu said during an interview at the University of California Davis, where he's a clinical professor of pathology. He's also the chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County.
Those lessons proved useful when he met resistance from the National Football League over his work on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which he discovered during an autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers player Mike Webster. Omalu's subsequent battle with the sports industry was given the Hollywood treatment in the film "Concussion," in which Omalu was played by actor Will Smith.
Omalu knew he always wanted to come to the U.S., and he ended up in Pittsburgh via a winding road of scholarship, which started with a World Health Organization sponsorship to study cancer epidemiology at the University of Seattle. He then went on to a pathology residency at Harlem Hospital -- part of Columbia University -- followed by a forensic pathology fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and then another fellowship in neuropathology there, as well as an MPH and an MBA.
"America has given me so much," Omalu said.
Now, he wants to give back. His latest book, Truth Doesn't Have a Side, steers parents away from signing their kids up for football: "Children should play healthy sports," he told ľֱ. "High-impact contact sports are unhealthy for our children."
Other stories in this series:
From Hopeless to Healer: Fleeing Syria, Heval Kelli Forged Path to Cardiology Fellowship